Bill C-211 (Historical)

Federal Framework on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act

An Act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder

This enactment requires the Minister of Health to convene a conference with the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, provincial and territorial government representatives responsible for health and representatives of the medical community and patients’ groups for the purpose of developing a comprehensive federal framework to address the challenges of recognizing the symptoms and providing timely diagnosis and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Government Business No. 34—Proceedings on Bill C-62

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Madam Speaker, the member is a colleague I have always enjoyed working with. I remember one of the very first files I was asked to work on as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health back in 2017 was his private member's bill, Bill C-211, on post-traumatic stress disorder, so I know it means a great deal to him, and I appreciate his speech.

I voted with our colleague from the other side to completely abandon the idea of opening MAID to people solely affected by mental illness. I have been convinced, through the discussions I have had with psychiatrists from across the country, that we are not ready nor is it desirable to go down that path for various reasons. One of them is that it is hard to say for certain that a mental illness is irremediable, but another aspect that moved me is that, if someone were to have access to that, theoretically, we would need to exhaust all possible treatment options. As we know, in this country, treatment options are sometimes, depending on the regions, hard to access, so I would like to have his comments on that.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

We actually do have legislation on that.

It's interesting. When we first dealt with my other bill, Bill C-211, “first responder” actually wasn't defined in Canadian legislation. Through our work, we managed to get that defined to a certain extent.

A first responder can be police, fire, ambulance, corrections, nurse or emergency room personnel. We can get you the definitions. I'll submit to the House that we'll get you the definitions by the end of tomorrow.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I would say too that I was very happy to be one of the first members of the government to support Bill C-211, Todd Doherty's private member's bill in the 42nd Parliament with respect to PTSD for first responders. I think showing cross-party support for PTSD for those who respond, whether it be military, firefighters, police or emergency responders, is vital. I think we've demonstrated we can work together to get things done.

Thank you.

Mental Health

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with the member for Richmond Hill.

This is a hard conversation for many us in this chamber, many of us. It is tough to follow my colleague, who just gave an incredible speech about veterans.

As many people in this chamber know, I am the mother of two serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the mother-in-law of a member of the Canadian Armed Forces now, the daughter of a firefighter and the spouse of a firefighter. As I said in 2016 when the incredible member for Cariboo—Prince George brought forward Bill C-211, I was one of the first members of the government to say I am in, because, unfortunately, PTSD has a chair at my kitchen table.

When we come together tonight to talk about mental health, we are talking with one voice. Whether it be occupational stress from serving in the Canadian Armed Forces, emergency responders or people who face trauma, we all have someone in our lives who has suffered from mental illness, maybe even someone in this room, and we need to share those stories. We need to be together when it comes to mental health.

The last two years of the pandemic were really difficult for some people. Our young people had a lot of difficulties. When I talk with parents, I see that they fear for their children.

We need to make sure the supports are there when they are needed, and not three weeks later and not here as a referral paper. I am delighted that we are going to be moving forward with a three-digit suicide hotline number, thanks to my friend from Cariboo—Prince George, because when time is of the essence those supports need to be there.

This debate is so important because people are feeling anxious, whether it is because of the pandemic or because of inflation and the rising cost of living, which is a huge stressor. Financial insecurity and breakdowns of relationships all play a factor in suicide ideation. We have heard of this.

Therefore, we need to come together. We will put the partisanship aside, and together we are going to come up with a solution to get the supports to the people who need them and the families who are watching, because the families are the first who are seeing it. We have heard this time and time again. For the veteran who is suffering in their basement, self-medicating because they are hurting, it is the families who are dealing with it and looking for help, and we need to be there for them.

I am committing tonight, in front of my colleagues around this chamber, that I will always stand to support those who need us. We did it in the past. Let us continue to do this. Let us get it right. Let us make sure those who are suffering have the support they need when they need it and that those who care about them are getting the supports. We have all received those calls in our offices to talk to that person. I am not trained in this field, but when I get the call that there is a veteran in crisis, I am taking the call. We have all been there.

I want to thank the opposition for bringing this debate forward. Again, as my colleague said, it is not a debate; I think we all agree. Therefore, let us put it aside. Let us figure out how we can get this done, because coming out the pandemic my fear is that the need for mental health supports is going to be much larger than we are even anticipating. We need to be ready. We cannot be reactive. We need to be proactive in this regard.

I know we can do this. We have done this before, and we can do this. When it comes to mental health, we all agree. With that, I welcome questions.

National Framework on Cancers Linked to Firefighting Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, it truly is an honour to participate in the debate on Bill C-224. I thank the member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne for bringing this important legislation to the House. We may disagree on a lot of things, but I know that she is equally passionate about serving and fighting for those brave men and women who serve our communities and our country.

If members will indulge me for just a moment, I would like to recognize a friend of mine and a champion in my hometown of Williams Lake, whom we lost far too soon last week. Des Webster served in the Williams Lake fire department for over 24 years. He retired as fire chief in 2018, after leading our community through the worst fire season and the largest mass evacuation our province had experienced during the 2017 wildfires. Des had literally just become a grandfather. My condolences go out to his family and friends back at the fire hall in Williams Lake. Des will be missed.

We are losing far too many of the men and women who serve our communities, either due to moral and mental trauma they experience or from exposure to the deadly substances and related cancers that they develop through their service to our community. I want to thank the over 26,000 Canadian men and women in the IAFF for their service to their communities and to our country. I would also like to thank the IAFF 1372 back home in Prince George.

All firefighters truly are heroes. They put their uniforms on every day, knowing full well they will experience human tragedy and may have to make the ultimate sacrifice. These brave men and women run into burning buildings. Let us think about that for a moment: They run into burning buildings. When every fibre of their being is screaming at them to find safety, they run toward danger. When people try to escape the tangled wreckage of car accidents, they dive straight in to save lives. They hold our hand as we take our last breath.

I believe we must fight for those who fight for us. I have dedicated the last seven years of my elected service to ensuring that we are fighting for those who fight for us, our silent sentinels who stand. They leave their families each and every day, not knowing whether they are going to return. Sadly, their families are far too often forgotten and left to pick up the pieces.

When I see legislation like this, it makes me proud to know that we can actually make a difference in someone's life. Simply put, Bill C-224 will save lives. More than 85% of all line-of-duty deaths among firefighters in Canada are due to occupational cancers. Can members imagine getting up every day and going to work knowing that there is an 85% chance they will die of cancer? How many members of this chamber would want to come to work if they were told they had an 85% chance of contracting cancer from our work in the chamber? Awareness and education are essential to help firefighters detect the early signs so that they can get screening early and treatment as soon as possible.

The increased use of plastics and resins in modern building materials means that the work environment for firefighters becomes more toxic with each passing year. While the average Canadian has a one-in-three chance of being diagnosed with cancer, firefighters are diagnosed with several types of cancers at rates that are statistically higher than in other occupations. Firefighters are exposed to both known and suspected carcinogens during their work. Although exposure is often for short periods of time, exposure levels can be high. Studies in fire chemistry show toxic levels of hazardous substances such formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide, benzene, toluene, and ethyl benzene, among other substances, in the smoke during the knock-down and overhaul firefighting phases, in structure fires as well as vehicle fires. With exposure, these hazardous chemicals coat their protective gear as well. They seep into every fibre. Incredibly, the gear that is designed to save their lives can also contribute to the exposure to these carcinogenic substances.

Cancer-related deaths are a growing concern among the members of the industry, and anything we can do as parliamentarians to mitigate that risk is an important first step. Bill C-224 proposes national standards for firefighting cancers, including measures to explain the link between the disease and the profession. It calls on the government to identify the educational needs of health care and other professionals and to promote research and information sharing.

There are so many things that we take for granted on a daily basis, moments that slip by us unrecognized, people, places, things that impact us without our even noticing. When we get dressed, have breakfast and leave for work, it never, in a million years, occurs to us that this could be the last day we see our loved ones, the last time we hug our wives or children, the last time we tell a friend or family member that we love them.

Firefighters have to live with this realization each and every time they put on their uniform. They go to work knowing that this could be the last time they see their families. They go to work each day to protect us. They go to work to literally save our lives and to fulfill their oath to serve our communities, to protect other families and mine, regardless of the threat to their own personal safety.

I attended the funeral of a fallen firefighter last year and I was given the Firefighter's Prayer. With the indulgence of the House, I will read it into the record:

When I am called to duty, God, wherever flames may rage,
Give me strength to save a life, whatever be its age.
Help me to embrace a little child before it's too late
Or save an older person from the horror of that fate.
Enable me to be alert to hear the weakest shout,
And quickly and efficiently to put the fire out.
I want to fill my calling and to give the best in me,
To guard my neighbor and protect his property.
And if, according to your will, I have to lose my life,
Bless with your protecting hand my loving family from strife.

Passing Bill C-224 and creating a national framework that will raise awareness of cancers linked to firefighting seems such a small price to pay, a small price that will have a major impact on this essential profession, a small price that will save lives. I believe it is incumbent on all of us as leaders within our country to do whatever we can to fight for those who fight for us, whether it is fighting for the mental health supports that they desperately need so they can be well and be healthy, or whether it is fighting for legislation such as Bill C-224, which would be life-changing and help those struggling beyond their career.

None of us know what the future will bring, but at the very least, we can provide those mechanisms, put those mechanisms in place to educate health care professionals and provide resources for the families and the firefighters who put their lives on the line every day. I hope that members of all parties will join me in supporting this important piece of legislation.

Once again, I thank the member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne for bringing it forward. She reminded me today that it was five years ago this day that she stood in the House in support of my bill, Bill C-211, making Canada the very first country in the world to develop legislation to fight PTSD for those who fight for us: our frontline heroes.

I thank all members of Parliament in this debate today and all who have come before us. I thank my good colleague from Barrie—Innisfil, who himself is a retired firefighter, as well as the member for Essex. I thank them for their service. I thank those in the gallery today.

God bless.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to answer that question. In fact, I was the first member on the government bench to publicly support Bill C-211 from his colleague for Cariboo—Prince George. As many members of the House know, I have two sons and a daughter-in-law who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces, and a husband and a father who served in the fire department, so PTSD has a seat at the table in our house. This is something we need to support all of those who serve our communities, in terms of making sure that not only their physical health is taken care of, but also their mental health.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Minister, are you familiar with my Bill C-211 that passed in 2018, an Act to establish a federal framework on PTSD?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes. That was one of the reasons I asked that question. I sensed that at the very beginning, and I know first-hand.

I want to share another example with my colleagues here. A friend of mine by the name of Jason Burd is an Ottawa firefighter. Jason is about six feet, eight inches. He's a giant of a man. When I first met him, I was speaking at a first responder conference with respect to post-traumatic stress disorder and my Bill C-211. Jason was a shell of a man. He could hardly stand up without shaking. PTSD had absolutely racked both his emotional and physical well-being. Sixteen months later, he was given a service dog by the name of Blaze. Jason was able to come out of his house without being impacted by all that was going on. Blaze absolutely transformed his life.

Mr. Cousineau, we talk about it so much, about trust and the emotional support that these dogs provide. I'm wondering if you can touch on that a little bit more, about how Thai has transformed your life.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our guests.

I wanted to make a comment to my colleagues who are here, just in case they've never seen the impact that these dogs can have. I'll take you back to the last session when my Bill C-211, regarding a national framework on PTSD, was at third reading. We had first responders and veterans who were here in the gallery waiting for the presentation at the Senate, basically to make sure that it passed.

There was a first responder who brought their service dog. Obviously, the emotions and my anxiety were high. This service dog actually came over and laid across my feet. What an amazing.... It's so emotional, you know. The first responder came over to me and said that the dog had sensed my anxiety and had come to try to calm me down.

I've also seen first responders and veterans with service dogs that can sense just a slight change in their owner's demeanour, and then will actually start guiding the veteran or the first responder out of the area where the anxiety is being felt. This is something that is critical.

It's very frustrating because I've seen first-hand the benefits that these animals bring.

Mr. Holt and Mr. Lohnes, you spoke about B.C., Nova Scotia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, which have developed standards. Are these standards something that we can adopt nationally?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to say thank you to our witnesses, our guests, here today.

Where to start? The freedom that we enjoy isn't free. It comes at a very real cost, and a cost to our veterans and their families.

Mr. Passey, Mr. Gauthier, Mr. Hines, Ms. Bart and Ms. Boutette, I feel the weight of the responsibility of being a legislator, of somebody who has dealt with veterans and first responders who are struggling with mental injury—PTSD, OSI, whatever we want to call it. In the passage of my Bill C-211 in June of 2018, I thought that we were on the road for hope, that we were going to actually make a difference and develop a national framework to provide help for our first responders and our veterans and those who serve and their families from coast to coast.

I have sat with those who have given up, sadly. I've dealt with that. Our office has dealt with that, so I feel the weight that you feel every day.

I also take offence to some of my colleagues who sit and listen to Mr. Bruyea's testimony, for example, or yours today, and say, yes, but let's talk about the things that are going right, and dismiss it.

The budget was released on Monday. The government acknowledged that veterans, sadly, could wait up to two years to receive mental health care while waiting for their disability benefit application to be confirmed. This is unacceptable. The budget also did not include a plan to address the backlog at Veterans Affairs, nor did it include a plan to support caregivers and the families of veterans. I find this all unacceptable. I apologize profusely to those who are here today. I think better is needed.

I'll stop right there. I'll get off my soapbox, but I want you to know that we hear you. I hear you. We're doing everything we can. I care and I will continue to fight for you guys.

I'll just allow you guys the rest of the time to talk.

Mr. Passey, perhaps you could comment further.

Ban on Shark Fin Importation and Exportation Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to address the issue of shark finning.

I have listened to my colleagues on both sides of the House, and I am encouraged by the thoughtfulness with which all sides have addressed the issue. In truth, I do not think any private member's bill, except perhaps my bill, Bill C-211, has encouraged such a thoughtful and wholesome debate as Bill S-238 has.

Bill S-238, an act to amend the Fisheries Act and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act regarding importation and exportation of shark fins, was brought forward by our hon. colleague Senator Michael MacDonald. The senator has worked tirelessly to bring this issue to the forefront of public consciousness. He is passionate about this issue. He is committed to seeing this bill receive its due consideration.

There are 465 known species of sharks living in our oceans today. Their importance in the ocean ecosystem cannot be overstated.

Shark finning has been banned in Canada under licensing conditions of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans since 1994. Even though the practice is banned in Canada, the importation of shark fins continues to be permitted. In fact, data suggests that Canada may be the second-highest importer of fins outside of Asia.

The fins are used to make soup and, historically, at a time when landing sharks was far more difficult, the soup was a rarity available only to the wealthy people of some Asian cultures. It was a small industry, with the fins usually salvaged from sharks wholly consumed for food. Today, however, as a sign of social status, shark fin soup is regularly served at weddings and banquets of a wealthier and rapidly expanding middle class. With a single dish of shark fin soup costing over $100 U.S., sharks are now hunted en masse, solely for the value of their fins.

In 2017 alone, Canada imported over 170,000 kilograms of shark fins, a number that represents a 60% increase since 2012. Bill S-238 would put an end to this practice by prohibiting the importation into Canada of shark fins that are not attached to the carcass. Bill S-238 would also define, and enshrine into law, the prohibition on the practice of shark finning.

The bill proposes to amend the Fisheries Act to prohibit the practice of shark finning. It also proposes to amend the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and lnterprovincial Trade Act to prohibit the importation into Canada of shark fins that are not attached to the shark carcass. The bill permits an exemption to the shark fin ban if the minister is of the opinion that the importation “is for the purpose of scientific research relating to shark conservation that is conducted by qualified persons” and “the activity benefits the survival of shark species or is required to enhance their chance of survival in the wild.”

Earlier in this Parliament, the member for Beaches—East York introduced a very similar bill, Bill C-246, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Fisheries Act, the Textile Labelling Act, the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act and the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (animal protection). His bill was defeated at second reading and did not make it to committee for further study.

In the last Parliament, the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam introduced legislation to ban the import of shark fins. His bill, Bill C-380, was also narrowly defeated, but in my research I found some interesting points that I would like to bring up in this debate.

During the debate on February 11, 2013, the member for Cardigan said this:

It is dependent upon us as federal legislators to be very sensitive to the cultural and identity concerns of Canada's many different communities, while still taking a strong stance against the very cruel and inhumane practice of shark finning, which is still practised in countries around the world. Not all shark fisheries involve species that are threatened, and not all shark fishers participate in the cruel practice of shark finning.

This is also an important point to make. We must not put countries that do a good job of regulating their shark fisheries to prevent overfishing and cruelty in the same boat as countries that permit overfishing and shark finning. If we punish only those countries that allow these practices by banning imports from them we would send them a very clear message that this is unacceptable. Perhaps this would be an incentive for those countries to change the way they handle their shark fisheries and perhaps other countries would follow suit.

However, if we also punish those countries that are doing a good job regulating their shark fisheries and preventing cruelty, what message are we sending to them? We would be sending the message that it makes no difference whether they regulate their fisheries and prevent cruelty; that we will treat them the same as countries with unregulated fisheries that allow overfishing to destroy shark stocks and that allow the cruel practice of shark finning. I certainly do not feel that this would be a prudent thing to do.

I think the remarks that the Minister of Agriculture made then are just as important today.

It is important that we get this right. Our former Conservative government committed to addressing the serious problem of shark finning during our time in office. We acted on several fronts. We worked through regional fisheries management organizations, such as the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, to ensure strong management and enforcement practices globally, to prevent unsustainable practices such as finning.

The bill before us and the previous incarnations have not been without controversy. I have received tons and tons of emails, as well as recipes, at some point, for shark fin, so both sides of the argument have been heard in our office. As with previous similar pieces of legislation, cultural communities across the country have voiced their opposition to an outright ban on imports.

In late 2011, the City of Brantford, as discussed, became the first city in Canada to pass new bylaws to ban the possession, sale or consumption of shark fin products. In that medium-sized city, where no restaurants that served shark fin existed, there was no opposition to the ban, which was largely symbolic. Nevertheless, a handful of cities soon followed, notably Toronto, Calgary, Mississauga and several others in southern Ontario. Markham and Richmond Hill opted not to bring forth the motion, suggesting that this issue is a federal matter.

Chinese restaurants and businesses selling shark fin opposed the ban, and in late 2011, suggested that they would challenge the bylaws before the courts once fines were imposed. When Toronto imposed steep fines, the restaurants did just that, and they won. In late 2012, the Ontario Superior Court overturned Toronto's shark fin ban, ruling that the law, as written, was outside the powers of the city to impose without a “legitimate local purpose”, and was therefore of “no force and effect”. The judge accepted that the practice of shark finning was inhumane, but he did not agree with Toronto's justification of local purpose, namely, that the consumption of shark fins may have an “adverse impact” on the health and safety of its residents and on the environmental well-being of the city.

I want to be very clear. This topic has evoked a considerable amount of thoughtful discussion and debate, of which I am very appreciative. I also want to thank our colleagues for proposing this legislation. Canadians should expect this type of respectful discussion when legislation such as Bill C-238 is brought forth. It is what they expect us as parliamentarians and legislators to do. It is clear that we need to consider all aspects of this legislation, and I look forward to hearing from my colleagues as we continue this debate.

National Defence Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will remind the House that I am splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound.

Before question period, I was talking about the intervention by our hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke on Bill C-77. The beauty of the House is that when one pays attention to debate, we can learn things. So many of our colleagues bring expertise and knowledge to the debate. One only has to just pay attention and listen.

My hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke brought up two areas of Bill C-77 that were missing. I want to bring them up as well and address them.

One is the issue of mental illness and injury of those who serve in our Armed Forces and their death by suicide, self-harm, and the fact that section 98(c) is still in military law. The simple act of removing that could do so much to break down the stigma for those who still suffer in the shadows.

I worked tirelessly in getting my Bill C-211 through the House and to royal assent, which took place on June 21 of last year. I am proud to say that the round tables for Bill C-211 are taking place within a month in Ottawa. Stakeholders, representatives from the provinces and territories, ministerial colleagues from across the way as well as military from Veterans Affairs and National Defence are coming together to have that overall discussion on mental health and how we can stem the tide of the epidemic of suicide due to mental illness and mental injury. This is so important.

It is very important that at all times we build trust not only for those who suffer from mental illness and mental injury, but fort hose who suffer from sexual assault as well so they know they will be believed and they can get the services they require. It is very important we build that environment of trust so they feel they can come forward and there will not be that stigma attached to them. Throughout this debate, we have heard that this still remains, because Bill C-77 does not address that.

My hon. colleague talked about his Bill C-426, which could address the removal of section 98(c). Again, it is a simple thing. I do not accept the argument that we need to study it. The wheels of bureaucracy move slowly. We tend to study things to death and then we are victims of our own inaction. We refuse to act when simple things could be done that would have such a major impact. Section 98(c) is one that my hon. colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman mentioned it as well.

This is not my file, but I read some of the amendments put forward by the my colleagues in the official opposition, and this was brought up by a number of colleagues. I did not know that in military law there there is no provision for reporting the proceedings of a summary hearing. There is also no provision compelling an officer presiding over a summary hearing to give reasons for his or her findings. I had no knowledge that no notes were taken or recordings of proceedings. I am shocked that there would be not requirements in military legal procedure to take copious notes. That makes it very difficult for the appeal process.

As Conservatives, we always believe that the rights of victims should come before those of the criminal. We will always stand tall to ensure the rights of victims and their families are considered first and foremost.

Over the course of the last week, and indeed leading up to Christmas, we had a lot of opportunity to talk about victims' rights and ensuring that those who we trusted to protect us and serve our country were armed with the tools to complete their mission. We must ensure they are safe and secure and remain healthy when they come back to their families.

Earlier this week, we were talking about the rights of victims. I brought up Cody Legebokoff, Canada's youngest serial killer and how the families of his victims had been re-victimized time and again. We recently found out that he was transferred from a maximum-security to a medium-security facility.

Our hon. colleague, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, has committed to reviewing that case. It is my hope that he will take swift action to reverse the decision, similar to what he did with Terri-Lynne McClintic. I am not sure why things always have to get to this point.

Going back to my earlier comment about subsection 98(c), I note there are simple things we can do as leaders and elected officials within the House. The 338 members of Parliament have been elected to be the voice of Canadians. There are simple things we could do to make the lives of Canadians better. Rather than overthink things, we should use a little common sense.

Sometimes in this place we get mired under the bubble in which we work. If common sense could prevail, we would be far better off.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is the Liberal way. They have to study something that is just common sense. It is unbelievable. It is not that studying further is not common sense, but just getting it done, just action, is common sense.

I thank my hon. colleague for bringing up two points that I feel are very important. Everybody in the House knows that I am passionate about doing everything in our power to provide those whom we trust to serve our country and community with the tools to both complete their mission and to come home and remain healthy.

My hon. colleague brought up two valid points. They were on the unreported sexual assault that is taking place or could be taking place within our military, as well as the point on death by suicide, self-harm and post-traumatic stress disorder.

