Others would say that these opinions fail to live up to Canada’s responsibility to its First Nations and their culture. “It’s too easy to default to eliminating a culture rather than supporting First Nation people,” says Hervieux.

As Kay sees it, only politicians like Chretien, once Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, who are out of the game, can express these controversial views. “In most communities that have no jobs, people pack up and relocate. But the Indian Act created a system that perversely discourages residents from leaving even the most appallingly impoverished reserves, without actually giving them any of the capitalist tools (such as the right to own private property) necessary to prosper. This paradox lies at the heart of the cruelty we have inflicted on aboriginal peoples. And it is why places such as Attawapiskat are doomed to exist in a hellish limbo.”

When Justin Trudeau became prime minister last year, he put the First Nation policy at the heart of his government vowing. “It is time for a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations peoples, one that understands that the constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations in Canada are not an inconvenience but rather a sacred obligation,” he said.

According to Kay, who worked on Common Ground, Trudeau’s memoir, the prime minister campaigned “on an agenda of being more conciliatory to First Nations, which generally is expected to mean more generous funding, and less accountability in the way federal cash transfers are spent. This is problematic because almost all First Nations communities get the majority of their funding from what are in effect government welfare programmes.”

What is that obligation and at what price? Some taxpayers feel their money is ill-spent, but it’s the aboriginal people who pay the price. Cathy Wright, who ventured north after graduation at a time when jobs were scarce and her classmates were moving to the US, has seen the changes but hasn’t lost hope.  She remembers the grateful residents and patients of the ten-bed cottage hospital who took her duck hunting and welcomed her into their community in the late 1970s. “I see a lot less violence but more despondency, which has contributed to the rash of suicides.” In the past, pow-wows, sweat lodges and story-telling were important parts of the community but today they seem less relevant to the young generation, not unique to the north. In the south, a myriad of programmes and resources exist to address those needs, which is not the case in the north.

Wright doesn’t recognise the stories of drunkenness (some areas are dry) that have come to characterise the most troubled reserves, but what she does know is that “suicide is contagious, and it has to do with attention. People, including teenagers want and need help and the only way they can get it is by doing something drastic, but I’m sure they don’t want to die. What they want is to find a way to talk to someone, which is very difficult in a community where there is no privacy and everyone knows everyone’s business.”

While Hervieux agrees that it may be difficult to feel safe talking about your problems in small communities, he sees the cause differently. “The notion that people knowing your business is an issue is a modern, liberal-individualist view and does not reflect how humans have interacted throughout most of their history. Instead, the problem is that there have been many generations of trauma and it is hard for any traumatised person to support those around them. So it is not the lack of privacy that is the issue but the effects of multigenerational trauma on the ability of many community members to effectively support those who are more vulnerable.”