Stressor Warning: This text contains discussion of suicide and mental illness.
In Canada, every day, an average of 11 people take their own lives. This devastating reality is the culmination of a steadily growing rate of suicide, which is increasing disproportionally amongst young people.
From 2000 to 2019, year after year, taking one’s own life was consistently the second leading cause of death among young people, surpassed only by accidents. Within the same period, the suicide rate in Canada increased by a shocking 30% among people aged 15 to 24. Today, suicide accounts for one in five deaths of young people, according to Statistics Canada.
This atrocious trend is, ultimately, a devastating manifestation of a failing and systemically unjust society.
Canadian government studies on suicide risks and prevention have found that factors contributing to the risk of suicide include having poor mental health, poor physical health, a sense of isolation from one’s community, financial stress, and being without a home. How insulting for the government to come to these conclusions while simultaneously doing very little to actually address and mitigate these risk factors — not even guaranteeing basic services like comprehensive mental and physical healthcare or shelter! The current “universal” healthcare system not only excludes free mental health treatment, which is obviously necessary, but also doesn’t thoroughly cover prescription drugs, dental care, or vision care. These forms of care are certainly vital for one’s well-being and daily functioning. In terms of shelter, housing unaffordability is a problem for three quarters of Canadians, and worsening. All this parliamentary inaction and government deficiency takes place while the government acknowledges in published studies that not having access to such basic services increases the risk of taking one’s life!
Additional government studies recognize over 10 million Canadians as being moderately to extremely financially vulnerable. Canadians who are financially vulnerable report having below-average mental and physical well-being, as well as below-average connectedness with their community. The minority of Canadians who are considered financially resilient score above average in the same areas, according to Statistics Canada. It can be seen that within the current system, your economic conditions influence your social, cultural, and even physical and mental well-being, let alone your finances-related stress. When you are financially struggling, you’re less healthy and feel more isolated from your community, circumstances which alone are damaging and, again, have been identified to increase your risk of suicide.
On top of this, tuition-based, for-profit education adds an unnecessary financial burden and mental stress on students, exasperating the suicide risks already faced by many of us. It is primarily young people, the most vulnerable of our society to the suicide epidemic, that take on this additional stress-inducing massive expense — quite often after being pressured to get a post-secondary education as a purported way to survive the current dog-eat-dog reality that is free-market capitalism.
Any legitimate attempts, if any, by the capitalist Canadian state to eradicate financial vulnerability and decrease the related suicide rate are, clearly, painfully inadequate. In fact, eradicating these worsening systemic issues that contribute to the climbing rate of suicide — inaccessible mental health care, housing volatility, and mass financial instability — is impossible within the state’s current profit-driven economic model.
Fellow young people, workers, and students, especially those of us who are struggling, please know that you are not alone. Yes, the current capitalist-parliamentary system is neglecting us, grinding us down, and leaving us to fend for ourselves. Yet, with us exploited people uniting as a cohesive group, a better future is possible. To properly address the suicide epidemic, to save lives, to help people, we must destroy and reconstruct the current economic system, which creates and perpetuates the conditions that wear us down and push people to suicide. Today, we have an increasingly privatized and insufficient healthcare system, parasitical for-profit housing, and nauseatingly debt-inducing education. We need universal basic services: free and comprehensive healthcare, housing, and education, now!
Together with love, solidarity, and organization, we can dismantle the current system, and create a truly just, safe, and compassionate society!
Bronson is a student at Carleton University, a member of the Young Communist League of Canada, and a proud uncle. He has been touched by the plight of suicide through the deaths of his father, friends, and multiple community members.