We now know more about post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health injury and the mental illness that can be caused by the sights and sounds experienced by those who have served.

There is so much that we can do, that our forces can do, by building trust at the very beginning, by building and creating more resources so that our new recruits know what they are getting themselves into on all sides. I agree with my hon. colleague that the first step would be removing paragraph 98(c), and the other part is Bill C-211—

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Doherty's bill—I believe it's Bill C-211—was passed by the House about a year ago. In putting together our national strategy, we will be very much honouring what Parliament adopted in that legislation.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

It's a hugely important question, Ms. Dabrusin. Thank you for raising it. I know that members around this table, on all sides, have taken a great interest in PTSD or PTSI.

We are committed to the production, later on this spring, of a comprehensive strategy with respect to PTSI. That will be forthcoming in the months immediately ahead. There are various elements of that already in place. In the last budget, for example, there was significant funding set aside for an organization called the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment. It's a network of universities and academic organizations across the country working with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research on the research that is necessary specifically with respect to PTSI among first responders. They have full access to all the work that is done with respect to military personnel and veterans, as well. This is new research that is being undertaken, specifically focused on the issues relevant to first responders.

The RCMP has just upgraded its mental health services. I believe about $10 million, or perhaps $20 million, was set aside for the RCMP in the latest budget. The last couple of budgets have invested significant new dollars in both treatment and research, but we need to pull this all together in a coordinated way with the provinces—because many of these people are operating under either provincial or municipal jurisdiction—with the academic institutions, and with the unions that represent firefighters and police officers and paramedics, as well as the chiefs and the management in each one of those areas. That's what the comprehensive approach is intended to do.

The Prime Minister was asked that question a month or so ago in the House, and he indicated that we are on track to deliver later this spring a comprehensive policy where we pull all of these threads together. Part of it is the private member's legislation.... Was it Bill C-211?

Criminal Code

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-417, an act to amend section 649 of the Criminal Code. I want to thank my colleague, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, for his work on the bill. I want to thank all of my colleagues in the House, from all sides, who have worked tirelessly on this.

I also want to thank someone who has become a good friend of mine. He has been very passionate about this. I first met him in the fall of 2016 after tabling my bill, Bill C-211, with respect to a national framework on post-traumatic stress disorder, and that is Mark Farrant.

Mark Farrant has been a tireless advocate. As I said earlier on, when he first brought this issue to me, I was talking with reporters regarding my bill and those who were included in it. I was ashamed at the time that I did not include jurors.

We trust that when people sign up to do their civic duty, they do their duty and not a lot is said afterwards. Why? It is because they are sworn to secrecy. They are not allowed to talk about the horrific images, videos and testimony they hear.

I also want to say thank you to the 12 angry jurors who wrote letters to the Minister of Justice, early on, which were tabled in April 2017, I believe.

They wrote such things as, “In 1995, I was selected as juror number one for the murder trial of Paul Bernardo. Lasting four months, the jury watched videos of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French being raped and tortured for weeks on end. Each day I would go home in a daze, barely able to comprehend the things I saw. Burned in my memory, even at night the videos would replay in my head and I couldn't make it stop.” That person would not be able to share that with anyone else.

Here is another one: “There's not a day that passes that the thoughts don't come back, the details, the autopsy pictures of bullet holes in human heads, forensic photos, the pools of blood.” That juror was on the jury for the Pan murder trial.

Another juror wrote, “It is a different world being part of a murder trial. It takes you to places you can't even imagine and don't want to go. It isn't how I live. To live life through the eyes of a murderer can be very difficult to witness. This is why counselling is necessary for jurors.”

Finally, another juror wrote, “The trial itself was two and a half months in length, and the visuals of the kidnapping and gruesome account of what took place from beginning to end of her horrifying demise have not impacted only myself but also had an impact on my family. I will never be a juror again, nor will my friends or my family, as they watched in pain at what I was and still am going through. I am not the only juror on the trial that sat through this and is suffering from PTSD. There are three that I know of. It is an abomination that doing our civic duty would lead to our lives being changed forever and creating a living hell for our family. Why are the courts not taking care of us when we are trying to take care of society by doing our civic duty?”

That is a great question.

I have deviated from my speech because these letters are the catalyst for why we are here today. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mark Farrant and the 11 other jurors who had the courage to come forward. They had the courage to put their faith in all of us in this chamber, believing that we would take this seriously. For that, again, I want to offer a huge thank you to my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton for putting forth this bill, which amends section 649 of the Criminal Code.

PTSD is the mental health injury that people encounter when they see or experience traumatic events. It could come from images. It could come from videos. It could come from a car accident. It could come from any terrible accident. We are only now just beginning to understand what post-traumatic stress disorder means.

We used to think when we saw some of our soldiers come back from war or some of our first responders sit in a corner and be dissociative that they were shell-shocked, that they were different. Now we know that it is post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental health injury. We also know now that PTSD can impact those who are subject to rape or sexual abuse.

These people are just doing their civic duty, but over the course of two weeks or two months—or 10 months, as we are hearing—images are burned into their minds. Then, at the end of the trial, we turn them loose to walk out the front doors of the courthouse, never to speak of it again, and until this bill comes forward, they are not even allowed to share it with their doctors.

Mark Farrant shared that there were many physicians who were not even willing to listen to him for fear of a patient-doctor violation. He was having these issues and was not able to share exactly what was going through his mind.

We know through the course of this study that our jurors face not just mental health injury or mental illness because of the experience they go through, but also the financial crisis that has been put in place. One juror wrote that it had impacted her family so acutely that even her own son had attempted suicide, all because of the mental health injury that she faced during the course of her civic duty.

Obviously, members have heard the speeches down the way, and I think that this bill is timely. I am very proud of all of us and the work that we do here. I am proud that on June 21 of last year we managed to pass my bill, Bill C-211, which received royal assent and has now become law. We are now the first country in the world to have adopted national legislation to tackle post-traumatic stress disorder. It is my hope that the House could see its way forward to pass my other bill, Bill C-425, which would recognize June 27 as national PTSD awareness day. It would bring us in line with what our counterparts in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. are doing.

However, the bill before us today, Bill C-417, is much needed and long overdue. It might be too late for those who have already served, but at the very least, as we move forward, we can be sure that if people sign up for civic duty and become jurors on a case, they will have the support they need and require once the court case is done.

This bill is overdue, and I applaud all of us in the House and the health committee for its work on it. As it was so aptly put by our friend for Calgary Confederation, when our colleague for St. Albert—Edmonton brings something forward like this, he has encyclopedic knowledge of our law system and court system.

I also want to make note of a great point that was brought forward. If we can pay for care for the mental injuries and mental health issues that our inmates have, then for sure, 100%, we should look forward to paying for and helping those who do their civic duty.

With that I humbly offer to my colleagues that I wholeheartedly support the bill. It is long overdue and I want to thank those who have brought this issue to the forefront, including Mark Farrant and the 12 angry jurors who brought these letters and showed the courage to speak out.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-417, an act to amend the Criminal Code section 649, which has been brought forward by my colleague, the Conservative member for St. Albert—Edmonton. I have had the honour of knowing the hon. member for over 10 years and I am very aware of his experience and his encyclopaedic knowledge of statutory law. Any bill brought forward by him amending the Criminal Code clearly says to me that this is a required change and that I can be confident in supporting it.

The member is very passionate about justice issues, but even more so about protecting the victims of crime. Jury duty is something most of us will never experience. Many of us will be contacted through the selection process but few are actually chosen. These Canadians who are chosen and perform their civic duty are often exposed to the horrific details of crimes without the benefit of being mentally prepared for the experience.

They are silent observers who must, for the benefit of a fair trial, expose themselves to images, testimony and unbelievable details to ensure that they are considering all the evidence before making their decision. They do not have the ability to change the channel, leave the room or simply avoid the experience. They are compelled to go through with their service from beginning to end.

Many, after seeing and hearing the unimaginable, have to gather as a group to discuss everything in detail, again and again, and then to come up with their decision for a verdict. As we can imagine, this can leave a normally healthy person with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and those who are predisposed to mental health issues are often even worse off.

An increasingly growing awareness about PTSD in society has really opened up our eyes to the effect it has had on people, their families and those around them. That is a good thing. We suggest those with PTSD get professional help to address their problems, but this is not always possible, especially for those who are suffering because of their jury duty. In Canada, it is illegal to discuss one's jury deliberation experience with anyone. This, on the surface, is perhaps a good policy to ensure our court system does not degenerate into a genre of tell-all books by those on juries.

However, this makes it almost impossible for those with jury duty PTSD to seek professional help because they simply cannot talk about what is causing their health problems. Imagine a person being sick and being told to see a doctor, but not to discuss anything that has to do with how he or she became sick or what that person is experiencing. That is basically the reality here. Bill C-417 seeks to create an exemption for those affected by their jury duty to be able to discuss what they need to with their health professional. Of course, those deliberations would be protected by patient confidentiality.

To do this, Bill C-417 is proposing section 649 of the Criminal Code be amended to allow former jurors to discuss their deliberations with designated health professionals once the trial is over. This, in fact, is also a unanimous recommendation of the justice committee of the House. Our colleagues have examined this issue in detail and this is their recommendation. Now it is up to us here to make the necessary legislative changes.

lt is also worth noting that this concept has come to fruition in Australia already. ln the time since, it has shown to work without any problems. Now it is Canada's time to implement these changes. If we say we support victims of crime, we have to allow them to access the help that they need.

Major players in our justice system have also spoken in favour of this change, including the Criminal Lawyers' Association and the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Given that all parties have supported this idea up to this point, I expect that to continue. I just hope we can get through this legislative process before the writ is dropped.

I was quite moved when I read the testimony given in committee by former jurors. They spoke to the challenges they faced after their jury duty. I was particularly struck by the way their experience left them in a position where everyday things became a source of stress and anxiety.

Many of those on jury duty who witness testimony and evidence of serious crimes speak of the lasting and permanent impairment of their emotional well-being. It is really quite unimaginable.

Much of court testimony is already made public through the media and can be discussed. However, in a study done by Dr. Sonia Chopra, 70% of jurors said that their stress occurred as a result of the deliberations. That is the part of jury duty they cannot talk about. During deliberations, they face the stress of rehashing facts, testimony and the interpretations thereof. They have the stress of knowing that victims are expecting a certain result, but also the stress of knowing that they must be ready to deny them if the facts do not support a guilty verdict. They hold the life of the accused in the balance and the stress of not wanting to make a mistake. It can be overwhelming. Are they about to condemn an innocent person? Are they about to set a mass murderer free? Will they make the right decision?

This bill, while a great idea, does not mention some of the other aspects of this issue that tend to bother me greatly, especially as a member of the health committee. As a society, we pay for mental health services for incarcerated prisoners in this country. However, we do not pay for the same services for innocent jurors. As a society, we need to think about that. Are we comfortable with this arrangement? I certainly am not.

Even if we were to agree to pay for mental health services for jurors, we do not currently have the capacity to provide that service here in Canada. Over and over again, we hear at health committee how Canada is challenged to provide mental health services in all regions of this country. It is my hope that if we create the opportunity for jurors to seek mental health support, the provinces will prioritize their work to set up the proper support system for them.

Part of this progress, I expect, will be spurred by the work of the member for Cariboo—Prince George and his tireless efforts to create a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder. His work to pass Bill C-211, his private member's bill, will be instrumental in his process, I anticipate.

Bill C-211 was supported by all parties in this House, and it demonstrates our shared will to address PTSD here in Canada, no matter who is affected or why. It is my hope that Bill C-211 will allow for the creation of a standard of diagnosis, care, treatment and even terminology for PTSD that will be consistent from one end of our nation to another.

Improving mental health services in Canada is a shared responsibility. All parties have studied the issue. All parties agree that more needs to be done. Now we just need to do it. We need to insist that some provinces up their game to ensure better consistency and availability of mental health services.

I am not naive, and I know that there will always be unreasonable calls for improvements to mental health services, but so far, I have not heard one person say that he or she thinks we here in Canada are doing a great job.

Investing in mental health is an investment. By providing help to those who need it, we can allow people to live normal lives, hold employment, pay taxes, raise good families and participate in the community. Ignoring their needs costs us greatly, both in terms of money and as a society.

I applaud my Conservative colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton for bringing this sensible proposal forward. I applaud the justice committee for studying this serious issue. It will be an honour for me to support this bill. I ask that my colleagues in all parties do the same.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-425, An Act to establish Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Day.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this House on Bell Let's Talk Day to introduce my private member's bill, an act to establish post-traumatic stress disorder—PTSD—awareness day. I want to thank the member for Barrie—Innisfil for seconding my bill.

Today parliamentarians will join Canadians from coast to coast to coast to increase awareness of mental health issues, offer support to those who persevere every day, and ultimately end the stigma around mental health illness

On June 21 of last year, Canada became the first country in the world to adopt legislation aimed at tackling PTSD. The bill, Bill C-211, has given hope to many, but we must do more than just create hope. We must act. We must continue to build awareness, understanding and acceptance that mental injuries are real, because lives are at stake. Studies suggest that over 70% of Canadians have been exposed to at least one traumatic event in their lifetime and that nearly one in 10 Canadians may develop PTSD at some point in their lives. Mental illness should not be a partisan issue.

Just as we did with Bill C-211, it is my hope today that members of Parliament from all sides will see their way to support this legislation so that it receives swift passage, and that just as we are doing today on Bell Let's Talk Day, on June 27 Canadians all across this great nation will continue the mental health discussion on Canada's first national PTSD awareness day. Through awareness and talking, we can end the stigma of mental health injury and mental illness.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Corrections and Conditional Release Act

[Richard Martel, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, CPC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about Bill C-83 because it is of personal concern to me and because I was asked to do so by a number of correctional officers who told me that they feel as though they were not sufficiently consulted during the drafting of this bill.

If the government would take the time to listen to our correctional officers, it would find that they think eliminating administrative segregation in correctional facilities is a bogus solution to a bogus problem. Administrative segregation is not used as punishment. It is a risk management tool. The threat of solitary confinement must always be present in order to act as a deterrent, guarantee a certain amount of discipline and enforce compliance in correctional institutions. That discipline is essential to the health and safety of our correctional officers.

Segregation is a tool of last resort. By taking that tool away from correctional officers, the government is saying that it does not care about their reality. It does not care that more assaults on officers have happened since the use of segregation was restricted. The Union of Canadian Correctional Officers has stressed that violence in prison will go up once administrative segregation is scrapped. Union president Jason Godin foresees a bloodbath. Administrative segregation is not used arbitrarily. It is a tool of last resort that protects inmates from others and, sometimes, from themselves.

When a new criminal arrives, conflicts can escalate rapidly. The prison population varies from institution to institution. Sometimes, a new inmate is not welcome, and his new peers will be waiting for him. Administrative segregation is used to ensure that inmate's health and safety until such time as officers find appropriate solutions to de-escalate conflict.

What should be done with an inmate in medium security who becomes more and more violent and has to be transferred to a maximum security institution? Should such an inmate be allowed to keep living by his own rules for four hours a day while awaiting transfer? That makes no sense to me.

Some inmates altogether refuse to join the general population and also refuse the protective wing. How are we supposed to accommodate these inmates, who want peace and quiet, without abusing public funds? Is it a prison or a five-star hotel? What do I tell my constituents who tell me they would rather go to prison than live in a seniors residence? Correctional officers legitimately wonder what they will do. What tools will be at their disposal when administrative segregation is eliminated? The officers fear that there will be an escalation of violence. They fear for their health and safety, but also for the health and safety of the criminals.

Again, what tools will they have to defuse potential retaliations or thwart revenge plots that they may have caught wind of? Are they to leave the inmates to take justice and discipline into their own hands? Correctional officers cannot turn a blind eye and ignore the warnings they get. How are they supposed to enforce compliance? These are bogus solutions to a bogus problem.

The commissioner's directives, including CD 843, already cover exceptions for indigenous and female offenders, and offenders with mental health problems.

Mental health is taken very seriously in prisons. Offenders have access to care, and correctional officers are quickly informed when an offender is struggling with mental health issues. They find out fast. Correctional officers have faith in the commissioner's directives, and they refer to them regularly in the performance of their duties.

Correctional officers already take mental health issues seriously because they know what kind of impact these issues can have. In fact, they or their colleagues have been through it themselves.

Thirty-five percent of first responders, including paramedics, EMTs and correctional officers, will develop symptoms associated with work-related PTSD.

This is not an easy work environment. Officers must sometimes use a lot of psychological tactics to de-escalate conflicts. They may face moral and ethical dilemmas that they would not face in the world outside the prison. For example, it is not easy to be a mother or father and to be around a pedophile every day. One of the worst things that could happen would be for an officer to get to work and learn that an inmate had taken his or her own life. Prison guards face many risks. This kind of situation makes them very susceptible to PTSD.

Last week, I met with veterans and first responders who spoke to me about Project Trauma Support, a new Canadian program that treats post traumatic stress and operational stress injury in military personnel, veterans and first responders. I was deeply touched by their story and how the centre, located in Perth, Ontario, helped them turn their lives around.

It is often very difficult for anyone affected by work-related post-traumatic stress syndrome to access the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, disability insurance or compensation. They may have to wait a long time before accessing counselling or treatment, which is very unfortunate. We know that the earlier problems are addressed, the better the results and the chances to return to active service. Their families also suffer.

My colleagues and I hope that Bill C-211 will provide a comprehensive solution to this scourge.

However, I wonder why Bill C-83 does not say more about the health and safety of our correctional workers.

The Liberal government's history shows that it favours criminals rather than victims. I should not be surprised to find it more interested in the comfort of criminals than the safety of correctional officers.

The government also did not consult the union and employees when it announced a needle exchange pilot project.

I wonder how providing access to needles to take drugs or create tattoos, thereby providing a potential weapon to criminals, can be perceived as being a good thing.

Canadians need to know about the needle exchange program. When an inmate manages to illegally bring a drug into prison, he can ask the nurse for a needle and he will get one. The nurse and the government know very well that the needle will be used for illicit purposes.

The correctional officer does not know that he will be at greater risk during the next check of the inmate's cell. What message are they sending?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the utmost respect for our hon. colleague across the way. In fact, I worked closely with him during the work on my Bill C-211. He knows I am passionate about ensuring that our part-time workers, our first responders get the help they need whenever they need it and for however long they need it, whether it be correctional officers, police officers, firefighters, dispatch officers, our veterans or our military personnel, those front-line workers who experience human tragedy every day.

I was not part of the previous government, but I will offer this. My hon. colleague should be focusing his attention across the way rather than on what was done in the past. Let us see how we can move forward and get the bill amended to include front-line officers.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off this intervention by setting the situation we are faced with today.

Imagine a time when we call murder a “bad practice.” Imagine being at a point in time where we cannot use the word “illegal” for those who cross our borders illegally. It is now “irregular”. Imagine our government of day actually paying convicted terrorists $10.5 million for pain and suffering. Imagine a time when our government reaches out to a terrorist who, at one point, bragged about playing soccer with the heads of those he fought against, an ISIS terrorist, who bragged at one time about playing soccer with the heads of those they captured and decapitated.

I offer this because this is where are at, at this point. We see, time and time again, the government, our colleagues across the way, continuing to go on, “merrily, merrily, life is but a dream”. It goes down the way, all rainbows and sunshine. It is hug-a-thug.

Imagine a time when we are moving a convicted murderer, one who had been sentenced for society's most heinous crime of kidnapping and killing an eight-year-old, to a healing lodge part way through their sentence, not behind bars, but having a key to their own condo, if you will, free to come and go as they please within that area. Imagine a time when we always err on the side of the criminal rather than that of the victim.

Imagine a time when a convicted murderer can claim PTSD from the murder that he committed and receive treatment for PTSD before veterans and first responders.

That is where we are with Bill C-83. Before our colleagues across the way say, “The Conservatives are so against these body scans and different elements of this piece of legislation”, we are for providing the tools for our front-line workers every step of the way so that they can be safe. We are for providing victims and their families the rights and the tools so that they can remain whole, so that they are not revictimized at every step of the way.

Bill C-83 is about abolishing segregation. Oftentimes in the movies and in prison slang, segregation is referred to as “the hole”. Maybe that is how we got here. Maybe that is how this came to be. The Liberals, in the ways they dream things up, actually thought it was a hole we were putting people in. That is not true. It is a cell, no different than others.

As a matter of fact, somebody who spent a long period of time in segregation, one of our country's most notorious serial killers, Clifford Robert Olson still managed to take advantage of the situation. A reporter who visited him at one point remarked that he was healthy, that he even had a tan. Here is a guy who raped and murdered children in my province of British Columbia, and maybe even in other areas.

Segregation is not just for the safety of our front-line officers. It is also for the safety of those who are incarcerated. One of our colleagues mentioned that in interviewing somebody who has been incarcerated and spent a majority of their time in segregation that they preferred that, that they knew if they were out in general population that they probably would not last very long.

I actually would like to name some of the folks in our prison system who are housed in segregation and who the government is proposing to allow out of segregation, such as Paul Bernardo who has just been denied parole again. He is known to have lured young women, torturing, raping and murdering them with his then girlfriend, Karla Homolka. He actually murdered her own sister. Other inmates in segregation are Robert Pickton, who is a serial killer in my province of British Columbia, Renee Acoby, John Greene, Andrew Gulliver and Christopher Newhook.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, there is probably one of our most notorious serial killers, Clifford Robert Olson. I had an opportunity to speak with some of the arresting officers in his case and those persons who were charged with guarding him in his cell. He bragged incessantly and wanted to talk about those crimes. He was diabolical. He was sick.

Segregation provides a disciplinary administrative tool that both keeps those who are incarcerated protected, but also protects front-line workers. Is that not what we are here to do, protect society and those who have been charged with protecting society, keeping them safe both physically and mentally?

Through the course of my work in building Bill C-211 and then getting it passed in June of this year, I worked closely with correctional services. Very often, correctional guards and correctional officers are not seen as first responders, yet they perform those duties every day. They are seeing the worst of society at their very worst, while providing medical and life-saving treatment almost on a daily basis. They also have to guard those individuals and their safety is always at risk. Imagine being a guard in charge of a unit and there are 40 of society's worst criminals, yet that guard is alone.

The president of the union of Correctional Services of Canada recently said that in his centre in the course of the last 12 months there had been 100 violent incidents against his officers.

I have also learned that the government is approving a needle exchange program where the guards are to give the inmates needles and spoons to cook drugs and then go back to their cells, unbelievably. There is no onus on the prisoners; when they come up for parole, they are not required to report that they had been using in prison. Therefore, yes, we do agree that we should have full body scanners, not only for prisoners or their guests, but also for guards. I believe that would make everyone safe.

How unbelievable is it that we are now going to give needles and cooking spoons? I do not mean ladles for cooking soup, but cooking spoons for drugs, to use drugs, then allow them to go back to their cells and expect a guard to go into the cell to do some form of administrative management or security search, not knowing whether there is a needle there with some form of bodily fluid.

