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I’m not being political…

I read this article and felt the need to post it on my site.  No comment.  Just want to put it out there.  Oh, and by the way, Stephen Harper became our Prime Minister in 2006.  That’s all I have to say.

MONTREAL (AFP) - The number of suicides among Canadian soldiers reached their highest level in a decade last year, according to documents cited Friday on public radio.

The average within the army was 16 suicides per year between 1994 and 2005, but the number reached 20 in 2006 and then spiked to 36 suicides in 2007, according to documents obtained by a researcher through a Canadian freedom of information request.

“I fell out of my chair, I just couldn’t believe it,” Michel Sartori, a major in Canada’s armed forces who conducted the research and recently concluded a doctorate on the subject, told Radio-Canada.

“I had to re-read the document at least five, six times,” said Sartori, who reportedly combed through scores of military police reports.

The reports did not specify the location of the soldiers’ deaths, but according to Sartori the rise in numbers is linked to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.

Canada has committed a contingent of 2,500 troops to Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, where it is battling Taliban insurgents.

The Canadian suicide rate appears to mirror trends in the US military, whose suicide numbers have risen sharply in recent years and reached a 25-year high in 2006, according to the Pentagon.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Friday, April 18, 2008 in Chewing the Fat


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