Canadian Forces suicides on the rise in 2011

Canadian Forces suicides on the rise in 2011
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA

More Canadian soldiers committed suicide last year than at any time since the mid-1990s, according to figures released by the military on Monday.

There were a total of 20 suicides among Canadian Forces personnel in 2011 — 19 males and one female — up from a dozen in 2010.

“One suicide is too many and we have too many every year,” Gen. Walter Natynczyk, chief of the defence staff, said of the increase Monday at a Senate defence committee hearing.

The military said in a news release that while the number for 2011 is higher than in previous years, the variation can be the result of “random patterns or indicate the beginning of an upward trend.”

But Defence Minister Peter MacKay said there is “no question” that the effects of multiple deployments to Afghanistan since 2001 “have had a debilitating effect” on the mental health of Canadian troops.

The military does not release specific details about suicide deaths other than those that occur while a soldier is deployed overseas. There were two “non-hostile” deaths in Afghanistan last year, including that of Master Cpl. Francis Roy last June. Military officials ruled Roy’s death as a possible suicide. A month earlier, Bombadier Karl Manning was killed in a “non-hostile” incident, though it isn’t clear whether it was suicide.

There were also several military suicides last fall that around the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, although it is unknown if the particular date played any role in the soldiers’ decision to take their lives.
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