When the union heard about Bill C-83, it sent letters to the minister outlining its concerns. Union representatives were worried about segregation and emphasized to the minister the importance of this tool for correctional officers. They brought up their concern over the prison needle exchange and suggested rather than doing that, the minister focus on the resources to treat inmates with infectious diseases instead. They came at this in a reasonable way and offered solutions, yet they were not listened to. They were pooh-poohed. As a matter of fact, the minister thanked them for their time and then went forward in crafting this bill.

We are against the bill as a whole. We are not against certain elements of it. I would urge the government and the minister to reconsider Bill C-83.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, during my work on my private member's bill, Bill C-211, which includes correctional officers, I spoke at length with correctional officers regarding the fact that they were the front line. They see, hear and experience oftentimes the worst of our society.

In a recent statement by the president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, he mentioned that over 100 assaults on officers over the last 12 months had taken place at the Regional Psychiatric Centre. Does our hon. colleague feel that the removal of disciplinary tools, such as what Bill C-83 proposes, enhances the security of correctional officers or does it make them more vulnerable to assault?

Opposition Motion—Veterans

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand here today.

I am disappointed, but not surprised, by the comments coming from some of our colleagues across the floor, some who I deeply respect with respect to their service to our country. However, it is the talking points. I have listened intently to this debate.

It was August 28 when I received a message from our veteran community, asking if I heard about Chris Garnier who had heinously murdered Catherine Campbell, a Truro police officer of six years, badge 137. Catherine was also a volunteer firefighter.

In the process of the legal battle that he and his family waged, they used every dilatory motion possible to re-victimize Ms. Campbell's family, such as putting a peace bond on her family members during the court case because Mr. Garnier's family felt threatened. When the sentencing came up, all of a sudden he had PTSD. From what? He had PTSD from the murder he committed. How did we find this out? An email was sent during the sentencing, which was only about a month and a half ago.

Since August 28, when I did a video on my social media, over 90,000 Canadians have viewed it and they are angry. The comments we have received have been incredible. People are furious. I want to read one for members. It states:

“I am not allowed to lend my voice to the outrage of providing services to a non-veteran convicted murderer, however, I am absolutely speechless. Well, perhaps not speechless, but I'm trying to be polite and professional.”

“ As a citizen of this country, I am so angry and ashamed. As a Veterans Affairs employee, this is not what I signed up for when I began my career, providing services to our veterans and their families. I love my job and it is an honour to support those who are willing to lay down their lives for me and my fellow citizens, but now I just want to go home with my head hung in shame. knowing what someone in my organization has approved.”

It goes on to say, “Under family services, it clearly states that we do not cover family members' own mental health issues. It is a provincial jurisdiction, or in this case, it is a Corrections Canada jurisdiction. We only directly support veterans' family members with their mental health issues only as needed for them to participate in a veterans rehab plan.”

I offer that to members. All we have heard from the minister straight across the Liberal caucus is garbage. There is no other way to put it. It is shameful.

Veterans and first responders are listening today. I have had, if not hundreds, possibly thousands of messages regarding this issue. Chris Garnier murdered Catherine Campbell. He is currently appealing his case now because the judge was heavy-handed in sentencing. Chris Garnier met Catherine Campbell and two hours later he murdered her. He dumped her in a recycling bin, wheeled her through Halifax and tossed her away like a piece of trash. Now he and his family are trying to milk the system, using PTSD as an excuse. It is shameful.

Through my work on Bill C-211, we have worked hard in trying to break the stigma so those who are suffering can feel comfortable and know that when they come forward to talk about their stories, they will be believed. Now we have this dirt bag. I have said it, and I believe that with my whole heart.

This man is re-victimizing the family. He is taking advantage of a situation. He is using every tool possible. Now he is using PTSD as a mitigating factor, hoping to get some leniency in his sentencing. We have colleagues across the way, all whom I respect dearly for their service, coming out, spewing the talking points.

If a veteran commits a crime, he or she loses his or her benefits. My hon. colleague, the member for Barrie—Innisfil, mentioned it earlier that a 30 year old was not a dependant. To have a convicted murderer jumping in front of a veteran or a first responder who requires treatment is shameful.

The day after I posted my video, the minister said that he was seized with this issue. It has been 28 days. He stands in the House and blathers on. He had an opportunity at the beginning of this debate to talk about the action he had taken on this case, but he continued to spew political talking points. We can tell we are going into an election season, but on an issue like this, it is absolutely shameful.

I promised I was not going to get heated up, but I have received more messages from veterans.

One veteran says, “Hey, Mr. Doherty, I just want to scream and cry at the same time. I have been waiting in line for what seems like forever. Every time, veterans affairs has some excuse as to why. I served 21 years for my country, yet I have to continue to wait in line.”

Mr. Garnier has already been receiving this treatment, yet he was only just sentenced about a month and a half ago. He immediately jumped to the front of the line. How did he do that? We have a lot of questions. Is he highly connected? We do not know. It is absolutely shameful.

This veteran goes on to say, “I am so lit up. I don't know what to do. I don't even know if.... the thoughts that are going through my mind. I don't know what to do.”

I have two minutes left and I wish I had so much more time for this. It is absolutely shameful.

Catherine Campbell served our country and served our community. She wore two uniforms, and Christopher Garnier took her life.

It is not about hypothetical cases. It is not about “coulda, woulda, shoulda”. It is not about his father's treatment plan. It has nothing to do with that. That is what is being paraded out there. It has not even been brought up. What was brought up is that his lawyer has said that he needs treatment for PTSD because of the crime he committed, the murder he committed. That is shameful. He has jumped to the front of the line.

I am going to leave the House with this, because it is important.

Freedom is not free. Our brave men and women, who have served our country and our communities, have paid our collective debt for our freedom, our safety and our security. When they ask for help, rather than welcoming them and telling them that their bill is paid in full, they are continually refused service or told to go to the back of the line. Many of them are losing hope. We continue to lose veterans and first responders at a horrendous rate. Why? Because of issues like this. They lose faith in the process.

This is wrong. Those brave men and women, who put the uniform on every day in service to our country, to our community and to our flag, sacrifice for us. Christopher Garnier did not serve. Instead, he took the life of someone who served her community and who was willing to give her life for her community. The Campbells and our veterans and first responders deserve better than what they are hearing in the talking points from the minister.

Department of Veterans Affairs Act

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

moved that Bill C-378, An Act to amend the Department of Veterans Affairs Act (fairness principles), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today in the House to speak about my private member's bill, Bill C-378. I stand in the House on behalf of the millions of men and women who have fought for our country, the 700,000 veterans. It is for them that I rise with respect to this bill.

I also rise with an understanding that the sacrifices that have been made by those men and women and their families throughout the course of Canadian history is what allows all of us who sit in our symbol of democracy the privilege to do so. I want to thank them, their families, and their memories. I hope by the time I am done here today, I will have done a good enough job explaining what the private member's bill is all about and ask for the support of the House for it.

I am looking to establish three basic principles within the Department of Veterans Affairs Act: that the person, as well as his or her dependants or survivors, is to be treated with dignity, respect, and fairness; that the uniqueness of a person's professionalism, obligations, and sacrifices such a profession demands also impacts the experiences of the individual's family; and that any decision regarding the care, treatment, and re-establishment in civilian life of the person and the benefits to be provided be made in a timely manner.

It is in the spirit of Sir Robert Borden, who spoke to Canadian soldiers preparing for that great battle of Vimy Ridge, that Bill C-378 is introduced. Our eighth prime minister said to the troops at the time:

...you need have no fear that the government and the country will fail to show just appreciation of your service...The government and the country will consider it their first duty to prove to the returned men its just and due appreciation of the inestimable value of the services rendered to the country...

Sir Robert Borden may have been the first to talk about an obligation and duty, but he has not been the last. Veterans and current members of the Canadian Armed Forces who I met with this summer told me they wished to see these principles in place.

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to travel across the country to meet with veterans, their families, and stakeholders. Every single one of them talked about this sacred obligation, this covenant, on behalf of the government and its service men and women. When Sir Robert Borden spoke of that obligation to Canadian soldiers, there has never been an obligation to the men and women and their families enacted in Canadian legislation, and that is what I hope to change with Bill C-378.

This is not an indictment on any government. It is not an indictment on the current government and it is not an indictment on the valuable employees who work at Veterans Affairs Canada. This is about doing something for which veterans have asked.

The previous government brought in a Veterans Bill of Rights in 2007. Under the Veterans Bill of Rights, veterans have the right to take part in discussions that involve them and their families, have someone with them to support them when they deal with Veterans Affairs, to receive clear, easy-to-understand information about programs and services in English and French, as set out in the Official Languages Act, and have their privacy protected, as set out in the Privacy Act.

More importantly, the Veterans Bill of Rights has two rights that are included as principles in Bill C-378. The first principle is that the person be treated with respect, dignity, fairness, and courtesy, the benefits and services as set in our published service standards, and knowing one's appeal rights.

Canada had the Veterans Bill of Rights, but it is the 2011 armed services covenant from the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron, that was the gold standard, and continues to be the gold standard, for stating a nation's obligation to its forces.

Highlights in the U.K. armed forces covenant include that they, the men and women and their families, “deserve our respect and support, and fair treatment.” It says in that covenant, “the whole nation has a moral obligation to the members of the Naval Service, the Army, and the Royal Air Force, together with their families.” They “should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services. Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most such as the injured and the bereaved.”

It is also important to understand that the United Kingdom is the only country in the world that has a covenant with its service men and women.

I am proud of Bill C-378 and the principles that our armed forces members and veterans are asking for. I would like to take some time to go through the three principles. The first principle states, “that the person, as well as their dependants or survivors, is to be treated with dignity, respect and fairness;" This respect is duly earned, as the men and women who defend our democracy essentially go to work in a theatre of war where those they are battling do not recognize the rights and freedoms that Canadians expect to have.

Canadians would not have those rights and freedoms without the efforts of our brave soldiers and the sacrifices they have faced on battlefields for the past 150 years. In the words of Aaron Bedard, a veteran and someone I now consider a friend, about fairness, respect, and dignity, “I know that the principles of fairness, respect and dignity towards Canadian veterans are as important to [Canadians] as they are for veterans and our families.” I believe that in all that I am. It was Sir Robert Borden who first touched on the idea of obligation because of the duty performed by our Canadian Forces.

The second principle of Bill C-378 states that we should recognize “the uniqueness of the person's professionalism”, and “the obligations and sacrifices”, such as that a profession “demands also impacts the experiences of their family”.

It was only in recent years where the duty of a soldier's family has been recognized. This recognition is long overdue. For far too many years, families along with veterans suffered in silence with what was at first called “shell shock”, which we know now as the unseen injury of post-traumatic stress disorder.

On that note, the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George has passed Bill C-211 in the House. It has been 168 days that legislation has been in the Senate, and it is time that the bill be passed in the Senate.

In many veterans affairs committee meetings, it was the spouse or a family member that spoke out about their roles in keeping their father, brother, mother, sister alive after returning from theatres of war. Bill C-378, if passed, will forever recognize the uniqueness and obligations of not only the veterans who fought, but the families of the soldiers and our veterans.

More important is the third principle, “that any decision regarding the care, treatment or re-establishment in civil life of the person and the benefits to be provided to them be made in a timely manner.”

Many discussions in the House and in committee revolve around the care that our veterans receive. In some cases, Veterans Affairs does well, and I commend the men and women who work in VAC offices across Canada, in call centres, and in the Charlottetown headquarters, for the work that they do.

However, there must be a recognition that there are cases where gaps are located and the standard of service cannot be met.

The idea of providing benefits in a timely manner must be considered in all aspects of the care received by our veterans when they are transitioning to civilian life. There is a standard of care, but there are way too many gaps right now causing delays. We can do better, and we must do better.

Dave Bona, a veteran and mefloquine survivor said it best when he stated:

When a soldier comes home all they ask for is to have the services and medical care they need available in a timely manner for themselves and their family. Having these reasonable principles in the act will set in place the simple obligation that we ask for.

The obligation is that care be provided when it is needed, not six, seven, 10, or 12 months after it is asked for. The obligation of getting care to veterans rests with Veterans Affairs Canada. Service provision in a timely manner does not mean using an average of 16 weeks to deliver services within, for example, but giving a realistic expectation to veterans and their families of the different care that will be delivered in varying circumstances. The principle of receiving care in timely manner takes the idea of “in a timely manner” from being aspirational to being realistic and expected. It also puts it in legislation. As research improves how care is delivered, so should the timing of when that care is delivered.

As I said, last summer I had an opportunity to travel the country with the members for Yorkton—Melville and Souris—Moose Mountain, and met with veterans and their families. I met with a Robert Gagnon, a veteran walking across B.C. to help veterans suffering from PTSD. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, we talked with the women and men who run the military family resource centres. I met with Medric Cousineau, who has saved 99 lives by pairing veterans with trained service dogs. In Calgary, we learned the incredible story of how the police are helping our homeless veterans. In Edmonton, we met with CAF members and veterans together, and in that meeting, a colonel helped one veteran get off the street after hearing his story at that round table.

I give all of the credit for the three principles in Bill C-378 to everyone we met this summer. It is the veterans and their families, the MFRC staff, and the volunteers and activists who helped get this bill to the House today.

I hope all members of the House will support this bill and get Bill C-378 to committee, where more voices of veterans and their families can be heard on these important principles and the need to get them put into legislation.

Finally, as I close, I will give the last words to Don Sorochan, a lawyer from Vancouver, B.C. He wrote to me and said:

I welcome this Bill to further recognize the Military Covenant. Throughout our history Canadians have put life and limb on the line to serve Canada. The Covenant is Canada’s promise that in return for this service to protect our country and its democratic institutions, those who serve and their dependents will be honoured, respected and looked after by a grateful nation. The implementation of this Covenant should not be left to the whims of bureaucrats or the other pressing demands of the government of the day.

It is important to understand that this obligation is not just to be placed on the current government, this minister, or the bureaucracy. This covenant is to be placed on future generations, future governments, future ministers, future bureaucrats, and future parliamentarians, who understand the sacred obligation, the covenant that Canada should have, needs to have and, hopefully, will have with its veterans.

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House today, 150 years since the very first sitting on November 6, 1867.

Before I move onto this, it is appropriate that I send our thoughts and prayers to friends, families, colleagues, and first responders who attended the church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Our thoughts and prayers are with the friends, the families, and all first responders in that entire community. Just as they are grieving, we are grieving with them.

I thought about what I would say on the fall economic statement. Today, I will talk about our legacy because, at the end of the day, all of us will be remembered for something. In preparing for this speech, I stumbled across a couple of quotes that I thought I would enter into the records. The first is, “No legacy is so rich as honesty.” That was by William Shakespeare. Over the last two year, we have seen the Prime Minister's actions, his direction and his choice of how he will move forward in his mandate or what he believes is his mandate.

I coached for a long time. I would always tell our kids, when I was coaching hockey, or baseball, or soccer or when I was working with youth groups, that they would go through this life once. At the end of the day, all they would have was their integrity, their legacy. I would ask them what they would like to leave behind, or what would be their brand as they moved through life. When I would worked in schools, I would talked to kids. I would ask them what a brand was. They would say that a brand was the swoosh on a Nike shoe, or it was the great big A&W sign or the bear for A&W. I would tell them that their brand was what people would say about them after they left the room. The kids talked about the the swoosh or all those other items. These are logos and marketing tools, but a brand is really what people say about us.

If we compare governments and prime ministers over the years, Prime Minister Harper took us from back row and second from the left to principled leadership and the front row. That will no doubt elicit jabs from the other side, but I want to offer this. We had a leader who was principled, who put his thoughts always on Canadians, how our policy would impact those who elected us, how we were seen on the world stage with respect to Canada as a collective as one nation, and I have the examples to back it up.

There are those of us who are more concerned about how we are perceived through the lens of others than how our actions are perceived and what our legacy will be. I will use a very recent example.

We have a young Prime Minister who has been in Vogue. He has been seen planking, photo bombing through Stanley Park in my beautiful province of British Columbia. He has been seen with his shirt off. Far be it for me to criticize.

We had a leader who was known for his principled leadership. Now there is a leader who is known for fancy socks or for showing up in question period in a Superman Halloween costume underneath his clothes. I was in the House that day. Many on this side were wondering if he had a new haircut. Somebody said that he was trying to be Waldo. I said no. I said that if we had learned anything over the last two years, it was that he believed he was Superman. I said he was trying to Clark Kent. The Prime Minister left part way through question period and returned quickly. Shortly thereafter in social media was the Prime Minister coming down the stairs showing the large Superman logo. He thought that was very novel and that it would be on the front page of newspapers.

At a time when fishers, farmers, and small business people are suffering, the Prime Minister is being investigated by the Ethics Commissioner. The finance minister is embroiled in an investigation, one that I do not know we ever have seen before. He seemingly has profited since being in office. He introduced legislation that would benefit the companies in which he had assets. We now know that there are more hidden businesses, numbered companies, in the Bahamas. The latest leak in the last 24 hours is that there are more questions. Canadians are hearing about questionable actions, which are leading to more questions.

I come back to our legacy. When I ran in the election, I had an opportunity to speak to a few members of Parliament, a few MLAs, and leaders within the community, who I hold in high esteem. They are really my mentors and I respect them. They put our constituents first. I think the world of Mayor Lyn Hall in my riding. During the course of the wildfires, he led his team with actions, not just words. He helped alongside myself and some of the MLAs as our community grew beyond our traditional population base. We welcomed 11,000 evacuees into our community and looked after them. We opened up our hearts and homes and looked after them.

With true leadership, MLA Mike Morris, MLA Shirley Bond, and MLA John Rustad did whatever they could to ensure that those in our communities were cared for. We do that every day, not just when there are emergencies. Why? Because we care more for how those in the community who elected us are doing than getting a picture on the front page of a newspaper, wearing new socks, walking a red carpet, or taking a selfie. We care about those who elect us. We care deeply about our communities. We care deeply about Canadians.

We have a government that campaigned on promises to Canadians, that said they were ready to lead. They said real change will be coming. Have we ever seen real change. The Liberals announced in their fall fiscal update that they have no plan to get back to a balanced budget. They have no plan, because it is not their money. They have no idea.

When I talk about my family finances, I do not refer to them as my fortune. In my riding of Cariboo—Prince George, there are very few people who can stand before a mike or a camera and talk about their family's fortune. They would probably say they are worried about their family's finances or how they are going to make ends meet. They would probably say they are worried about the fact that Canada does not have a softwood lumber agreement in place.

There is a further concern in terms of one of our number one industries within the province of British Columbia. This past weekend, Tolko, one of the largest mills in my riding and located in Williams Lake, had a massive fire. This added further insult to the fact that we lost 53-million cubic metres of fibre in the wildfires this past summer.

The Liberal government has dithered away any opportunity to get a softwood lumber agreement in place, and hundreds of people have been waiting to see their government stand up for them and fight. Now there is further uncertainty in our communities. There is further uncertainty in our communities because of what the government has done. The Liberals like to say that Canadians are far better off, but the reality is that hydro, gasoline, home heating, health and dental benefits, employee discounts, personal savings, life-saving therapies, and local businesses have all been attacked by them, regardless of what they say.

People at home are listening to this debate today. People in the gallery are listening. I can say that everyone gets talking points. Government members get talking points. When we ask the hard questions that Canadians want us to ask, time and time again the Liberals will stand up and give the same repetitive answer, which turns out to be a non-answer. Why is that? It is because they do not believe they have to answer to Canadians.

There is another quote that I want to mention, “All good men and women must take responsibility to create legacies that will take the next generation to a level we could only imagine.” What level are we talking about for the next generation? Under the leadership of Prime Minister Trudeau, what is the government going to leave to the next generation? The debt we are incurring today, the money we are talking about today, is not free money. It has to be paid back. Who is going to pay that money back? It will be my kids. It will be their kids. The next generation will have to pay it back. That will be the Liberal legacy.

I have stood in the House a number of times since the summer. I have talked about the wildfires and how our communities managed to rally together.

Speaking about legacies, there is a gentleman back home who is very sick. I believe he knew how sick he was during the summer. Regardless of how sick he was, he continued to fight the fires. He continued to lead teams all on his own. He is a local logging contractor whose name is Lee Todd. He is legendary in the Cariboo. However, he was sick, and I am not quite sure how sick, but he flew his personal helicopter to try to spot where the first fires were. He led other local contractors.

In the Cariboo, we do not take no for an answer and we do whatever we can to get things done. Regardless of whether it is prescribed, we just get it done. We do not ask for permission, many times we beg forgiveness afterward, but we get the job done. Nobody knows what tomorrow is going to bring but, for me, one of Lee's legacies is going to be that regardless of his own health and well-being, he continued to lead and do whatever he could. For example, he opened his shop and fed the firefighters and contractors who wanted to save our community.

I throw that in because, again, when we are talking about legacy and moving forward, we have to be reminded time and again that this House does not belong to us. It does not belong to the government or to those of us on the side. It belongs to Canadians. We were elected to be here and be their voices. We have talked about parliamentary privilege over the last year. That privilege is not so we can get to the front of line, ride in fancy vehicles, or attend fancy events. Parliamentary privilege is there to protect the rights of Canadians. This has been forgotten.

We have a Prime Minister and a House leader who wanted to change the standing rules of the House because they thought it would modernize them. They have invoked closure on debate, time allocation, time and again. I know what is going to come from the other side. They are going to start pointing fingers and saying that when those guys were in power this is what they did. Well, I can only speak about my experience. I am a new member of Parliament, as people know. I am fortunate that the good people of Cariboo—Prince George elected me. I have lived every day of being elected with the mindset of asking what my legacy is, because I may only get the chance to be elected once. We do not know how long this opportunity is going to last. Whatever we do, we should try to impact and change as many lives as we can.

Hopefully, people see that they have a fighter and I am fortunate enough to be elected in the next election. Whether it is my bill, Bill C-211, that calls on the government to develop a national framework with respect to post-traumatic stress disorder; our work in talking about the impacts of impaired driving on families, which loss never heals regardless of time; working with my colleagues on this side of the House to hold the government accountable and fight for Canadians; working with colleagues across the way on team Canada approaches, and going to the U.S. to sit side by side with them and presenting team Canada, not being partisan, but team Canada; or whether it is through parliamentary trips, we always have to be mindful of what our legacy is.

I know my time is very short. I want to leave everyone with this last quote, and I have one question after that. John Diefenbaker said, “Freedom is the right to be wrong, [freedom is] not the right to do wrong.” I think that is so important. I am going to leave my colleagues with this. Before the partisan jabs come out, I want to ask everyone in the House what they want their legacy to be and what they want to be remembered for. Is it standing up for someone who is hiding assets and making it harder for Canadians? Fight, fight for Canadians.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be attending the 70th annual Ontario Psychological Association's public service awards event this evening. The ceremony honours those who have contributed greatly to improving conditions for the most vulnerable among us. The OPA itself has been recognized at the highest level for groundbreaking work with Canada's military heroes.

