The federal government is putting more than $20 million toward a new addiction and mental health treatment centre in Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation, Labrador, a project community leaders have pushed for over more than a decade.
The funding was announced Sept. 25 by Housing and Infrastructure Parliamentary Secretary Caroline Desrochers and Labrador MP Philip Earle, flowing through the Direct Delivery stream of the federal Build Communities Strong Fund, according to a government news release. The 14,890-square-foot facility will offer detoxification, counselling and wellness programming that blends traditional Innu healing practices, including land-based activities, with conventional clinical treatment for addiction and mental health, the release said. It will be built on the site of the former Labrador Christian Youth Camp, which Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation purchased in 2024.
“Building a strong Canada starts with investing in the modern and reliable infrastructure that creates healthy and resilient communities,” the government said in its announcement.
The commitment formalizes a pledge Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation Chief Eugene Hart first revealed to community members in a Facebook Live broadcast in July, when he called it “historic news” while cautioning that “we got a lot of work to do before this proceeds.” Hart has described the scale of the community’s addiction crisis in blunt terms, telling CBC News earlier this year, “I don’t know what to do anymore, sometimes, to be honest with you. Like, we have a crisis.” Sheshatshiu declared a suicide crisis in 2019, and the search for a dedicated treatment facility, separate from the community’s existing family-focused Charles J. Andrew Healing Centre, has stretched back more than 10 years, CBC has reported.
Sheshatshiu’s situation is far from unique. Many First Nations communities across Canada have no addiction treatment services of their own and must send members hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away for residential care, often cutting people off from the family and cultural supports that experts say are central to recovery. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action on health, numbers 18 through 24, specifically direct governments to close health-outcome gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada and to support treatment that communities design and control themselves. A facility built on Innu land that pairs Western clinical detox and counselling with traditional healing and land-based programming fits the self-determined model those calls to action describe, though Indigenous health advocates have long noted that funding announcements like this one can take years to become operating beds.
That gap is evident here too. Construction is not expected to wrap for roughly two and a half years from Hart’s initial announcement, meaning the centre likely will not open before 2029. Until then, Sheshatshiu residents seeking residential addiction treatment will keep relying on facilities outside the province, a reality Hart pointed to directly when he described the community’s ongoing crisis as one that “keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
For a community of roughly 1,400 people that has spent a decade asking Ottawa for this kind of facility, Thursday’s announcement marks a concrete step, backed by a dollar figure, a building size and a funding stream, rather than another verbal commitment. Whether it translates into treatment beds on the promised timeline is the question Sheshatshiu leadership says it will keep watching closely.
Via CBC News and Government of Canada.
