Calls to improve mental health care resources in remote First Nations in northwestern Ontario continue to be at the forefront of the inquest into the death of Moses Amik Beaver.

The 56-year-old Woodlands artist from Nibinamik, an Oji-Cree First Nation, died in Thunder Bay, Ont. in February 2017 after he was found unresponsive in his cell in the Thunder Bay District Jail.

It remains unclear exactly how Beaver died; the jury is expected to hear more on Beaver’s official cause of death in the coming weeks.

More than six years later, an inquest into his death – which is mandatory under the Ontario Coroner’s Act when a person dies in custody – has started putting together the pieces of how and why Beaver came to his death.

The jury consists of one white man, three white women and one Indigenous woman.

Beaver is one of 13 people who have died in the Thunder Bay District Jail since 2002. His inquest comes on the heels of an inquest completed in November into the deaths of Don Mamakwa of Kasabonika Lake and Roland McKay of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug.

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CBC News
April 24, 2023