Today, I am pleased to announce that my bill, Bill C-211, has received second reading in the Senate. However, more work is needed. Just as we witnessed in the House, the support of all our Senate colleagues is needed to ensure we see my legislation through.

Tonight, as I attend the OPA event, I will carry the message that we are all working collectively to see that Bill C-211 gets passed as quickly as possible and that we all recognize that lives depend on it.

Every day, I am touched by those who are suffering, those brave enough to put a face to my bill. I am deeply committed to honouring their bravery, their strength, and their perseverance as we work together to ensure those who need help get help.

[Robert Hage, Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I should say that I've timed my remarks. They're five minutes and 30 seconds, so perhaps you would grant me the other 30 seconds.

During my 38 years in the Canadian Foreign Service, I have had the opportunity to work in the department's legal bureau, including a period as director general for legal affairs. I was also a representative for Canada at the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea.

I have written two articles relevant to the committee's work for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. The first is the “Legal Aspects of an Oil Tanker Ban: Bill C-211”, which I wrote in 2012; and “Risk, Prevention, and Opportunity: Northern Gateway and the Marine Environment”, which I wrote in 2015.

Bill C-211 was the last of five Liberal or NDP private members' bills between 2007 and 2011 to legislate an oil tanker ban on B.C.'s west coast in an area north of Vancouver Island. I wrote that this “opens a Pandora's box of issues involving the United States, including Canada's historic claims to these waters, the Alaska Panhandle boundary, the passage of nuclear submarines, innocent passage, and fishing rights.”

All five bills ban tanker traffic in the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound, an area under Canadian legislation known as fishing zone 3. The key issue is the nature of the Alaska boundary, called the A-B line, adjacent to Dixon Entrance. Canada claims that the 1903 British-American arbitration, which delimited this boundary, created both a land and maritime boundary. The U.S. position is that the A-B line is a land boundary only and does not demarcate an ocean boundary. It has claimed a territorial sea south of the line, thereby creating a disputed maritime area where each nation has arrested the fishing vessels of the other.

Since the 1890s, Canada has maintained that Dixon Entrance is part of the historic internal waters of Canada. Canada has made similar claims for Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. While the previous bills banned tankers sailing within the defined waters of fishing zone 3, Bill C-48 prohibits tankers carrying crude oil from entering or leaving ports in the same area.

In focusing on the use of Canadian ports, the government has avoided a confrontation with the United States over the status of these waters. A May 12, 2017, media report quotes Minister Garneau's response to reporters' questions about why Bill C-48 does not ban tankers simply passing through Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, or Queen Charlotte Sound. Minister Garneau replied that “such passage is allowed by international law, but it is effectively stopped under a voluntary tanker exclusion zone that the U.S. and Canada agreed some 30 years ago.”

However, for years, Canada has claimed these waters to be internal waters of Canada, where passage is governed by Canadian law and not international law. The U.S. maintains that its rights indeed are governed by international law and has sent numerous diplomatic notes in that regard.

The rather odd result under the bill is that tankers carrying crude oil can still ply these waters as long as they do not enter or leave from a Canadian port. The legislation also does not apply to tankers transporting refined oil. It does not apply to B.C.'s southern waters, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca or the Port of Vancouver-Burnaby, the site of the Kinder Morgan tanker terminal.

Enbridge's Northern Gateway project was cancelled by the government, and the government always has the right to deny any future proposal for a terminal. This raises the question of why such legislation is required at all. The only pipeline and terminal project that the moratorium act affects is the proposed Eagle Spirit Energy corridor, which initially would build an oil pipeline across first nations traditional lands from Fort McMurray to a terminal on Lax Kw’alaams coastal lands, north of Prince Rupert.

In the 2015 article, I looked at Alaska's experience involving its native people and petroleum development. The United States government created 12 regional profit-making native corporations designed to give indigenous peoples the means to ensure their financial independence through their corporate ownership of large tracts of land and the opportunity to develop that land. The results have been very positive. One corporation on the north slope is the state's largest Alaskan-owned corporation, with over 10,000 employees. Another, on the Gulf of Alaska, designed, built, and operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, along with one of the world's largest spill preparedness and response organizations.

While Canada has not created similar native corporations, I believe the proposed Eagle Spirit Energy corridor on traditional first nations territory mirrors this partnership approach, with indigenous peoples very much in the driver's seat. It is paradoxical that this tanker legislation puts an end to a first nations project, which they see as an important move towards reconciliation.

I thank you for your attention, and I'm pleased to respond to any questions.

Suicide Prevention

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this morning I received word of yet another first responder who took their own life. This is the sixth first-responder suicide in a month. Every day I receive messages from people across Canada who desperately want Bill C-211 passed.

In 129 days, eight paramedics, six firefighters, eight police officers, three correctional officers, and four military officers, a total of 29 first responders' lives were lost unnecessarily. These serving men and women have lost their lives in the time since Bill C-211 was passed by the House this past June. They were someone's father, mother, sister, brother, son, and daughter. They all wanted to make their community and country a better place. They served your family, Mr. Speaker, and mine.

It has been 129 days since we stood together and sent the message that we were fighting for those who fight for us. To our colleagues in the Senate and those in the House who have influence, I urge them to put aside partisan politics and let us get to work passing C-211. Lives are depending on it.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I hear you loud and clear, sir. Thank you for your testimony.

I'd like to go to the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs.

Chief, I really appreciate your frankness with us here. My colleague Todd Doherty has a bill, Bill C-211, which would help to create a national framework for post-traumatic stress disorder. Are you supportive of that effort?

Federal Framework on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today in the House to lend my support to Bill C-211.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a difficult challenge for many Canadians and their loved ones. We need to do more to help Canadians from all walks of life living with this condition.

I want to thank my colleague from Cariboo—Prince George for bringing this very important bill forward. I want to thank people from home, the Port Alberni Fire Department, who are watching this live. They have been advocating for a long time for us to deal with PTSD. I also want to thank all the first responders and nations in my community who contributed to help advise me and those who are in the chamber who have been affected by PTSD.

At present, we lack the resources to even begin addressing these challenges. PTSD touches all Canadians in one way or another and we need a national approach to solve it.

Nearly one in 10 Canadians experience post-traumatic stress at some point in their lives. Bill C-211 is a strong step toward helping these Canadians. It sheds much needed light on a disorder too often kept in the darkness. Many people struggle with the stigma attached with mental illness. Particularly, it is difficult to articulate how the effects of trauma continue to manifest in a variety of symptoms. Canadians do not lack in compassion, but we are failing to provide the resources that people need to deal with mental illness.

As I mentioned, the bill is a very strong step, but I am concerned with some of the limits in its scope. It calls for a conference within the next 12 months between the ministries of health, veterans affairs, and National Defence, provincial groups, and health care providers to determine a framework to begin addressing PTSD. I am very happy to see that. These measures include: establish a program to monitor and track rates of PTSD and its social and economic costs at the national level; establish best practices guidelines for health care providers to diagnose and treat PTSD; and create an awareness program to help spread the word across the country around the issues and challenges that people with PTSD face.

We know we are lagging behind our fellow OECD countries when it comes to the funding for mental health. This is inadequate. We must do better.

I am glad the bill calls for collaboration among the ministries of health, defence, and veterans affairs. How we choose to support our veterans, as my friend from Windsor West talked about, will be a key part of the legacy of both the current and previous governments. Many veterans in my riding come home with PTSD. I see them on the doorstep. They are vocalizing the lack of supports they need. Now is also the time for us to take a really hard look at ourselves and how we treat our vets. We see the impact that prolonged military engagements have had on our bravest service men and women and we are failing them.

While the Prime Minister reminds us that we have a sacred obligation to our veterans, very little has been done for those who are falling through the cracks. This is in large part due to the traumatic events they have bravely volunteered to face for our country.

The bill also calls for a better collection of data related to cases of PTSD across Canada. Canada has been described as a country of trials and pilot projects when it comes to health care. We often have innovative projects that result in great outcomes and knowledge. However, when it comes to implementation and education across the country, we fall behind. At the moment, Canada has little to no data at the national level informing our policy on PTSD.

In my riding, despite the best efforts of some truly amazing health care professionals, our health care system is in a state of crisis. The bill would help immensely to bring the level of PTSD awareness up across the country. It would help ensure that the knowledge and research of experts is shared with practitioners and a framework is adopted for everyone.

PTSD is a significant issue for first responders, police personnel, firefighters, and the countless others we ask to assist in emergency situations. According to the Tema Conter Memorial Trust, 68 first responders committed suicide in 2016. This is a tragedy and we need to have better support for these individuals. It is staggering how little consistency there is to support these professionals from province to province. We need to take the lead at the federal level to establish a national framework.

One RCMP officer put it to me like this: “We should not have to beg and jump over fences to get the help we need.” I could not agree with him more.

In the small communities in my riding, first responders often get called to fatal emergency sites of people they personally know. It is difficult for these individuals to describe the feeling of isolation and helplessness that this can create.

While these individuals are hard at work keeping our communities safe, they often struggle in their personal lives. One individual spoke about how something as everyday as a car driving by pulled him back to the scene of a particularly devastating accident. That accident was 10 years ago, but the vivid details still linger for him. This is all too often the case.

Another individual had this to say about a recent experience: “In this last couple of days, I've experienced some overwhelming emotions that I haven't experienced a lot in my previous nine and a half years on the job. On a Thursday nightshift during a response to a stabbing, during the treating of the victim before ambulance arrived, my partner was working directly in front of me. Due to the nature of injuries, we both had to be very hands on, totally focused on patient care. It was during this time that I had this feeling of wanting to keep looking over my shoulder. After the patient was packaged, my partner went with paramedics to assist. As I walked back to the blood-covered clothes and started looking at all the equipment we had used, I felt this overwhelming sense of being alone. As I gathered up our equipment and drove alone to the hospital to pick up my partner, the full weight of trauma set in.”

I want to thank these brave individuals who took the time to share their stories with me. We are doing this for them, and for the countless others who keep our communities safe. It is vital that this bill includes the Department of Public Safety in its framework.

We also need to have a meaningful look at how we handle mental health for indigenous peoples. I wish that this bill did more to address these challenges, but ultimately it falls to the government to do more. Many first nations people are living with trauma and damage from the lingering horrors and effects of the residential school system. They are living with PTSD. Unfortunately, suicide and illness are a common part of life in my community, and in communities across this country. The legacy of residential schools cannot be downplayed.

This is a key opportunity for us to address their suffering, which is too often ignored by Ottawa. I know that many of the communities in my own riding have established, but heavily underfunded programs that rely on counselling, traditional healing, and other services to help their members.

I urge the House to consider those people and their programs as they confront PTSD. I want to conclude my remarks by reminding my colleagues in the House that partisanship must not stop us from addressing the challenge of post-traumatic stress disorder. It touches homes and communities across the country. New Democrats and I are proud to support those in this House and others who are taking actions to deal with this tragic disorder. We sincerely hope that we can get both education and treatment for those who need it.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise and speak to Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder.

I would like to thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George for putting this legislation forward. His approach in getting the bill through the House is very professional. It is important to recognize that members of Parliament can work together, and this legislation is a good example of that co-operation.

There are a couple of points that I want to note with regard to the bill, but first I want to tell the House one of the reasons I have such an interest in the bill.

Some of the people in Windsor West who might be watching us today are from Branch 143 of the Royal Canadian Legion. It was during my time as a member of Parliament that I learned about the seriousness of what is taking place and the commitment that our men and women in the military make, both overseas and in Canada.

About 10 years ago, I had one of the most interesting and life-changing moments of my life. I was invited to participate in a discussion group at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 143. Also present were a number of individuals who were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. That intimate exposure was certainly important. These were not just soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. They were World War II veterans, Korean veterans, peacekeepers, and others who were all still struggling with the ordinary things in daily life. That experience helped to elevate my understanding of PTSD.

I was a social worker before I came to this place. I dealt with people who came to Canada as refugees. The trauma that they experienced in their countries is quite different from what people go through here in Canada. My job was to help them integrate into Canadian society, whether it was school or work or whatever. How can we take a young man who has lost his family and his house and then integrate him into our Canadian society? He himself might have volunteered in a hospital or another traumatic place while never receiving any type of support.

This legislation is important because it would help to bridge a gap. PTSD does not just affect military personnel. It affects first responders and other citizens in all of society. We need to understand that mental health and illness issues are a life-long journey for all of us. People should not be ashamed of these issues and should not be afraid to talk about them. More importantly, work needs to be done to provide the support that people need.

Windsor West lacks many services for children who need, for example, psychologists. This is a critical problem. We do not invest in mental health in the way we should, as we do in our other health areas. Not being able to deal with these kinds of issues on a regular basis affects all of us.

If, despite the overlap of jurisdictions, we can deal with this issue as a nation from coast to coast to coast, with all of the provinces and territories and all the municipalities, it will make Canada truly special and an example for others to follow. More importantly, we can achieve effective results.

It is important to outline a few things in the legislation that people may not understand. The bill talks about bringing together the appropriate ministers in a reporting process. I will not go into all of the details, but the bill proposes putting a system in place that could deal with PTSD. The bill is not talking only about consultation. A lot of people, especially our good men and women in service, have been consulted many times, and they need action.

I will be supporting the bill in its current state because although it includes the consultation process, it also talks about expectations, measurements, and deliverables. That will put the government of the day and members of Parliament of the day on notice that this is a serious issue that affects all Canadians. At the end of the day, we expect to see results, and the results mean helping people deal with the many different personal issues related to PTSD.

Those issues affect us so profoundly. The symptoms include everything from re-experiencing traumatic events over and over or reliving them, to recurring nightmares, disturbing memories of the event, acting or feeling as if the event is happening again, avoiding friends and family, drug addiction, being unable to feel pleasure, constant anxiety, difficulty concentrating, getting angry easily, sleeping difficulties, fearing harm from others, experiencing sudden attacks of dizziness, a fast heartbeat or shortness of breath, and fear of dying. All of these things, when left in a vacuum, are not helpful, not only to the individual but to society.

I would argue, not on the principle of doing this for mere ethics or because it is the right thing to do, but I would argue that it is a bond and social contract that should be expected in return by individuals who occupy professions that put them at risk in service to their communities and society.

We have decided to provide the supports necessary to allow the people in those occupations to not only have what they have today but in the future. That is a social contract for firefighters, police officers, soldiers, nurses, and paramedics. For all of the different occupations, there is a social contract that does not end when that occupation concludes. We are asking people to perform duties that put them at risk and affect their families as part of their jobs. The social contract we have is to provide the proper supports so they can continue to be productive and, most importantly, have good mental health.

We have an opportunity in the House to make a difference with the bill. The member for Cariboo—Prince George has provided the opportunity for all of us, in a non-partisan way, to end this session on a high note. New Democrats are very proud to be part of it. There are so many people who contribute so much. We have invested in training professionals, in their occupations, in being parents, and in being community leaders. If we do not take care of them, we are not taking care of ourselves.

One reason I like community activism is the ability to act. At the end of the day, the ability to act defines us differently as Canadians. When I look at all the campaigns to stop the shame of mental illness, many of them involve the corporate sector, the non-for-profit sector, and, where I come from, the professional sector. Some of the moments for our Afghanistan veterans have put things in a different light and we now have an opportunity to go forward.

I do not want to name people, but I will name one person, because it is an important chapter that will never get told. A gentleman in the Windsor area named Wayne Hillman was among a number of Canadians who served in Vietnam. He told me that our Afghanistan veterans are coming home with some of the same issues that he and his comrades had. They had no supports when they came home, even though they served in the American military. They finally got some psychological counselling and services, which helped them in their lives. The same thing has been happening here, so we need to apply those resources.

With this bill, let us apply even more resources. Let us make sure it not just captured in one occupation or profession. Let us make sure it is part of the normal Canadian practice and culture that mental illness and wellness is part of living healthy in a healthy society.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to private member's bill, Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bill C-211 was introduced by the member for Cariboo—Prince George and calls on the Minister of Health to spearhead a concerted effort aimed at developing a federal framework to address a complex issue.

I would like to thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George for bringing this to the House. I would like to take a moment to talk about the important issue of post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD in Canada.

As the daughter and spouse of firefighters, and the mother of two serving Canadian Armed Forces members, the issue of PTSD is a personal one for me. We have come a long way in our collective understanding of PTSD since it was first added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980.

This addition was a significant turning point, because it formally acknowledged PTSD as an acquired mental health condition rather than a personal shortcoming. During the last decade, neuroimaging studies have reaffirmed that PTSD is real and measurable. Researchers can now observe the brain circuits that mediate this disorder.

Unfortunately, sensational media coverage has helped perpetuate the stereotype that people with PTSD are psychotic and violent, which is an inaccurate portrayal of this mental illness.

A traumatic event involves exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. It may be a one-time incident or involve sustained or repeated exposure.

Exposure can involve experiencing the traumatic event first-hand or witnessing or hearing about a traumatic event that happened to others.

The traumatic event or events completely wipe out the individual's capacity to deal with or process the thoughts and emotions related to the incident.

Events that may be associated with PTSD include combat exposure, childhood abuse, sexual assault, and physical violence. Many other traumatic events can be associated with PTSD, such as natural disasters, intimate partner violence, and other extreme or life-threatening events. PTSD can develop immediately after someone experiences a disturbing event, or it can develop weeks, months, or even years later.

According to a 2008 study, about 9% of people in Canada will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. This is consistent with the worldwide prevalence, which ranges between 7% and 12%. Studies show that females are twice as likely to develop PTSD compared to males, but males are less likely than females to seek help. Children and adolescents also experience this disorder, and genetics may make some people more likely to develop it than others.

We also know that certain populations are at increased risk for PTSD because their jobs expose them to extreme and traumatic events that may be recurring. While many associate PTSD with military service, it can manifest in first responders, firefighters, corrections officers, emergency room personnel, victims of crime, and members of the RCMP.

The few studies that have been conducted indicate that between 10% and 35% of first responders will develop PTSD, and the lifetime prevalence of this disorder among active members of the Canadian Armed Forces is 11%. Unfortunately, there is not enough quality data to provide a clear and complete picture of the prevalence, and social and economic impacts of PTSD in Canada.

Collecting quality data on the prevalence and impact of PTSD in Canada is only part of the solution. Another important aspect is raising public awareness about this mental illness.

Although Canadians have become much more aware of this problem in recent years, there are still gaps in their knowledge and understanding of PTSD symptoms and treatment.

As with many other mental illnesses, a big problem is that, unfortunately, the stigma associated with PTSD prevents many people from getting help and prevents others from recognizing the symptoms associated with this mental illness.

Developing PTSD is not a sign of weakness. Many factors play a part in whether a person will experience PTSD, and it will manifest itself differently for different people. Risk factors make a person more likely to develop PTSD, while protective factors can help build resilience and reduce the risk of developing this disorder.

Risk factors include having prior trauma, having been abused as a child, having pre-existing mental health issues, and having a family history of mental illness. Other socio-economic risk factors include lower levels of income and education, and being from an ethnic minority. Following a traumatic event, people who lack social supports are also at a higher risk.

Protective factors include seeking and receiving support from friends and family, finding a support group, and having positive coping strategies. Researchers study the importance and interplay of risk and protective factors. Their findings continue to inform our understanding of PTSD, including the development of effective preventive and treatment approaches.

While symptoms vary from one individual to the next, those affected by PTSD often relive a traumatic event they experienced either through flashbacks and nightmares or by being exposed to situations that trigger memories of the traumatic experience. Some symptoms include negative thoughts, feelings of isolation or distress, and lack of reaction or fear.

People with PTSD might also have sleep disorders, anxiety, and depressive behaviour, or feel paralyzed at the thought of doing the simplest task.

It is also common for individuals with PTSD to self-medicate by using drugs or alcohol.

With such a range of symptoms, it is not surprising that this disorder can also reduce a person's ability to function in relationships, at work, and in leisure activities.

Without proper treatment, the symptoms of PTSD can get worse and have lasting and devastating effects including substance abuse, chronic pain, hypertension, self-mutilation, and suicide.

Growing evidence shows that early treatment of trauma symptoms may reduce the risk of developing PTSD. This suggests that identification and early intervention using evidence-based treatments is critical to preventing this disorder. PTSD affects people differently, so a treatment that works for one person may not work for another. Some people with this disorder need to try different treatments to find what works for them. Recovery is more complicated for people who have endured repeated trauma, and for those who were traumatized early in life.

The idea is to develop more personalized, effective, and efficient treatments, and possibly even to prevent the disorder from ever manifesting.

Diverse areas of research continue to provide pieces of the puzzle bringing us closer to understanding the whole picture of PTSD. I am inspired by the work done on PTSD, not only by federal departments but also by provinces, territories, and advocacy groups across this country.

We need to come together to break the stigma and to allow those suffering, and the families who suffer along with them, to get the help they need. Today, we come together, we put partisanship aside, and we support our everyday heroes.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak about this important issue in the House of Commons.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

moved that the be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I proudly rise today to speak to my private member's bill, C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder.

On a personal note, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have helped us on our journey to get to today.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank the paramedics, firefighters, military, veterans, police officers, correctional officers, dispatch, and nurses. I thank those who came forward to provide feedback about how we could go about strengthening this legislation in the future, if it is the desire and the will of the House and the Senate to enact the bill into law. I want to thank the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, the jurors, and Mr. Mark Farrant for the honest and heartfelt feedback.

I want to acknowledge the families of the fallen, those left behind to pick up the pieces. I want to thank them for sharing their stories of their loved ones. I want to thank them for showing incredible strength through their immeasurable and unspeakable pain they are going through. I know it has not been an easy journey for anyone, and their willingness to share their stories has been truly inspiring.

I also want to apologize to everyone that it has taken this long to get to this point. It has been 606 days since we were elected. It has been 600 days since I first landed in Ottawa with the background for Bill C-211. It has been 462 days since we tabled Bill C-211. It has been 100 days since we all stood together in the House and passed it unanimously at second reading.

Over this journey, I have tried to bring the voices of those who are suffering forward. I have tried to relay their incredible stories, with the same honest emotion they have shared with me.

I said this before and I will say again, we have received so many emails, so many calls, and so many messages, many of them full of heartbreak and tragedy. With the indulgence of members, I will take this opportunity to read a small excerpt of an email I received a little over a year ago after we first tabled Bill C-211. It is from the wife of one of our fallen, and it reads:

“Thank you.”

“As I write this, I'm trying hard to hold back the tears. The truth is I'm unsure how I even have tears left. I've cried every day since his death and it's been over a year. I can only manage a day at a time, and even that at times is too much. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I guess no one really does. We were only married three years and he was my one true love. He would have been 30 this year. Our son will never know his father. He will never know the incredible man he was. My husband only wanted to serve and to save. Sadly, no one could save him. It's odd how everyone gathers around you at first, then life goes on. I don't get the invites anymore. It's like other wives don't want to be reminded of this, of how this could have been them.”

“Mr. Doherty, your bill is too late for my family, but I hope you will be successful. My pain endures and I'm not sure there is a fix. I will tell my son that his dad was a hero and saved lives. I believe if my husband knew of you and your efforts, it just might have given him enough hope that he would have reached out, that he would have hung on. Please keep fighting for this. For us it is too late, but you and your colleagues will save the lives of others.”

The letter ended with a big “thank you”.

This is one of hundreds, maybe even thousands of emails, messages, comments on social media and from private meetings that we have received since tabling our bill. It is truly overwhelming the stories we have heard from those who are struggling today, those who are receiving help, and those who are left behind to somehow pick up the pieces.

I challenge us all to come up with solutions so we do not lose another life to PTSD.

My team has also heard horrific stories of pain and suffering. In some cases, for those we met with along the way, today was too far away, and the pain was too great. Last week alone, we saw four responders from across Canada commit suicide. Within the last 48 hours, we have had a firefighter from Ottawa and a paramedic from Pickering commit suicide.

One of the questions I was asked when I was appearing at the health committee was whether there was one story that really stands out. The truth is that there are many. It is hard not to get emotional when talking about this, because it is an incredibly heavy burden. Collectively in this House, we have created so much hope.

I will take a moment to try to explain some of this to our hon. members who are in the House right now. From a young age, there are people we have been told to respect and to hold in the highest regard. We hear the stories of their heroics. Books are written. Movies are written and made about these larger-than-life individuals, these superheros. They truly embody all that is Canadian. They are altruistic individuals who want nothing more than to go out and go to work so they can help others, so they can save others, and so they can make their communities and our country safe.

This is something we heard very powerfully from Natalie Harris, a former advanced-care paramedic in the county of Simcoe in Ontario. When she appeared before the health committee on May 16, she told committee members that she went to school in 2001 to become a paramedic. She said, “I learned something new every day, was financially stable, and made such a difference in people's lives. I was in my glory, but no matter how much I loved it, each year became a bit tougher for me to cope with, and I didn't know why.” She would tell herself, “I've fought too hard. I've conquered so many difficult circumstances in my life.” She did not want to lose this career. She reassured herself, “I'm sure I'll be okay.”

Natalie continued by saying:

It's not normal to have a person ask you to just take their leg and arm off because they were experiencing so much pain from being trapped in a car with multiple open fractures all over their body. It's not normal to learn that the patient who hanged himself the night before had a second noose waiting for his wife, had his son not called 911 at the right time. It's not normal to witness a young woman, seven months pregnant, rub her belly with the only limb that could move as she had a stroke that would leave her disabled. It's not normal to see the cellphone on the road beside the obviously dead driver, crushed between the pavement and the car, who was texting and driving, and it's not normal to know he made the three sisters in the other car now two. It's not normal to experience and see the look of true evil when you learn how two innocent women were murdered.... It's not normal to see someone die before your eyes more times than you can actually count.

I would like to take this moment to thank Natalie once again for coming forward. Nothing prepares a person for these experiences. As politicians, we often do our best to translate our concerns and the concerns of our constituents into speeches and talking points, but I can truly say that in all my life, there are few people who have been able to make such an impactful statement. I know the members of the health committee who are here today felt the same way.

Our warriors make the ultimate sacrifice. They make the sacrifice by taking time away from their loved ones, their family, and their friends. They put their uniforms on every day knowing full well that they may never have an opportunity to say goodbye. They are those who run toward danger when we and others would run the other way. They experience human tragedy every day, yet they still, without exception, without hesitation, answer the call of duty. They face the sights, sounds, and smells that will stay with them for a lifetime.

Freedom is not free. There is a very real cost. Knowing what these individuals go through, I would like to share with members the flip side for a moment.

All of a sudden, these roles are reversed. Those people are now looking toward this House. They are looking to all of us, as members of Parliament and legislators. They are asking for help.

The hardest part in all this is having those people, who I know our hon. colleagues also look to as heroes, coming forward, through emails, calls, and messages, saying, “Thank you for bringing this legislation forward.”

It is such an honour to be a member of Parliament. It is truly a humbling experience. There are a few experiences I have had over the course of the last two years that have really hit home. I would like to tell members about a couple.

Shortly after being elected, stepping out of my car in a parking lot back home in Cariboo—Prince George, someone came up to me and asked if I was a member of Parliament. I said I was, and the person said, “We just want to let you know that our family loves you, and we pray for you every night. Thank you for your service.”

Another point was having someone come to us, with tears in his eyes, a police officer, thanking us, saying that we have saved his life because of the work we have done on this bill. It has allowed him to come forward to his family and to his friends, seeking help.

The other was at second reading, when a giant of a man, a former firefighter who himself has been fighting post-traumatic stress disorder, came to me and said, “Thank you. For the first time, I have hope.” Then he introduced me to his young son and said, “This is what a true Canadian hero looks like.” Words cannot express how humbling that was.

Is there not something to be said about that, that our heroes, our warriors, have been left to deal with the horrors of post-traumatic stress disorder alone and in silence? Even though they are hurting, they continue to remain just a call away when we need them. To me, that is simply shameful. It breaks my heart.

We have been blessed that so many people have followed us along this journey, some of whom were here March 8 when 284 members of Parliament rose together to send Bill C-211 to committee, and they have seen the good work we have done to this point. However, the work does not stop here.

Bill C-211 was developed to look at the overwhelming issue and the epidemic we have with respect to our first responders, our veterans, and our military. We are losing our warriors left and right. The challenge is this, a challenge that many groups we have met with over the last 18 months acknowledge. Today, as it stands, we do not have a piece of legislation that deals with PTSD. We have inconsistencies across our country, even in terminology, in diagnoses, and in treatment. We have some groups doing great work. We have others who hang a shingle and claim that they are experts. The reality is that they are causing more harm than good. We have inconsistencies across our nation in who or what is covered. An RCMP member serving in one part of our country may not be eligible for the same services their colleagues are in other provinces.

One academic brought forth the rule of thirds. He said 30% of those who are suffering with PTSD will recover 100%; 30% will have an okay life; and 30% we will lose altogether. That was one of my first committee meetings, and I took exception to this. Post-traumatic stress disorder is not something that can be cured 100%. It is a traumatic brain injury, and anything can trigger a setback.

I want to leave my hon. colleagues with this. If they had the power to save a live today, would they do so? If they knew their actions today could save lives, would they be brave enough to follow through? I ask because we have been given that opportunity today, as we speak. We can help ensure that another life is not lost and that the four lives last week, the two within the last 48 hours, and the hundreds lost since I first tabled Bill C-211 were not lost in vain.

As I read earlier from the wife of the fallen officer, the one line that sticks out is, “I don't know what tomorrow will bring.... I guess no one really does.”

For those who have been following our journey, those who are in the room with us today and those who are watching across our nation and internationally, tomorrow is just another excuse or delay, and sometimes tomorrow is too far away. I ask of you, let us not wait for tomorrow when we can truly make a difference today.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-211, An Act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the average rate of suicide within the general public is 11.5 per 100,000 people. The rate of suicide within the first responder community is 56 per 100,000 people.

Today Peel Region paramedics are saying goodbye to one of their own. He was a husband, a father, a friend, and a brother. This past week families, friends, and colleagues said goodbye to first responders from North Battleford, Saskatchewan, from North Vancouver, and from northern British Columbia. Four lives were cut short because of post-traumatic stress disorder.

My bill, Bill C-211, comes too late for these families. I hope next week, when Bill C-211 enters the House for third reading, that it passes unanimously, because collectively we will send a message that these deaths were not in vain, that we stand together in the fight against PTSD, and that those who are suffering are not alone.

To my colleagues, we must be better; we must do better. To the families, friends, and colleagues of the fallen, my heart goes out to them, and I am truly sorry for their loss.

PTSD Awareness Month

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, June is post-traumatic stress disorder month and is dedicated to raising awareness of those it affects. This month is also meant to teach all of us how we can help those who suffer from PTSD.

As a former firefighter, I am very proud to have supported the work done by the member from Cariboo—Prince George on Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD does not discriminate. It can affect anyone at any age at any time at any stage of their lives. It affects those in combat situations, veterans, first responders, and other occupations, like doctors and nurses.

I would also like to recognize the work of Natalie Harris, a Barrie resident who, as a paramedic, suffers from PTSD, but it does not prevent her from selflessly helping others with PTSD. Natalie was in Ottawa last month testifying at the health committee. She is an inspiration to me and to so many others.

Let us all work together to raise awareness and help those suffering from PTSD.

Health

[Bill Casey, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure and honour to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Health in relation to Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder. After some incredible testimony and impressive witnesses with emotional stories to tell, the committee has studied the bill and decided to report the bill back to the House with amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We will call our meeting number 56 to order. Imagine: meeting number 56.

Today we are doing clause-by-clause of Bill C-211, and then we have a bit of committee business to do after that. We will go right to Bill C-211.

Is everybody ready?

Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1, the short title, and the preamble is postponed until the end, so I am calling clause 2.

(On clause 2)

Does clause 2 carry? All in favour?

Mr. Davies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We're going to reconvene for a few minutes.

We have a few business items here to deal with.

Our next meeting is on June 6. We need witnesses for Lyme. The clerk would like to have proposed witnesses by this Friday for the Lyme disease study, the framework.

The amendments for Bill C-211 should be in immediately. We're going to do clause-by-clause on Thursday. If you have any amendments to propose, you should let us know and get them in.

We have a public health effects of pornography, M-47, bibliography of studies and sources submitted by Mr. Viersen, but it wasn't translated into French. Is it all right with the committee if we accept it only in English? Do I have consensus for that? Okay.

Mr. Kang.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

At the end of the day, we as a committee have to approve or amend Bill C-211. One of the clauses says that the federal framework should include “the establishment of a national medical surveillance program to use data collected by the Agency”, the Public Health Agency.

Anne-Marie, do you know whether the Public Health Agency is collecting data now that we would be able to create that from?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Bill C-211, as a bill, basically deals with tracking of the incidence of PTSD. It ensures that there's a standard diagnosis and treatment set to manage it, and then education, and dissemination of that information across Canada. While I support that generally, I'm wondering if it really gets to the heart of the issue. I'm wondering if, at the heart of the issue, there is the reluctance of many organizations to acknowledge PTSD because of the burden it might put on them financially, and some of the issues where an employer might resist wanting to acknowledge PTSD because of it.

In Ontario, for instance, you mentioned, I think, Bill 163. The presumption is that if you have PTSD and you're a first responder, or in that category of workers, without any challenge, that is a work-related illness. Much more quickly, the treatment starts, and you're very quickly into treatment processes. WCB in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are both working on presumption clauses, that if you have PTSD, the assumption is it is work-related. There is already, I think, some pretty good case knowledge and understanding of how to identify and how to treat PTSD. Is it about better education on those things, or is it really about the receptivity of employers and other WCB agencies, potentially federal government and the military, to recognize PTSD as having a cause originating from workplace activities?

[Darshan Singh Kang, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

First of all, I'd like to thank all the witnesses here. Natalie, thank you for the very moving testimony. I get emotional when I hear this kind of stuff. Definitely people are out there, and they're crying out loud for help. I think as a committee we should be doing something about it. Thanks again.

In the Bill C-211 preamble, it specifically refers to PTSD of “first responders, firefighters, military personnel, corrections officers and members of the RCMP”.

My question is to Professor Sareen or whoever feels best to answer it.

Does the process of diagnosis and treatment of PTSD among these particular groups differ from the process for other individuals? Are there any factors that make an individual either more vulnerable or more resilient to PTSD? What other groups do you think would be suffering from PTSD?

[Natalie Harris, Advanced Care Paramedic, County of Simcoe, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, honourable members of Parliament and your staff, members of the Standing Committee on Health, analysts, proceedings and verification officers, and honourable chairperson.

My name is Natalie Harris, and it is my pleasure to have this opportunity to share with you how important MP Todd Doherty's Bill C-211 is to myself and to so many first responders, veterans, military personnel, and corrections officers across Canada. Establishing a national framework to address the challenges of recognizing the symptoms and providing timely diagnosis and treatment of post-traumatic stress is essential to saving the lives of those who passionately care for and protect the citizens of this great country every day.

It has always been easy for me to share that I'm an advanced care paramedic with the County of Simcoe in Ontario and the mom of two beautiful children, Caroline and Adam, but it's only been over the last two years with the support of my family and friends that I have developed the courage to share that I also battle post-traumatic stress disorder and attempted to take my own life in 2014 when I had no hope of getting the treatment and support I needed to survive.

You may be wondering to yourselves what in the world this seemingly normal girl could possibly teach you today. I may not be representing an organization, but that's okay, because what I do represent is very important. I sit here before you representing what could be your sister, mother, daughter, wife, friend, or partner, who may be silently battling a world of darkness all on her own because she is too afraid to ask for help for fear of no longer being able to do the job she so dearly loves, for fear of being ridiculed and labelled with mental health stigma for the rest of her life, and for fear of not being heard.

In October 2014, PTSD had caused me to live in a world filled with fear and sadness that constantly undervalued my fundamental necessity to breathe. It caused me to live in a world filled with darkness, distorted thinking, and illogical reasoning. It caused me to live in a world that harboured powerful voices that told me that I should hurt myself because I was worthless, and that everyone would be better off without me. In October 2014, PTSD caused me to know for certain that I was going to take my own life. On that dreaded day, after swallowing half a bottle of muscle relaxants, I wrote a letter to whoever would find me, “I'm so sorry. You will be okay. I love you.” I then swallowed the rest of the bottle.

I started feeling tired. I knew the medicine was working. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, more numb than I'd ever been in my life, while I was literally waiting to die. I remember feeling sick, and somehow in my haze I made it to the bathroom. That's all I remember. For all I knew, I would never wake up again. For all I knew, I was dead.

What I didn't know was that my colleagues had found me and brought me to the hospital where I remained unconscious for 12 hours. The doctors and nurses pumped litres of fluid into me with the hope of saving my liver. As the hours went by, my abdomen grew full of fluid, and I turned jaundiced as evidence that my liver couldn't keep up.

My family and friends were seriously discussing funeral plans for me, but somehow I survived. It wasn't time for me to leave this planet quite yet. I still had some pretty important work to do, which has brought me here today.

I went to school in 2001 to become a paramedic. Not long after graduating, I was hired by a service. Going to work was like a dream come true, even during SARS, which is when I was hired. Not very many people can say that about their careers. I learned something new every day, was financially stable, and made such a difference in people's lives. I was in my glory, but no matter how much I loved it, each year became a bit tougher for me to cope with, and I didn't know why.

Through difficult calls, I would silently say to myself, “I'm not going to let this amazing career slip away from me. I've fought too hard. I've conquered so many difficult circumstances in my life. I'm sure I'll be okay,” but secretly I began to develop a repertoire of illusions used to hide my true emotions even from myself. Back then, I barely knew what post-traumatic stress was, because we didn't learn about it in school.

I started to see tiny changes in myself in the early years, as days just seemed to go by and calls just happened to add up. I could let most calls move through me in a healthy way, but looking back now I can recognize the deterioration of my coping skills as life as a quiet paramedic took its toll.

Over the years, while being a full-time paramedic, I literally became very comfortable with uncomfortable. I became acclimatized to living a life that included horrific memories, relentless nightmares, and ingrained images of sadness and pain. That may sound barbaric to anyone who is not in the emergency services field, but it is literally a part of our lives almost daily.

Devil's advocates out there may be saying to themselves that we signed up for it, but we didn't. We signed up for an amazing career that allows us to help people on an extraordinary level. No one signed up for mental turmoil. We signed up for the chance to save people's lives. No one signed up for memories of patients screaming in pain. We signed up for achieving educational goals. No one signed up for drowning our sorrows in vices.

We thought we would be strong enough to avoid being uncomfortable, but no one is. Strength isn't measured by the number of deaths we pronounce. It's measured by the number of deaths we recognize we need to talk about in order to sleep at night. First responders are some amazing people, but signing up to be one didn't mean we signed our hearts away.

It's not normal to have a person ask you to just take their leg and arm off because they were experiencing so much pain from being trapped in a car with multiple open fractures all over their body. It's not normal to learn that the patient who hanged himself the night before had a second noose waiting for his wife, had his son not called 911 at the right time. It's not normal to witness a young woman, seven months pregnant, rub her belly with the only limb that could move as she had a stroke that would leave her disabled. It's not normal to see the cellphone on the road beside the obviously dead driver, crushed between the pavement and the car, who was texting and driving, and it's not normal to know he made the three sisters in the other car now two. It's not normal to experience and see the look of true evil when you learn how two innocent women were murdered. It's not normal to be handed a baby who's blue. It's not normal to watch a child have a seizure for 30 minutes because your drugs just wouldn't work. It's not normal to see someone die before your eyes more times than you can actually count.

What we do isn't normal, so why would we think it's okay to be comfortable with that? Why would it be any surprise to hear that first responders are dying every month because they can't take their often hidden memories any longer? I'm uncomfortable with how comfortable we've become.

Honourable members of the committee, we can't wait any longer to acknowledge and act upon the cries of heroes and their families that are happening right now coast to coast. They need Canada to step up to the plate and value their sacrifices in the form of education and support.

So much more needs to be done to prevent the deaths of community heroes, and MP Todd Doherty's Bill C-211 is where this can start. It's on the table, and we can't push it aside. If we do, time wasted will equal lives lost.

I would like to end my testimony by sharing a poem I wrote in memory of my friend and colleague Bob Cooke who died by suicide in September, 2014. We miss Bob, and we will never forget you.

I wish you'd see, but never feel, This illness dark, to some not real. I wish you'd know, it hurts to breathe, My lungs collapse, when comfort leaves. I wish you'd cast my scars away, Repair the marks I formed each day. I wish that answers existed near, To rid my soul of unfounded fear. I wish each tear was never there, They drown my courage left to care. I wish I'm brave enough to smile, Sustain down heartache's endless mile. I wish you'd camouflage each sting, The blackness seems to always bring. I wish I knew I'd be ok, Believe tomorrow's a brighter day. But I can wish with all my might, It won't discount this ceaseless fight. This wish will sail up to the sky, With all the rest who've said good-bye. I'll wish tomorrow, just for hope, Or conjure up some way to cope. Through darkness black, I'll make my way, Exist again another day. I wish...

I never had the opportunity to choose to hang up my uniform. Sadly, PTSD made this decision for me. I plead with you today to move forward with this bill and put Canada on the map with respect to having the best national framework for our heroes so that every uniform can be hung up when the time is right, with the hero's choice.

At this time I would like to present you, the committee, my own dress uniform. I hung that uniform up in my closet quite some time ago. I wasn't able to even look at it until yesterday. I was so sad, hurt, and heartbroken that I needed to end the job that I loved so dearly and still miss to this day. I'm asking you to please take care of my dress uniform. When this bill is moved forward, and we actually get to work on saving those lives coast to coast, would you please give it to MP Todd Doherty, so that he can keep it in his care?

Thank you for your time.

[Dr. Jitender Sareen, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Manitoba, As an Individual]

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

For the committee to understand the context of my comments, I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I'm a psychiatrist and head of the department of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba. I have provided psychiatric consultation and treatment at the Veterans Affairs operational stress injury clinic in Winnipeg as well as at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.

Over the last 17 years, I've had the opportunity to help and learn from people who have suffered with post-traumatic stress, as well as mood and anxiety conditions. I've also held Canadian Institutes of Health Research grants on military mental health as well as first nations suicide prevention.

Currently I'm working with and leading a team of researchers and clinicians in examining the impact of trauma and post-traumatic stress among Canadians. One of the studies is a large survey with Statistics Canada that follows the Canadian military over 15 years.

I want to comment that I'm very supportive of Bill C-211 that has been brought forward. As I understand it, this bill would increase the conversation federally as well provincially in developing a federal framework for recognizing and treating post-traumatic stress disorder.

I will summarize my understanding of the current knowledge of PTSD in Canada as well as internationally. There is increasing recognition around the world about the substantial impact of traumatic stress and PTSD. We know from studies around the world that PTSD is associated with enormous cost to the individual as well as society. We know that approximately 60% to 80% of Canadians, at some point in their life, will be exposed to a severe traumatic experience. Most people exposed to that traumatic experience will be resilient and will not require treatment. Social support is the most important protective factor after exposure to trauma.

However, we do know that 20% to 30% of people exposed to a serious traumatic event will develop a trauma-related condition, for example PTSD, but also other conditions like depression, another anxiety disorder such as panic disorder, or a substance-use problem.

There is more and more knowledge that is accumulating that shows that exposure to repeated trauma over time can increase the risk of PTSD. We also know that physical injuries, assaultive trauma, motor vehicle accidents, and rapid onset of critical illness are associated with PTSD.

Our group has shown that people with PTSD have about three times the likelihood of developing suicidal behaviour compared with those who don't have PTSD.

Women, refugees, public safety officers, health care professionals, military and veterans, as well as indigenous groups, are at higher risk for PTSD. This knowledge comes from some Canadian studies, but mostly from U.S. and other populations.

Most people who have a traumatic injury at work who develop PTSD have difficulty and have complex return-to-work issues.

We also know that co-occurence of physical health problems, such as chronic pain as well as addictions, are common and are associated with morbidity and mortality.

We also know that people with PTSD can have a significant impact on their family, intimate partner, as well as their children, and we also know that relationship conflict, divorce, and separation can trigger suicidal behaviour among people with PTSD and depression.

We know most people with PTSD in the public sector have long delays in receiving evidence-based treatments.

Canadians have limited access to psychiatric and psychological treatment, as well as rehabilitation, in the public system. Many people with PTSD receive medications and treatments that are not recommended by expert consensus guidelines, such as benzodiazepines like Ativan, or medical marijuana.

Marital and family therapy can improve outcomes but is often not available. People in remote communities have limited access to psychological and psychiatric treatment.

We know that early recognition and treatment of traumatic stress symptoms in PTSD can reduce suffering and improve functioning. We also know that a combination of psychological treatments and medication treatment can help in reducing suffering for most people with PTSD.

There is more and more interest in using novel approaches to deliver psychological treatments, such as Internet-based cognitive behaviour therapy as well as large classroom-delivered cognitive behaviour therapy.

There has been a rapid expansion of mental health services in the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs' clinics in the last 15 years. This rapid expansion has reduced waiting times and improved outcomes among Canadian military and veterans with operational stress injuries. In Manitoba, we're highlighting the need for similar interdisciplinary models for providing timely access for civilians suffering with PTSD.

Telehealth and telephone-based care have also shown efficacy in reaching those in rural populations who suffer from PTSD in the United States. These models of care have also been shown to be cost-effective.

Finally, any investment in improving recognition and treatment of PTSD requires strong evaluation.

Thank you so much. I look forward to your questions.

[Anne-Marie Ugnat, Executive Director, Centre for Surveillance and Applied Research, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada]

Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for the invitation to address this committee regarding its study of Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder.

Let me begin by reiterating a statement by the World Health Organization in 2004: that there is no health without mental health.

Mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, are recognized, medically diagnosable illnesses that result in the significant impairment of an individual's cognitive, affective, or relational abilities. Mental illnesses are the result of a complex interaction of biological, developmental, and psychosocial factors. Environmental factors, such as exposure to trauma, can precipitate the onset or recurrence of a mental illness.

Mental health in Canada is a complicated issue that has both direct and indirect impacts on a significant number of Canadians every year.

The federal government has a role to play in the coordination and collaboration of mental health activities. It also has a role in understanding scientific evidence related to the scope of the challenges and what works best to address them. This evidence informs the development of resources for information on best practices and innovation.

While the federal government also has responsibility for mental health services for specific federal populations, such as serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces, veterans, serving and former members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Correctional Service of Canada, indigenous populations, newcomers—including refugees—and federally incarcerated individuals, the Public Health Agency of Canada, where I work, is mandated to serve the broader Canadian population. As such, we work with other government departments, stakeholders, and partners in the promotion and monitoring of mental health for all Canadians.

Several federal and national partners play a role in mental health promotion.

Statistics Canada has a federal responsibility to collect data on the Canadian population, including through the census and population surveys. The Canadian Institute for Health Information, CIHI, holds and manages national-level health administrative data, such as hospital billing data. Health Canada manages the Canadian drug strategy, which includes the monitoring of the use of illicit substances. The Mental Health Commission of Canada coordinates a network of partners through the Mental Health and Addiction Information Collaborative, of which, we, Statistics Canada, CIHI, Health Canada, and other partners are members.

The Public Health Agency of Canada contributes an important piece to the understanding of mental health in Canada by conducting national monitoring of mental health, mental illness, self-harm and suicide, and family violence, and related risk and protective factors. These areas often have strong associations with PTSD, either as potentially precipitating factors in the case of the trauma experienced with family violence, or as outcomes with mental illness and even suicide.

Mental illness monitoring is a core public health activity relying on population surveys, such as those conducted by Statistics Canada, and on administrative data collected by the provinces and territories, which includes physician billing claims and hospital discharge records linked to health insurance registries.

Bill C-211 proposes improving the tracking of the incidence rates and the associated economic and social costs of PTSD. Currently, monitoring of PTSD in the general Canadian population relies on data from national population surveys conducted by Statistics Canada, such as the Canadian community health survey of 2012 on mental health.

In 2012, 1.7% of the population aged 15 and over reported that they had PTSD. This is an increase from 2002 when 1% reported that they had PTSD. This increase is primarily due to an increase in prevalence among women. It went from 1.2% in 2002 to 2.4% in 2012. It is important to note that estimates of self-reported diagnosed PTSD from survey data are thought to underestimate the true prevalence of the disorder.

Another consideration for the monitoring of PTSD is the use of provincial and territorial health administrative data, which has been successful for other chronic conditions, through the Canadian chronic disease surveillance system. The CCDSS is a collaborative network of provincial and territorial chronic disease monitoring systems led by the Public Health Agency of Canada and relying on linked physician billings and hospitalization data.

For PTSD specifically, physician billings are not available in all provinces and territories as not all provinces or territories go to the same level of specificity. Coding standards are jurisdictional issues in which CIHI plays a role. However, it could be possible to conduct monitoring for a few provinces and territories that can currently identify PTSD. At the national level it may be possible to establish monitoring using administrative data for broader categories, for example, adjustment disorders that include other conditions related to adjustment reactions to stress, such as but not limited to PTSD.

PTSD is often treated through therapy methods that are outside the publicly funded health care system, such as occupational therapy, psychologists' services, and social work. Therefore health care administrative data would underestimate the disease prevalence and be an indicator of health service utilization rather than disease prevalence. Currently no monitoring system captures data from community-based services outside the health care system.

It is important to note that while national population surveys have previously asked respondents to indicate whether they have PTSD, estimates based on self-reported diagnosis are thought to underestimate the true prevalence of the disorder as people may not have been diagnosed or may be unwilling to divulge their diagnosis.

Surveys that rely on the reporting of individual symptoms consistent with PTSD rather than self-reported, physician-diagnosed PTSD however, may be able to provide accurate information on the prevalence and the impacts of living with the condition for the purpose of monitoring. For example, in 2001 McMaster researchers conducted a study using symptom-based survey tools and reported a lifetime prevalence of PTSD of 9.2%, which is higher than the prevalence reported from the Canadian community health survey of 2012 on mental health. Due to the large sample of respondents that would be required as well as survey content and length, this would be costly to conduct.

Moving forward, as I've outlined, there may be opportunities to enhance the monitoring of PTSD using surveys and/or administrative data.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is committed to working with partners and stakeholders to develop ways of measuring and reporting on the burden of PTSD in Canada.

Thank you for your attention. I would be pleased to answer any questions you have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I call this meeting to order.

This is meeting number 55 of the Standing Committee on Health.

I want to thank all our witnesses for coming today. I apologize for the delay; these things happen here. I hope it doesn't inconvenience you too much, and I want to thank you for your patience. We will go later than we had planned. I hope that's all right with everybody.

Today, first we'll be studying Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder.

Our witnesses today include Dr. Anne-Marie Ugnat, executive director of the centre for surveillance and applied research in the health promotion and chronic disease prevention branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada. Welcome.

By video conference, we have Dr. Jitender Sareen, professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this.

As an individual, we also have Natalie Harris, advanced care paramedic in the county of Simcoe.

We'll offer you the opportunity to make a maximum of 10 minutes of opening remarks, and after that we'll go to questions.

We'll start with Dr. Ugnat.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We will come back to order.

I want to make sure everybody knows that we're going to do drafting instructions for this thalidomide study. If anybody has recommendations on changes or recommendations that we want in the report, we should have them prepared for May 18. That's a week from today. We're also going to do clause-by-clause on Bill C-211 that day. We're going to have witnesses for Bill C-211 on Tuesday.

That's it, but again, if you have some thoughts on this issue, we'd sure like to have them.

Mr. Webber, I understand you have a motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The clerk sent around a list of proposed witnesses this morning for Bill C-211 and needs our approval of the witness list, so that we can make sure they're invited and they get here on time.

Is the list all right with everybody, or does anybody have a question or want to make a change on it? The witnesses are all based on recommendations from the committee members. This is for meeting two on May 16.

Do we have the approval of the committee?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I thought we had agreed that we were doing one day on Bill C-211.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We have a bit of committee business to do.

We have some budgets to talk about for the thalidomide study. Do I have a motion to approve $4,700 for witnesses and testimony?

(Motion agreed to)

Now we have the budget for Bill C-211, respecting a framework on post-traumatic stress disorder. We've proposed $10,100 for witnesses, travel, a video conference, and working meals.

(Motion agreed to)

We want to talk about the schedule. Two meetings are locked in. That's the thalidomide meetings for next week. The clerk has just reminded me that today is the last day for witness lists for Bill C-211. I'm proposing that we do Bill C-211 on the 16th and have witnesses. Then on the 18th, we'll do clause-by-clause. With everybody's agreement, the 16th and 18th will be on Bill C-211.

We're proposing consideration of M-47 for May 30 and June 1. Is that in order for everyone?

Mr. Oliver.

[Darshan Singh Kang, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Bill C-211 relates to PTSD, while the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security examines operational stress injuries, which includes PTSD, as well as anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues.

Have you considered broadening the scope of the bill to include OSIs more broadly, rather than just focusing on PTSD?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thanks for sharing that. Do not apologize for getting emotional. I think all of us around the table here have either friends or family who put their lives on the line for us. All of us owe those individuals more than can ever be paid.

I'm so impressed with what you have done here. It is so rare that a private member's bill receives unanimous consent like this at any stage of the legislative process.

Can you take a moment and explain to those who are listening why you think Bill C-211 received support from all sides of the House?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

There are many. I get emotional when we.... As I said, there's a heavy burden when you're listening to these stories. You have people you consider heroes who are pinning their hopes on what we're doing. I used to think that I handled stress very well, but I think the weight of the world has been placed on our shoulders, and that speaks volumes to the issue and the need for us to do something.

I will answer the question. I developed a challenge coin with respect to my bill. I don't know if anybody has seen it. Mr. Chair, if it's okay.... On one side it has my parliamentary crest. On the other side it has the shields of first responders and our troops.

At Christmastime we were back in our ridings, and I was walking through a lobby. As you know, our days are fairly busy. Our schedules are not ours anymore. I saw a friend of mine who is in the RCMP and whom I've known for a very long time. As I was going by, I patted him on the shoulder and said, “Thanks for everything you're doing.” I kept going, but I was drawn back. I don't know why. I went back and said, “I'm really sorry to bother you.” He was meeting with his team at that time. I said, “I don't know if you know, but I have a private member's bill with respect to PTSD. It's called Bill C-211. I have a challenge coin that I want to give you, and I just want to say thank you for everything you're doing.” Then I left and went on my way.

We went away for Christmas. When I came back, there were emails, voice mails, and messages from this gentleman. Finally I phoned him and I said, “What's up?” He said, “I just have to tell you. I don't know if you believe that things happen for a reason.” This is very altruistic, for those who are here. He said, “I want to ask you if you remember when we saw each other before Christmas.” I said, “Of course I do.” He said, “Something drew you back to see me, and you gave me your challenge coin. Nobody knows this, but I was at my darkest point. I was essentially saying goodbye. Nobody knows this. Since getting that coin, I've come out to my wife, and I've sought treatment. I want to be the face of your bill, because you are saving lives and that day you saved my life.”

You can see how emotional it is. That's just one. We had a gallery filled with people. Every day they send us the same. There are so many. We can save lives.

Sorry. I'm a big baby, but this is real. It's not made up. A simple pat....

When 284 members of Parliament stood unanimously on March 8, 56 days ago, there was a giant of a firefighter suffering from PTSD who was emotional and was crying. He said, “For the first time, I have hope.” To me, that's shocking. I'm sorry, but that's unacceptable for us as leaders within our country. We have to do better, and we have to be better.

Is there one story? There are many stories. That's one. His story.... It was released that day. His name is Kent MacNeill, staff sergeant for the RCMP. Every day, I'm inundated with the same. We have thousands of stories that are the same, whether it's a survivor or a wife, as I read earlier. It's crazy.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I really appreciate your comments.

Every government comes out with a mandate, and they choose to allocate funds and move forward with it. We know from the nature of government and from the nature of the day-to-day that sometimes we fail or we lose sight of our best intentions.

My bill came out before the mandate letters did and we moved forward with those. Bill C-211 calls for a national framework to be developed, working with our provinces, working with legislators, working with industry and academics from across our nation. There are groups that are doing some incredible work. There are provinces that have followed through with different pieces of legislation.

But as we stand today, there are still inconsistencies in what is being delivered from one end of our nation to the other. Leadership needs to be seen. This is calling for a piece of legislation so that irrespective of government, there will be a line item to ensure that the responsibility to our warriors and our front-line workers will be maintained and that as we move forward, we're moving forward in lockstep and taking care of those who serve their communities and their country.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Chair, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Thank you to you and thank you to my colleagues for allowing me to be here to speak with respect to Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder. I'd also like to thank all members of Parliament for their support at second reading, when all 284 MPs present voted in favour of sending Bill C-211 to this committee. I'm hoping that we can see the same show of support at third reading.

I think we've done something unique in this Parliament. We've been able to show support across all party lines for a very worthy cause, and that is getting our warriors the support they need and deserve when it comes to post-traumatic stress disorder. Bill C-211 seeks to establish a cohesive and coherent national framework to ensure our military; first responders, including firefighters, paramedics, police personnel, and emergency dispatch; our veterans; and our correctional officers timely access to the resources they need to deal with PTSD and mental health injuries.

We're only just beginning to understand the term PTSD. In truth, even in the three years of working towards getting elected and tabling this legislation, the discussion has grown even louder. This is good, but it is very easy to forget that it was only 30 years ago that there was no classification and no name given to the demons we now know to be PTSD.

When I first started doing research for this bill, I was shocked to read that PTSD wasn't even officially recognized until 1980, when the American Psychiatric Association added it to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. There are generations of individuals who have lived this nightmare that we are only now starting to talk about publicly. There are generations of individuals who have struggled with PTSD who we have lost.

I know some of you in this room better than others, but I think we all have one thing in common, and that is, at our very core, when we chose to put our names forward, it is and it was because we hope to inspire change and to do better for future generations than had been done in the past, irrespective of party lines.

I was told from the outset that the likelihood of getting Bill C-211 passed was slim to none, that I shouldn't get my hopes up, and that, since I am an opposition member, the government would never let this pass. As I met with people first from my riding, then from all across this country, and indeed, across party lines, I began to see what I already knew. This is not a Conservative issue, it's not a Liberal issue, nor is it an NDP issue. I've heard very real stories from our brave men and women who have made sacrifices. I also heard from the families and colleagues of those who lost their fight and those who are still in the thick of this terrible disease.

Colleagues, by getting Bill C-211 to committee today, we've already beaten the odds and the naysayers. We have proven that we can put aside party politics and work together to leave a legacy, or have we? Will C-211 die at committee stage? That's the message we've received, that this is a feel-good moment, that the box has been checked off, but it now affords the excuse that there was no consensus at committee.

We've heard that before in this Parliament, haven't we? I apologize for this comment, but you have to understand that lives are at risk here. Every minute we delay or decide that we need to study something further, lives are lost. It has been 563 days since those around this table were elected. It has been 556 days since I first landed in Ottawa with the background for Bill C-211. It's been 462 days since I first tabled C-211, and 57 days since we stood together. In all that time, we have lost lives.

Mr. Chair, I offer to you that a mere one year ago, only about 800 metres from here, an RCMP member chose to end his battle mere steps from the front of Parliament. We need to be better, and I challenge all of you that we can do better. There is so much work that needs to be done. The message we have delivered to this point has been that we have heard the stories, that we believe the stories, and we will act. In doing so, we have given our warriors hope, and this, indeed, is a heavy burden to carry.

We have an opportunity before us today to get this bill through committee because as it stands, the standard of care, education, and even our terminology, be it OSI or PTSD, still varies from one province to the next.

Our government has said that PTSD is a priority and it is outlined in the mandate letters of the Ministers of Public Safety, Veterans Affairs, and Health. This is our chance to align all of our work done to date on this issue and get a line item on the federal books, so that no government, present or future, will be able to move forward without our warriors.

A national framework would ensure that every year a conversation is happening on best practices, on treatment options, and on how best we can help as a society, so that no one is left behind.

I have said this before and I'll say it again. We have received many emails, many of them full of heartbreak and tragedy as a result of careers. I'd like to take a moment, if you will, to read one that I received a little over a year ago.

“As I write this, I'm trying hard to hold back the tears. The truth is I'm unsure how I even have tears left. I've cried every day since his death and it's been over a year. I can only manage a day at a time, and even that at times is too much. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I guess no one really does. We were only married three years and he was my one true love. He would have been 30 this year. Our son will never know his father. He will never know the incredible man he was. My husband only wanted to serve and to save. Sadly, no one could save him. It's odd how everyone gathers around you at first, then life goes on. I don't get the invites anymore. It's like other wives don't want to be reminded of this, of how this could have been them.

“Mr. Doherty, your bill is too late for my family, but I hope you will be successful. My pain endures and I'm not sure there is a fix. I will tell my son that his dad was a hero and saved lives. I believe if my husband knew of you and your efforts, it just might have given him enough hope that he would have reached out, that he would have hung on. Please keep fighting for this. For us it is too late, but you and your colleagues will save the lives of others.

“Thank you.”

Mr. Chair, this is one of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of emails, messages, and comments on social media we have received and private meetings we have held, since tabling our bill. It truly is overwhelming. We have heard the stories of those who are struggling today, those who are receiving help, and those who are left behind to somehow pick up the pieces.

We have to come up with solutions, so we don't lose another life to PTSD. I'd like to ask the committee members—and I also mentioned it in my speech at second reading—if the cost of action on the national framework for PTSD is too great for our government, be it the federal government or the provincial government, what then is the alternative? What is the cost of inaction? How many more lives are we willing to lose before government steps up to the plate? What value do we place on those who we ask to serve our country without hesitation, to answer our call without hesitation, to run into burning buildings, to run towards gunfire? When we call, they answer, any time, any place, and for any reason, with no questions asked, but have we been there for them? Have we answered their call?

These are all questions we need to be asking ourselves today, for all of those who are still fighting. When they talk to one branch of government, are they then referred to another or a different office, or a different phone number, or shuffled to the next wicket? Have we turned a blind eye and said, “It's not my problem”? For those who have a friend, family member, or loved one who has lost someone to PTSD through our inaction, are they spending their lives on hold waiting for someone to listen to them?

This is unacceptable. We must and can do better for our fellow men and women. This begins with education and a willingness to learn. It begins with the bold action of saying, “Enough is enough”, so that regardless of our party politics, we can and will finally do something about this terrible disease.

Let's stop making excuses. Let's not further delay or deny action. Those of us, around this table and in this House, can do this. It is the federal government that can set the tone and provide leadership right across our nation on this terrible disease.

This issue has been studied by other committees. We can build on their work and move this legislation forward. Only through bipartisan support and co-operation can we hope to achieve effective and viable strategies, terminology, and education to help deal with PTSD. Let's choose to give back in the one small way that we are able to by ensuring that our protectors have the opportunity to receive basic, standard care and treatment to deal with their PTSD, and by ensuring that our terminology and laws are consistent across the country, and that our heroes in the east are treated the same as our heroes in the west, because for too long, we have left our first responders, our military, and our veterans behind.

Mr. Chair and colleagues, it has been an interesting spring session. I read earlier, from the wife of a fallen officer. One line sticks out, “I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I guess no one really does”.

For those who have been following our journey, those who are in the room with us today, and those who are watching across our nation and internationally, tomorrow is just another excuse for delay. Sometimes, tomorrow is too far away. Let's not wait for tomorrow, Mr. Chair and colleagues. We can make a difference today.

I'm asking for your support to ensure that Bill C-211 moves forward in a timely manner, because it will save lives. At second reading, we proved to our community of warriors that we stood in solidarity with them. I'm telling you today that this committee and our House collectively have the power to leave an incredible legacy.

With that, I'll end. I just want to say, once again, thank you, and I appreciate and will take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I call this meeting to order. Today at our health committee meeting we're going to talk about two bills, and then we're going to do a little bit of committee business at the end of the second bill.

The first issue we're going to talk about is Bill C-211, and we have as witness MP Todd Doherty, who is going to give us opening remarks on Bill C-211.

Mr. Doherty, the floor is yours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We're going in camera to talk about witnesses for the thalidomide study, and we have to talk about Motion M-47, as well as Bill C-211 very briefly.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We have passed a motion now. That meeting is cancelled, so we'll have to adjust our schedule on that.

We have to take our meeting from the 13th and we're going to move it to.... Are you proposing that it be May 4? That means our sickle cell study and Bill C-211 will be moved to May 4.

We'll move on to the next thing. We've passed around a budget for M-47 that totals $27,700. I need a motion to support that.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I think I'm trying to keep it fairly structured.

Our colleague Mr. Ouellette asked me to mention my bills that I came to the House with. As I said, I took the nomination back in 2014. I had the year to work to getting elected. I arrived in the House two weeks after being elected. I had the framework for Bill C-211, but I also had a framework or some ideas for three other bills I wanted to do.

One was with respect to a national appreciation day for first responders. The other one was a bill that dealt with prolific offenders and their release, making sure that it wasn't just up to a judge to decide whether the community or the victims were notified upon their release, that it was mandatory that if high-profile offenders, schedule III, were being released, we didn't rely on the whim and whimsy of a judge to decide: it would actually be mandated.

The other one was to deal with the Canada Evidence Act and a standardized date format with respect to evidence. Mr. Chair, let's say you were pulled over. Maybe there was something in your car that was untoward or what have you and it was entered into evidence. If the well-meaning RCMP officer or police officer at the time entered it into evidence as “010103”, what date is that? Is it January 1, 2003, or is it March 1, 2001? There's an issue. That was another one of the bills.

Then, of course, there's Bill C-211 that I entered and that we are moving forward with.

I hope that satisfied—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

How do we diminish trust? That was a question that was brought up last week. A number of different things were done that have diminished the trust. It goes back to my comment that I and others arrived here with the best of intentions. We weren't jaded when we got here. We're not jaded now, but trust has been broken.

This goes to the point where I said that you bypass all the people there. You choose to email, text message, or delegate the delivery of a difficult message to others. Whether Ms. Chagger wrote this or not, I think it came from the PMO and was delivered to her to delegate that message. I think that's a big one. You tell half truths, use spin, avoidance, weasel words, and communication not grounded in integrity, forthrightness, and honesty. That impacts trust.

That's where we sit today. When one side is deliberately opaque or evasive and uses evasive communications, it offers a different kind of transparency. Now, there's a word we've heard quite a bit over the last 18 months. This government was going to have a new, open, and transparent way of governing. Perhaps as things have gone on, they've had the best intentions that this was going to be the way, but maybe there wasn't a plan on how they were going to deliver that, so they're making it up as they go. As a government, we have a very effective opposition, one of the strongest we've seen in a long time. Maybe what we're seeing on the other side is scrambling because we have been so effective in what we're doing. Ms. Duncan is nodding her head. I think that's perhaps...or maybe that's....

At any rate, here's another way you diminish trust, Mr. Chair. You over-promise and under-deliver. Some call it hype. Others reference it by saying, “all hat, no cattle”. That's a saying we use back in the Cariboo. The yield is the same, that if you don't take your own words seriously, why should anyone else trust them? That's what we've found over the course of the last while.

Again, budget 2017 was tabled....

You're going to ask me why I'm saying this, Mr. Chair, and getting to the point of asking if this is relevant, really, to what I'm saying. It absolutely is, Mr. Chair. For the reason as to why it's relevant, I'm going to go back to why, in my opinion, this paper was tabled at the time.

What happened the very next day? The budget was tabled. The government knew that things were weak in that area, that it probably wasn't going to be the flash-bang, whiz-bang budget they were looking at. They needed a diversion, a smokescreen if you will: whiz-bang. It was a diversionary tactic.

I would offer this up, Mr. Chair. Again, I don't know whether this is true or not. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors? That's above my pay grade. But I would think that the diversionary tactic of tabling this paper is taking away the discussion about the budget, and how it maybe fell down in areas. What are we talking about instead? We're not talking about how softwood and forestry companies weren't mentioned, not even once, or a plan to get a softwood lumber deal, which is so important to my riding of Cariboo—Prince George.

Mr. Chair, I don't know whether you've heard me speak in the House about this. There's relevance here. Over 140 communities in the province of British Columbia are dependent on forestry. These communities were waiting for budget 2017 to come out in order to see what the plan was to hopefully get either some relief—I don't know what that looks like—or get a deal done. They never saw that.

I know you're leaning into the mike about relevance, but trust me, it's all structured.

The reason this paper was tabled was to really steer away from what the budget was or was not going to do for Canadians. For the last three weeks, this has really monopolized a lot of the discussion in the House, and here in this committee.

I'll go back to the document that I built here. It's interesting, because as we talk about trust and perhaps why it was broken, we play the blame game. We've seen that a lot. I don't know if that was done in previous governments, or what have you. It's, “Well, this government did this, and Conservatives did that, so we're going to continue doing it this way”, or “We're not as bad as those guys; the reason we're not getting something done is because these guys left it behind.”

I offer this: if you truly had a plan to govern, you wouldn't need to play the blame game. You wouldn't need to play that game. There is a time when you need to lead, but there's a time when you have to build consensus. True leaders build consensus. They're really consensus builders.

Think back to some of the best leaders you've ever had, the best coaches you've ever had. I don't know whether you've played sports at all, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, I coached for a long time. There are times when you have to lead, but you have to have a plan on what the goal is, on how you're going to move forward. Then you have to build that consensus as you move forward.

To go back to what I said earlier on, the Standing Orders are the rules of the game. You can't just arbitrarily change the rules of the game because you don't like what's going on. It's not for you to do that, to arbitrarily change the rules, take away the voice of Canadians, silence the opposition, because you don't like that the opposition is actually holding your feet to the fire, and actually standing up for the electors. Fundamentally, it's wrong. That's why you're seeing our backs up against the wall.

Mr. Chair, I don't know how many hours you've sat in that chair over the last while, but when you look to point blame.... I don't think we should have blame anyway, but there's been a lot of blame shuffled our way. We're here doing our job, and that's being the voice of the electors. If I take you back to O’Brien and Bosc, our House of Commons Procedure and Practice, it brings you right back to what it is we're talking about.

I mentioned freedom of speech. It's not about our being able to stand up and say the things we want. It's about being the voice of our constituents. We are fighting for our voices and for our constituents' voices. I think that it's interesting when you have leadership in the House from the government standing up and saying that we could be getting on and doing better things and more productive things. I'll tell you this. My electors, my constituents, expect me to be a strong voice, to fight for their voices here in Ottawa, and to make sure that in no way are those voices silenced or lessened—and that is what we're seeing with this discussion paper.

I've gone on a bit about how we build trust and how we've diminished trust, how that happens. I want to talk about how trust flourishes. I think it's important that leaders who build trust operate with three trust basics: they give trust first; they communicate effectively; and they authentically show up. Isn't that amazing? They authentically show up. I think that's important, because it goes back to my comment about contempt for the House.

Again, I can only speak from what I know. Sometimes it feels to the opposition that QP—or, as Ms. Duncan would like to call it, AP, answer period—is almost like an inconvenience for our Prime Minister to be there, and perhaps for some of his ministers. They have better things to do, rather than be held accountable to the people, which, again, is what we were elected to do.

It's very interesting. I'll go back to the comment that they authentically show up. Leaders who build trust operate with three basic trust elements: they give trust first; they communicate effectively; and they authentically show up. If we are truthfully going to have a conversation and be relevant, here's a novel idea, Mr. Chair. If we are going to modernize the House, how about our Prime Minister showing up and being truly engaged? That's a novel idea. How about our ministers showing up? I'm not going to say “all” ministers, because I think there are some ministers who, as I said earlier, actually answer some great questions. They don't need speaking points to actually answer; they know their files pretty well. But if we are to be better, let's have true engagement. Let's not look at it like they're bored, like we're beneath them. I'll remind them through this, and through you, Mr. Chair, that they were once in our position. Again, going back, I've seen some comments from those who were in opposition previously, and some were pretty good hecklers, too, if I do say so myself. How soon we forget what it's like to be on the other side.

Second, effective leaders understand workplace trust that thrives and creates these pockets of excellence. It goes beyond the basics. Here is another way we can make trust flourish in this area: we become really good at what we do. I always said to my team, when I was in aviation or when I was coaching, “Look, if you're a goal scorer, be the best goal scorer you are. If you're a fighter, heaven forbid, do what makes you famous, but be the best at what you're doing.” My thing is this. Whatever file I'm on, whether it's the fisheries file or our work with PTSD, which my Bill C-211 is about, I want to become an expert on what I'm doing. This is the greatest compliment I can get.

To give you an example, I'm overseas and I'm meeting with FedEx. I'm sitting there with FedEx VPs across the way from me. I'm a lowly Canadian aviation executive, and I'm having the conversation with FedEx.

Mr. Chair, regardless of what is being said across the way, I'm having a conversation with you. If they choose to listen to it or not, it doesn't matter.

The greatest compliment I had was that I knew their industry. I knew their business. I knew FedEx inside and out. I think that's incumbent on us, as members of Parliament, to be the best members of Parliament we can. Be interested, be relevant, become the experts, and be good at what you're going to do.

To go back to the comment I made earlier on, about sometimes our Prime Minister seeming disinterested, I don't know whether that's true or not. I really don't. I've had some constituents who have been here and who have wanted to meet him. He's been gracious. He's actually met with them, or taken a picture with them or what have you. Honestly, he is.... I'll give compliments where compliments are due.

As I mentioned, just being a kid from the Cariboo, I'm not one to follow procedure. I don't know the politically correct thing to say or do. I had my mayor from Prince George here. I'm very proud of our communities and I'm proud to show them off. It was funny, because I said that it wasn't so much I wanted them to meet the Prime Minister, I wanted the Prime Minister to meet my mayor. That's really what it was.

So I knocked on the door. Like, who am I to barge past the security? They asked me what I was doing. I told them I was a member of Parliament—“Don't you see the ring?”, that type of thing—and talked about privilege and what have you. To the Prime Minister's credit, he took 10 minutes out of his busy schedule and he actually met with my mayor.

I don't know whether he's disinterested. I don't know whether he is...if this is above him or not, but that's the look that we get on his face.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

—so let me rephrase that.

Without knowing everything, I would never go into somebody's business, or go into somebody's household or home or team, and say, “This is the way it should be done. The more I watch you, the more I think you're doing it wrong.” We can always armchair-quarterback things. I'm the best at telling you how my Seattle Seahawks are going to win. And don't bring up the Super Bowl, because the wounds are still too raw from that failed attempt. That was a couple of years ago. I can armchair-quarterback like the best of them.

To Ms. Duncan, the point is this. I don't think that we, as newbies, should be coming in and arbitrarily ramming down thoughts.... I think it's something that, truthfully, to spur a discussion...but this wasn't to spur a discussion. When you're mediating, or actually going through the media with this....

They were hoping that this was going to get a favourable response from all, and that the fear from the opposition was, “Oh, they have the media onside. We can't do anything about it.” But little did they know that we can do stuff about it, and we will continue to do it for as long as it takes, so that we can find that common ground I was talking about.

Mr. Chair, we talked a little bit about leading up to the election and then getting elected. A couple of weeks after being elected, I actually managed to set foot here. I was chomping at the bit. I was ready to go. I think we put 65,000 kilometres on my truck during the campaign. I can't remember how many doors we knocked on, I think 30,000 or 70,000, and the phone calls we made were close to the same amount. But I was ready to go. I was not tired. I was ready to go on October 20. I couldn't get here fast enough.

I arrived in Ottawa with two pieces of paper: a SWOT analysis of Cariboo—Prince George, the opportunities and challenges, where I thought we could make an impact; and background on Bill C-211, on which I worked with the legislative committee to try to get it to where we are today. As I've said before, I came at it with pure intentions to work collaboratively across the floor.

I have to bring it back to where I think we've kind of gone wrong. I can only speak for myself, but I bring it back to that week of May 17, when motion six was tabled and there was elbowgate or whatever you want to call it. There was the kerfuffle around that, the apology, and the questions about intent and what have you.

I think it's really important to go back to one of the things Ms. Sahota mentioned. I highlighted it, Mr. Chair, when she mentioned it. I bring this up with all due respect. She said that if you're really going to truthfully set forth with pure intentions, you don't politicize something.

Are you kidding me? Who politicized this? If this really was a discussion paper, if you and I were going to have a discussion, if we were going to talk truthfully and have a good discussion as a group or a committee or House leaders, would I go to the media first and say, hey, by the way, here's what we're going to discuss?

How would that make you feel?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Nursing, okay, that's an incredibly admirable industry. I just had the nurses' association in my office today talking to me about Bill C-211 and some of the things that we're doing with that bill.

Let me get back to the other part because I don't want you to question my relevance on this. I signed on the dotted line, put my name forth, because I wanted to make a difference for those in the riding of Cariboo—Prince George. I think every member of Parliament wants to do that. I think we all come here with the best of intentions. I think maybe we all come here with big ideas that we're going to change the world and we're going to break the bureaucracy. I too think that the wheels of bureaucracy move slowly at times and I'm not one to sit and say, that's the way it is, that's the way it has always been.

I think the people on my fisheries committee could probably see that I'm not one who likes to say, that's just the way it has always been. I think there are efficiencies that we can find in all ways, and we can move forward in being an efficient Parliament.

One of the comments that was made earlier tonight was that if we want to keep going because we're afraid of change and it's not going to be...you know, that's the furthest from the truth. The best way to find a solution is to find a common ground.

Finding a common ground starts with—and I'm going to bring it back to the word we started with earlier—trust.

I think it was mentioned that this whole Parliament is going to be wasted because there's no consensus that's going to be able to come. That's a very authoritarian or maybe not a very realistic way of thinking. If we threw our arms up every time and stomped off because we weren't able to come to an agreement on something, that's not a real-world way of thinking, to begin with.

Mr. Chair, I'm a small business owner. I think I mentioned that before. I own a hair salon. Don't judge, I do it myself. My colleague is staring at me. Yes, I own a hair salon, but I've owned many different businesses over the course of my lifetime. I've been a small business owner from right after graduating from high school. I believe that entrepreneurship is the way to independence and to wealth. It gives one a real sense of accomplishment when they can build something from the ground up and move it forward. These are words to live by. About my hockey players, I'm going to put this out there and this is going to be very embarrassing but I think if my colleague Mr. Simms—he's not even here—can use self-deprecating humour, I can do the same. I'm a big chubby guy, I'm bald, and I wear Lulus on the plane, so it should be fairly easy to pick on me.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

There is relevance. What I'm saying, Mr. Chair, is that there are things we can do away from the House, when we're having conversations with our friends about discovering best practices, and I think they're really important. When I have a conversation with Scott or some of our other colleagues talking about how they deal with such and such an issue, there is so much that we can learn from.

One thing I don't know that we've had yet, outside the interventions of Mr. Reid, perhaps Mr. Simms, Mr. Masse, who has been on the list here—I don't know whether he has been able to speak yet.... Mr. Christopherson spoke, and I listened intently to his very animated, very long, but very well thought-out speech. There are things we can learn from those who came before us, and I think that is very important.

I'm looking around the table. Apart from Mr. Simms, Mr. Masse, Mr. Reid, and you, Mr. Chair, I don't know whether there's really much parliamentary history at this table.

The value we have collectively as Parliament is that those who came before us, that which has worked...and not deciding that we know best. I think that's what we've seen with this discussion paper. It's not really a discussion paper; I think it's actually a plan to move some things forward dressed up as a discussion paper. As much as they'd like to say it's a discussion paper, I don't think it truly is a discussion paper.

I'm going to go back to trust, Mr. Chair, because this is the reason we're here. We've seen many things over the last while. I'll tell you that I'm not here to defend things that were done before. I'm a new member of Parliament. I don't have the privilege of having been part of the last Parliament, but I can tell you what I've seen in the last while.

I'm going to go back to May 17 of last year, when things weren't moving well, or it wasn't felt that they were moving well. We saw a motion, motion six, put forward by the government. The way it was done was very heavy-handed. I really think it was at that point that things went sideways. Some would argue, probably some even in my own team, that they went sideways even long before that. I think motion six was one where the term “draconian” was used.

I'm not a parliamentary history buff, so I can't say with any certainty that this has never been done before, but I believe words were used such as that “it has never been done in parliamentary history” that motion six was levied. It was all about taking away any of the perceived powers the opposition have. What they were going to do, if the government didn't like the way things were going, was just ram it down our throats.

Essentially what we saw was a very angry Mr. Trudeau, who didn't like the way things were going, and so he was going to show us. Whatever happened—I think it was called “elbowgate”.... Anyway, there was much ado about nothing, but the point of the matter was that the government decided they were going to deliver motion six, which was going to take away any of the powers or perceived powers that the opposition had. They were going to show us that if we were not going to follow their rules, they were just arbitrarily going to deliver them and impose them on us.

Mr. Chair, I was right there when the whole whatever happened, and I was asked to speak the very next day about what I saw and about intent and what have you. I guess my comments were these: that it was not for us to describe what the intent was. How would we know the intent of the person who committed the actions at the time. I'm not a mind reader. It's not for me to explain; it really is for the person who did it to explain their intent.

I think we saw a number of things from that point forward that really have led us to question this government's integrity in some things. That's not to paint all of our members of Parliament on that side with the same brush. We have some incredible members of Parliament there.

I'll go back to this. I don't think that Ms. Chagger actually authored this paper. I think this is coming from other places, and I think the actions we're seeing out of the PMO are what is leading people to mistrust it. We're even seeing it in the media, where much was being said about our previous government. The one thing the media said, however, was that at least with Prime Minister Harper you knew where you stood.

Forgive me, I can't remember the exact quote, but it was the one thing that remains true: “the Liberals are not to be trusted”. Those are not my words, Mr. Chair; that comment is from the media, which for the most part have been very kind to the government. It could be argued that they are very, very kind.

Even the people in the media, who have in the past while been very favourable, are asking what is going on. They're even questioning this as well, so it's not just the opposition. I would think that probably the majority of Canadians don't even know what we're debating, but the media are actually taking notice of some of the things that are going on.

One of the news clippings I have says that Mr. Trudeau's legacy will be that of arrogance. It speaks to the other point that I wanted to cover. What we're seeing, in terms of this discussion paper, of motion six, and of some of the actions that we see every day, is that there is a real contempt for the House and the opposition. There isn't respect.

I can't say how things were when I wasn't here—I think that will be spoken to as we move forward—so I hope you don't fault me on that. I will be the first person to stand up and say, when we were wrong, that we were wrong. I think that's very important. What we've seen out of at least the PMO, however, is that there's a real contempt for the opposition. Whether it's motion six or this discussion paper, Mr. Chair, “This is how it's going to be.”

I guarantee that this is more or less the way it was discussed: “Listen, we know that the media are on our side—they love us—so what we're going to do....”

This is probably the way the workings went: “I know what we're going to do.” They had all the people huddled together and they said, “Listen, we're going to get their goat. How about this? We're going to call a presser, and because we're all about reforming things and getting things better, we're going to issue this paper. We're going to get the public on side with this, and then the opposition is not going to have any say, because we're just going to kind of ram it through.”

It fell short, it backfired, for the first time, because the media are not as silly as we think they are; they're very smart and learned people. They can see straight through this. I think that this is the kind of backlash we're seeing. It speaks to the overall theme in the House, which then leaks into these discussions in the committee.

You know, Mr. Chair, if you and I were riding on a bus, and you told me that the sky was blue and it looked as if we were going to get showers later in the afternoon, I'd believe you.

If all of a sudden we come through the doors and you tell me that the sky is blue, I'm automatically going to say that, no, it's black. We don't have that trust. We've broken that trust. Somehow, whatever it is, we've broken that trust. I'm going to tell you this, Mr. Chair, with complete sincerity. People are probably going to laugh at this. I'm very proud to be a member of the Conservative caucus, but I'm probably one of the most non-partisan people you'll see when we're away from this House.

See, I told you people would laugh.

When I was elected by the good people of Cariboo—Prince George, what an incredible honour that was. Some people even brought up to me why they didn't vote for me, but I told them it was okay. Whether they voted for me or not, I represent the entire riding. Whether they vote for Liberal, the NDP—shame—or the others, I represent all people. I represent everyone. The media was saying, wow, the national result wasn't what you.... How's it going to be? What are you going to do? Now you're going to be in opposition; oh, heaven forbid.

While I was disappointed at the national result, I was looking forward because I think, if you talk to anybody I worked with in the past, you'd see that the best work we do is when we can find a common ground—whether it's in aviation or other areas. It's not about winning or losing. I think in a healthy relationship—I've been married for a long time—there's a give and take, and we have to recognize that.

The government has a job to do. Opposition has a job to do as well. I came here bright-eyed, very altruistic, and I said I'm going to do everything in my power to build those bridges, to work collaboratively. I had the background for my bill C-211 already built. I knew what I needed to do. I was disappointed, but I saw this as an opportunity.

I think a lot of our new colleagues were the same. We brought energy, and we all said the same thing, probably like that puppy dog. That's the great thing about puppies and dogs. Somebody said you could lock them in the back of your truck for an hour and then when you come back, they're still wagging their tails, happy to see you. I have a great black Lab that I don't get to see as much as I would love to, but that's my choice. I tell you this, Mr. Chair: every time I arrive back, it's as if he knows when I'm coming in. They probably wind him up for me just before I get in. He is so happy to see me, and he's raring to go.

It's probably how we were. The senior members of our caucuses probably saw us as being these bright-eyed and puppy-dog type of people. We were very eager to try to make new friends, even though it was across party lines.

Let me tell you this. I don't think we would be able to do what we've done with my Bill C-211 if we didn't have the kind of attitude that we would work very closely with others from across the floor. We've seen other government members who had private members' bills that have moved forward. The member from Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, Mr. McKinnon, I believe put forward a great bill. I think that sends hope to Canadians that we are able to work together.

My point, going back to it, is that I've become a little bit frustrated. If I can say it, I think the Prime Minister let me down, and let us down, with his actions that day, May 17 last year, and the subsequent actions that went forward. I expected better. I think Canadians expected better. I think, indeed, that those in your own government, in your own caucus, although they might not say anything publicly, would privately say they expected better.

Indeed, I've had conversations with members from all parties. Privately I think they were very forthcoming with some of their comments about some of the promises made during the campaign that were subsequently broken once you got into office. I remember one member actually saying, “I essentially lied, on the doorsteps, to my constituents, because I believed this was something we were actually going to do and be able to follow through on.” They bought in. I think Canadians, for the most part—as we saw, 39%—bought into the change Mr. Trudeau was putting forth.

That brings me back to another comment I wanted to make. Governing is hard. It requires a plan, but it also requires that the person delivering the plan, if there is a plan, or the person who's in charge—I think we all agree that regardless of where we are, there always should be somebody in charge—not rule with emotion. There should be principled leadership and a plan. I think Canadians also want to see that there's a plan. We haven't seen that. We've seen a lot of big things, but no real plan.

I think what we're seeing in some of the scrambly manoeuvres, the reshuffle, the new House leader, and the moving things around is that while they campaigned on having a plan, there really was no plan. Maybe even, Mr. Chair, if I can boldly pronounce.... I don't think they expected to be elected. They thought, this is what we're going to say, and we'll see if people actually buy it. When it got closer, perhaps they were like, “ Holy crap. I think we're actually going to be elected. How are we going to do this? Don't worry about it. Budgets balance themselves, right?”

We've kind of proven now that this doesn't happen. We've made some promises to Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and we have done some big things, but we're spending beyond our means. I think that's the challenge. What we're seeing right now, perhaps with the PMO, is that they are scrambling. There's no plan, so they are ruling by emotion.

Again, going back to this paper. I doubt very much that Ms. Chagger actually had anything to do with it. Perhaps she was in the room when some ideas were being put out. I don't know. I'm just putting words in people's mouths. I'm just speaking from the heart. That's all I know how to do.

Let me take you back, if I can, because it does have relevance, Mr. Chair. I never debated prior to being elected. I can argue like the best of them with my wife. I always lose, which is okay. I always lose with my kids as well.

We had a debate. I thought I was very prepared. I had every document on every issue that was going to come up, and I was very prepared. I was ready to go, kind of like right here. We got to the venue where the debate was, and no papers were allowed. You were not allowed to have any supporting documents with you. You were on your own.

I'm not ashamed to say that I bombed miserably. As a matter of fact, the next day I was waiting for feedback—this was one of the biggest debates—from my campaign, and I knew the feedback already. As I said earlier, I'm my worst critic, so I was waiting for it. I was waiting for the feedback to say, “This where you went wrong; this is what you should have said”, all this stuff. It never came. The next day, as you and others here are probably aware, Mr. Chair, from your own ridings, we had debates. Every riding had tons of debates. The very next day I had three debates from one end of my riding to the next. I needed the feedback. I wanted to know where I went wrong.

My campaign manager, who I had been feverishly texting, never got back to me. He finally got back to me on October 9, 2015, which happened to be my birthday, at about one o'clock. It was just before I was about to leave for the third debate that day, and he came in with a sticky note and he slammed this on the desk. That's it, and he turned and walked away. That sticky note said, “Speak from the heart because if you speak from the heart you can never go wrong.”

I think others from the other side have mentioned a few times that it's important we don't get caught up in “he said, she said” and “winning versus losing.” We have to speak from the heart. All I know how to do is just tell them how it is. Whether we like it or not, that's how we do it in the Cariboo.

You know, the Cariboo is a great place. It is unbelievable. I'm very proud to be from the Cariboo. Mr. Chair, it is a place where we look you in the eye, we ask you how you're doing, and we mean it. We say, “Bless you” when you sneeze. We say, “Gesundheit”. We open doors for people. I have some incredible constituents. I worked a lifetime overseas, as I mentioned earlier, representing my region all over the world. I got a little feisty when we would be in a boardroom somewhere across the country, and somebody would ask where I was from, and I told them, and they kind of wrinkled their nose asking, “How is that working out for you?” I'll tell you, we have salt of the earth people. We have hard-working pioneer folks in the Cariboo.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Better is always possible. It is not on all of Parliament to be better and to make things different, it is on us. I say that because of the comment that was made that if we don't modernize, we're not going to see more reasonable people such as Ms. Sahota or we're never going to break that glass ceiling.

I always want to look for role models for my three daughters. I know I've mentioned this already, but I have three incredibly strong, very strong-willed daughters, and I always look for positive role models. I want them to be leaders. To me, it doesn't necessarily have to be a female role model; it has to be leadership role models. I don't want to make things easier for them; I want them to earn what they do. What we should be doing is creating the environment in which they can be successful.

I'll bring this back to one of my daughters, since we're going down this path. I have an adult daughter who is challenged. Her name is Kaitlyn. We have never treated her any differently. We have never made excuses for her. She doesn't know she is any different. She still has the same expectations as all our kids. She has to do the chores, grudgingly, as all my kids do. She has to do the things she needs to do to be successful. She goes out to work and she is one of the best employees. Let me tell you, every day I am so proud of her. She will live with us for the rest of her life. She gets up and trudges through the snow or she gets a ride from us or takes the bus, but she is punctual. She has done some incredible things. She could be sitting here today and you would never know that there is a disability there. She is smart as a whip in terms of working on a computer and the things she can do, but the issue is that there are things she will never be able to do. We know this. It took a long time for us, as parents, to come to terms with that.

My oldest daughter, my first born, may not ever get married, may not ever have kids. Our challenge was this—and I get teared up with this. As parents, it's not our job to make lives easier for our kids, but it's our job to teach them the ways to be successful. It's our job to guard them against people who are trying to bring them down and attack them and do those things.

I use that as a preface to this point where we talk about the gender balance and breaking that glass ceiling. I sometimes take offence at that. It's not because I don't believe we need to do everything in our power to make sure we have strong women, more women in politics. I'm going to give you the same answer I gave when I was asked at the time: there are strong women who are out there who would make incredible members of Parliament. I'm surrounded by them. We have women MPs in this House who are incredible people. My colleagues who are right here; I'm continually amazed at our members of Parliament, our female members of Parliament who have broken that glass ceiling, Mr. Chair, without the need of being propped up.

I don't want any of my kids or anybody else's kids to say they were given a pass to get into this. We have some incredible people on all sides who are strong fighters. I apologize, Mr. Speaker, because I've gone down the path here where.... I wanted to make a comment on this because Ms. Sahota said that if we don't change this, if we don't modernize this, we're not going to see more reasonable people come through those doors, and we're never going to break the glass ceiling.

I think there are other things we can do rather than take away debate or ram things down under the guise of modernizing. If that's truly what their idea is, then perhaps they should have said something, because I don't believe that was actually mentioned in the discussion paper, but I'll get back to that in a moment.

The other comment that was made was that the discussion paper was to ensure that every member's role was important. Mr. Chair, I would hazard that every member's role is already important. It's important that we keep the voice of our electors who chose us to come to Parliament and be that voice, not Ottawa's voice in our riding but the other way around.

She mentioned also that we don't want to see things change. I think that's wrong. Again, that's an incorrect statement. It's not that we don't want to see things change. I think, as my colleague mentioned earlier, it's not about not wanting to see things change.

An alternate fact that's thrown out there is that the Conservatives or the NDP members are afraid of change and that we are putting up the guard because we don't want to see anything change. That is not the truth, Mr. Chair. The reality is that there are things that should be done, but negotiations or discussions should be a two-way street.

I always bring this back to dealing with my kids or dealing with hockey players, because I'm a coach as well. I've coached sports for ever and a day. If I told my kids that they couldn't do something, they would skirt the issue and go to their mom to see if they could get something done that way. There is that trust issue there. We always told our kids that no means no. My wife and I have to be a team on this.

The reality of how we got here today is that the government members decided they were going to put forth a discussion paper. They didn't put it forth to the opposition for a true discussion. They tabled it through the media, “Let's have a discussion through the media.” There was no respect in that. Respect is earned; it's not just given. If it were truly a discussion paper, it wouldn't have been done through a presser and then, three hours later, through a motion put forth at a committee to review this.

Mr. Chair, I'm sure you can understand how that would get things up in arms and make us have a bit of mistrust, but it goes a little further back. Let's talk about how we can diminish trust. I'll go back to the conversation we had that night. Mr. Badawey said, “How come we can't just have this discussion?” It was a great question.

I think I answered with two things. Number one was trust. We can't trust that what is being said is going to actually be followed through and that we will actually have a discussion. Again, you shouldn't have to negotiate or discuss through the media. I think that was one of the things that were brought up. This all started with the presser and with issuing it through the committee. Another comment that was made was that it's all about winning and losing. I would disagree with that wholeheartedly. I think where we're at today is that we are all fighting for the voices of our electors.

It was also mentioned that we have gotten nothing done in the three weeks. Mr. Chair, to our colleagues on the committee and those who are sitting in, I would say that we have done quite a bit. We have defended democracy. We have stood up for changes. We have done exactly what those who elected us have asked us to do—to defend their voices, to make sure their voices aren't silenced. I think it's so important, as we move forward, to remember what got us here today. It was trust.

I went away, Mr. Chair, and I looked at how we got to this point. I was doing some research, if you will. There are so many different ways to diminish trust.

We all know that lying is probably the number one behaviour that diminishes trust. It also tops the list of what people say when they think that trust has been betrayed. There are things we can do, however, that do not involve lying; we don't need to deceive or manipulate to diminish trust, but can do it with simple, ordinary, everyday behaviours. I think it's important that we recognize that every government, every member of Parliament, every person wants to be perceived as trustworthy. I think again, to address Ms. Sahota's comments, that we all want to be able to work back and forth in a trusting environment. We want to operate with trust, such that if the government says they're going to do something, we can trust they're going to do it; yet we've seen that it hasn't happened on other occasions.

Often, we are blind to the impact of our own actions; we operate with an impaired self-awareness, if you will. We can diminish trust without even knowing it, if we blatantly believe that we know best.

I want to go back to the comment that was made earlier on about this discussion paper. Following media reports on the discussion paper that was tabled, the House leader said the more time she spends in this House, the more she feels its need for modernization. Well, I'm going to go back to my earliest comment; that far be it from a newbie who has spent 18 months in the House....

I don't know whether you've seen it or not, but often, even when it's not my House duty, I sit in and listen to the debates. I do truthfully want to hear all sides of the debate. I have suggestions. I think there are things we can do better, but I'm not quite sure that the term for them would be “modernizing”. I would not be so bold as to author a paper. I'm not quite sure that.... While she takes credit for authoring this paper, I would be interested to know that, for somebody...unless she has studied parliamentary procedure in a.... I'm sitting here not knowing what her background is, but I'm not quite sure that she studied parliamentary procedure in her former life. Perhaps this is something she may have had just sitting in the wings, so that at the time she was elected she could come in and—hallelujah—modernize Parliament.

It baffles me. She has a pretty weighty role, being a House leader, to have actually had time to author something like this. I know my schedule, in terms of the committees I sit on and the issues we deal with, and with our constituents. I've done some pretty incredible things, I would think, as a new member of Parliament. I have tabled four private members' bills, one through very collaborative efforts and with all-party support.

I'm very happy to see that my Bill C-211 was voted on at second reading and passed unanimously. I think we sent a strong message to our brave men and women who put uniforms on every day to serve our country and our communities and who are suffering from PTSD or mental heath injuries. I would challenge the government that it's been three weeks now since we all voted unanimously, and we need to get it to committee so that we can move this project forward, because we've done nothing, with the exception of actually creating more hope.

My point is this: that while there might be some good things in this paper—and far be it from me to pick at some of this stuff, and I'm not going to call her a liar, Mr. Chair, and far be it from me to say that—I can't honestly believe that these are actually her words that she has put onto paper here.

On that note, I do appreciate Mr. Simms' comments in the House last week or the week before where he talked about the time lag in seeing this. He admitted that he actually saw it beforehand. We've done a lot of work with Mr. Simms on our fisheries committee. He is chair of our fisheries committee, and I enjoy him and his self-deprecating humour.

Opposition Motion—Canadian Forces Tax Benefit

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today in this debate. I would be remiss if I or any of our colleagues did not recognize that we lost one of our brave men and soldiers. Yesterday Master Corporal Alfred Barr, who was a member of the 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron based in Winnipeg, died in an accident. On behalf of my friends and family, our heartfelt thoughts and condolences go to Master Corporal Barr's family, his friends, and his colleagues. I thank him his service.

We are here to talk about a serious issue today. Once again, we see the Liberal government shortchange our men and women in uniform by rolling back their tax benefits. The text of the motion before us today reads:

That the House call on the government to show support and appreciation for the brave men and women serving in the Canadian Armed Forces by reversing its decision to take away from the soldiers fighting against ISIS the tax benefit which provides them with $1,500 to $1,800 per month for the hardship and risk associated with their deployment, and to retroactively provide the payment to members stationed at Camp Arifjan whose tax relief was cancelled as of September 1, 2016.

We are taking away money and tax relief to these brave men and women who are serving us, who answer the call without hesitation when the world calls.

I will be splitting my time, Mr. Speaker, with my hon. colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

I have been listening to and following along with the debate throughout the day. I am heartened to hear that the government will support the motion. I hope that by the end of the day, the Liberals will support the motion in whole and work toward retroactively ensuring that those brave men and women who are there and who had this benefit taken away from them in September will have them reapplied.

However, I am going to stay the course with my speech. Until this motion is passed, it is important that we get on record exactly what we are talking about today.

On September 1, 2016, the Liberal government ended the tax relief measures provided to 15 Canadian troops stationed at the Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. For 300 Canadian soldiers also stationed in Kuwait under Operation Impact, their benefits remained unchanged.

However, in January of this year, the departmental hardship and risk committee announced to the troops in its December 2016 quarterly meeting that all tax relief measures to CAF members deployed to Kuwait under Operation Impact would be cancelled. A bureaucratic change, a stroke of a pen, was going to impact brave men and women who put their uniforms on to serve our country so our flag could stand tall and we could remain free and indeed promote Canadian values abroad. They are facing financial hardship.

The good news is that the change will not take effect until June 1, 2017, allowing time for members and their families to adjust to this decision. How kind of the Liberals. Instead of taking time to reflect on this choice, the Liberals came up with an equally appalling solution. Instead of restoring the benefits that our troops at Camp Arifjan deserved, they decided to revoke the benefit for all our troops that were battling ISIS. I understand, through the debate, that the Liberals are reconsidering and re-examining this, but I would challenge them to agree to our motion and keep this benefit in place.

The arrogance of the Liberal government is unprecedented. The Liberals are rolling back the tax relief for our men and women who protect our Canadian values, those men and women who ensure Canada remains “The True North, strong and free”. These men and women of our Canadian Armed Forces volunteer to leave their families as they travel abroad to perform dangerous work and put themselves at risk in the service of our country. They miss important milestones such as birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, births, and deaths.

Instead of providing compensation that is a drop in the bucket for the tax-and-spend Liberals, they are choosing to take away from those who voluntarily sacrifice their lives. Instead of thanking our troops, they are telling our troops that are deployed to foreign third world countries that they are not in enough danger to justify $1,500 or $1,800 a month in additional finances.

I would like to use statistics because they tell the real story. Here is one for the House. During the last break week, from February 24 to March 5, Liberal MPs travelled throughout Canada on taxpayers' dollars spreading fluff and flowers all across the way and announcing 188 loans, grants, contributions, and government contract awards worth a combined $1.25 billion. I will repeat that for the record, $1.25 billion. Now they are going to trumpet it and say that they are spending dollars and they just announced another $650 million to be spent abroad, when indeed those who are in harm's way here at home and those who are most vulnerable and those who are wearing the maple leaf on their shoulders and protecting and promoting the maple leaf and all of our Canadian values abroad are being told that they are going to receive a pay cut. It is shameful.

The Prime Minister felt it necessary to cut the tax benefits of our military. This is simply unacceptable. The Liberals have known for months now that the Canadian troops who are deployed in the fight against ISIS have not been adequately compensated for the hardships and risks associated with their deployment and yet the decision was still made to cut this financial aid while the troops had already agreed to deploy. In cutting this benefit, the Liberals have cheated our troops and their families out of hard-earned money that they expected and counted on, and most of all, that they deserve.

I was not a part of the last government or the one before that, but all I have heard today and in recent months is that whenever the Liberals have to justify some of the things they are doing, they always like to say that Prime Minister Harper and his government started it and the Liberals are simply following through. They like to point fingers. It is a smokescreen and it is unacceptable. Liberals knew about this. If they believed the words coming out of their mouths, they would stand up for those who are putting their lives in danger for our country and our communities, but I guess it is acceptable to treat our heroes the way the Liberals are treating them.

Last night, something remarkable happened. The House stood in unanimous support of my bill, Bill C-211, and collectively we sent the message that we in the chamber value the brave men and women who serve our country and our communities. Collectively we have provided hope and I look forward to working with all colleagues to ensure Bill C-211 is strengthened where necessary and passed as quickly as possible, because with every minute, every hour, every day wasted, we are losing lives.

Over the course of the preparation for Bill C-211, I heard tragic stories from the men and women who have served our country proudly. Their stories were deeply personal and will sit with me for the rest of my life. I also had the honour of meeting with surviving friends and families of those who we lost in combat and those we lost here at home because we failed to live up to our responsibility in ensuring our soldiers are whole, that they are healthy, that they have every opportunity to integrate back into our communities and to provide for their families. I am going to say again that they are not healthy. There is tremendous stress placed upon our soldiers and their families when they are deployed, emotional, physical, and financial stress. We need to ensure that we provide every tool possible for our soldiers to be successful in their mission abroad and their mission here at home.

Taking away this tax credit from Canadians who have answered the world's call and are serving our country without hesitation is shameful. It flies against what we all stood together for here last night and against the message that this chamber delivered to all of the Canadians who were tuning in and to members of our armed forces, our brave men and women who put the uniform on every day to serve all of us and our families.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, who has been such a good support for me and who has led me to understand so much at the national defence committee, on which I participate with him. It has been an honour to represent the people of my riding of North Island—Powell River in this important work.

I also want to take this opportunity to highlight the dedication of the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman to the Armed Forces, and I thank him for tabling this important motion. The New Democratic Party is proud to support it, as am I.

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak to the government's decision to take away from soldiers fighting against ISIS the tax benefit that provides them with $1,500 to $1,800 per month for the hardships and risks associated with their deployment.

I cannot express how deeply I respect the members of the Canadian Armed Forces. I know that in my own family, with several members participating in different levels of the military, it is something we hold close in our hearts, as we know it is our family and families across Canada who send their family members to represent Canada in the Armed Forces. We can never underestimate what a sacrifice that is, not only for our men and women in uniform but for the men and women who support them.

It is an honour to represent 19 Wing Comox, and it is also deeply humbling. It is the backbone of the community. It is a reminder every day of the protection we enjoy. It is also a reminder of the duty these brave men and women bring to the fabric of our country. It is a reminder of the miracles achieved, even with the constant struggles of underfunding and lack of proper equipment. I deeply admire the tremendous efficiency of the military. It is also a reminder of the close-knit families and the bond that makes Comox so beautiful. It is also a reminder of all of those we have lost.

I have had the chance to forge a relationship with the wing commander in our community. I deeply appreciate the patience and understanding, as I have been taught so much about what happens in our riding and the impact it has on our community.

The battle against ISIS is about intelligence on the ground. I am so proud of the air crews from 19 Wing Comox who are directly involved in Operation Impact, which is Canada's military contribution to the Middle East stabilization force. We are talking about the 407 Long Range Patrol Squadron, which is an integral part of 19 Wing Comox.

With CP-140 Aurora aircraft, our fighting chances are much stronger against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Republic of Iraq. The CP-140 Aurora aircraft from 19 Wing will undertake important intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions as well as provide overland strike coordination and armed reconnaissance coordination that will provide critical information to the coalition forces. If required, they can provide search and rescue missions. As of March 4, 2017, Aurora aircraft have conducted 732 reconnaissance missions, and I am incredibly proud of that work.

Our priority in this House is to make sure that those who serve in the Canadian Forces have the training, equipment, and support they need to deal with the difficult and dangerous work we ask them to do on our behalf every day. Unfortunately, successive governments have failed to deliver proper funding to the Armed Forces to sustain the types of deployments to which they are assigned and to make sure they have the resources they need to fulfill their role and to keep themselves safe. This includes the government delivering on efficient procurement and on increasing major capital investments in the Canadian Armed Forces as a whole.

It has been a wonderful experience for me to represent my riding and the base that resides in it. I have had an incredible opportunity to tour the facilities and to meet so many people who serve us. I have been impressed by the military's flexibility, how hard the members work to make sure that Canadians are protected every day, and the pride with which they do what they do internationally. They do not give up. They make things work, regardless of how hard that may be.

It is not just about equipment. The government must also ensure adequate support services are in place for the returning troops to receive the assistance they may need. Just last night this House voted on Bill C-211 on post-traumatic stress disorder. I was very happy to see this bill move forward and have the chance to be studied in committee, so we can develop a comprehensive federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder in Canada. This is so important to supporting our men and women in uniform, and also to supporting their families that face challenges when they come home.

Recently I had the opportunity to represent Canada at a NATO update. One of the things that I came away so proud of was the incredible reputation of the Canadian Armed Forces. We heard again and again about the willingness, the flexibility, the high level of standards and training that our men and women in uniform have. It just made me feel so proud.

We know, every day, that when we stand up in the international world, we can be proud of the people who serve this country, because they have stepped up for us again and again. I think it is so important that we need to make sure we are helping save lives on the ground now by addressing the deepening humanitarian crisis unfolding in Syria and Iraq.

Canada should be a leader in alleviating the suffering of civilians caught in this conflict. Again, what we heard repeatedly is that across the world people who are in crisis trust our amazing soldiers who stand up every day. I think it is important that we look at ways to welcome refugees coming to Canada, especially when we look at the reality of the American President backing away from his country's commitment to refugees. Canada must raise its humanitarian aid to refugee camps in the region, especially in Jordan, as the refugee crisis has continued to bring the Jordanian government and society to the brink of collapse.

This mission requires clarity. I do not know if the Conservatives, while in power, were very honest about the mission from the very beginning. They misled Canadians about our soldiers being involved in the ground combat and failed to make a case for Canada's military involvement.

Now we see the current government following in those footsteps with the latest announcement on the changes to Canada's military role. When the Prime Minister made the initial announcement, he left more questions than answers regarding our role in the fight against ISIS. With increased boots on the ground at the front lines, as the Prime Minister has indicated, we now have to see what commitment Canada has made to a larger military role with no end date and no parameters to define success. It is only right that our men and women in uniform know what they are being asked to do, and know what success looks like.

With Canadian troops deployed in conflict zones, those on the front lines engaging enemy forces should receive the extra tax benefit that previous deployments have received. Canadian troops have seen armed combat in this deployment, yet the government calls this mission advise and assist. We really need to know the truth here. If Canadian troops are engaged in combat operations against Islamic State fighters, how can the government justify taking away the combat tax benefit to our deployed troops?

I just want to close by saying this. I am so proud to see that all members around this House are going to support this motion moving forward. It is so important that, when we ask our men and women in uniform to potentially make the ultimate sacrifice, and when we ask those families to let them go to other countries and face huge challenges, we need to support them in the best way and make sure those families are provided the support they need.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

As the committee has probably noticed, I was rather generous in my time there. It's no reflection on you, Minister. What can I say? We're all impressed by what you were saying. Since we have a question from the Conservatives and then the NDP, I will be equally generous on these next two questions.

That said, and not to cut into your time, Mr. Doherty, but I want to start by saying congratulations on the passage of your private member's bill last night, Bill C-211, on post-traumatic stress disorder. It's not very often that these are successful, but you certainly were last evening, so congratulations on behalf of the entire committee.

Federal Framework on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-211 under private members' business.

The House resumed from March 6 consideration of the motion that Bill C-211, An Act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Yellowhead and the member for Flamborough—Glanbrook for their passionate speeches in support of Bill C-211, and indeed our first responders, military members, and veterans. I also want to thank my good colleague from Barrie—Innisfil, who happened to sponsor this bill, and is a tireless champion of our first responders, veterans, and military. I also want to take a moment to pay tribute to and thank our colleague from Oakville North—Burlington. I know that this is a non-partisan issue, and she has done some incredible work championing for our first responders, veterans, and military.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge those who are with us on the Hill today, and those who are tuning in on the live stream. It is so important that this bill pass. A lot of thanks have been coming to us for bringing forth this bill, but I think all of us owe a debt of gratitude and thanks to those who are with us on the Hill, because they are the ones who really champion and stand up for us and our families moving forward and every day.

Bill C-211 seeks to establish a cohesive and coherent national framework to ensure our military, first responders, paramedics, police, veterans, and correctional officers get timely access to the resources they need to deal with PTSD. I welcome the revisions that will strengthen the intent of this bill.

I also want to caution all of us here that we should not be doing anything to weaken the intent of the bill, or allow the current or successive governments to not live up to the responsibility that is due to our first responders, veterans, and military.

The bill sends a message to our silent sentinels that this is not a battle they have to fight by themselves. It is up to all of us federal, provincial, and territorial legislators to come up with a plan to ensure no one is left behind, and that our terminology and laws are consistent across the country from the east coast to the west coast. The reality is that experiencing human tragedy affects all of us differently. These incidents and experiences cannot be erased from our memory. Most of us can never imagine what our warriors go through on a daily basis, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the images. It affects their lives and the lives of friends and families of those who put themselves in harm's way.

We have an opportunity to give back in a small way today by ensuring that our protectors have the opportunity to receive a basic standard of treatment to deal with their post-traumatic stress disorder. A national framework would ensure that a national discussion is undertaken on this issue. To date, we have had a great discussion on mental health and mental health injuries, occupational stress injuries, OSIs, and PTSD that our first responders, veterans, and military face. It is on us to continue this discussion.

Every year, a conversation happens on best practices, on treatment options, and on how best we can help as a society. The intent of this bill is to ensure that there is always a line item in our federal books, because for far too long we have left our first responders, military, and veterans behind.

I am asking for the support of all members today to ensure that Bill C-211 makes it to third reading, so that no other person is told that he or she is being too sensitive, to suck it up, to get over it. Having a standard diagnosis of care for post-traumatic stress disorder would change lives. Having consistent care and terminology with respect to occupational stress injuries, PTSD, or even with respect to industry terms, a standard of care, diagnosis, treatment, and terminology would save lives.

Let us get this bill to committee where we can discuss and amend it. Let us strengthen it. Let us make it stronger for those who put their lives on the line for all of us.

In closing, as members from all sides of the House rise to cast their votes, I ask only that they remember those who put their lives on the line, often without thanks, to protect our Canadian values and our way of life, because freedom is not free. There is a cost to freedom, and that cost is a human cost. We can do better. Let us leave a legacy of doing better, and doing better for those who put their lives on the line for us every day.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George for bringing forward Bill C-211 for bringing the matter to the attention of the House. I would also like to thank my good friend, the member for Yellowhead, for the work he has done and the passion he has for our military and our first responders, and the members of the NDP and the Liberal Party who have spoken about this. It is so important.

In the closing of this debate, as we get ready to again hear from the member for Cariboo—Prince George, I want to add a few comments about some of the things we see. So many of us, as we attend our Remembrance Day ceremonies, think about the importance of those who have gone before us to help protect us. I think of my wife's cousin, Everett Moore, who came back from the Second World War. He found it impossible to survive in the normal lifetime one would have expected. The war continued for him for 50 years, until he finally died. However, he did have good care. We had opportunities to visit. However, he was unable to come back and survive with that. At that time, people called it “shell shock”.

We have had so many opportunities to speak to people who are engaged in the military, so that brings it home for me. I really do understand what they go through and how difficult it is for families when such tragedies strike home. We have seen it. I think everyone in here has examples where that has happened, whether in the military, or with first responders.

The other experience I had was with the Pine Lake tornado in early 2000. As we were in it, we realized we had to be able to assist, and I was part of that. We saw the carnage that had taken place there. It was really difficult for individuals who were not trained to manage this. However, I think back to the great work done by our first responders in central Alberta. Every year, when we have the anniversary of that terrible natural disaster, we recognize the great work they did, as well as the seriousness of the loss of life.

We all recognize this. We see disasters happen, whether they are natural disasters or those that happen around the world where our men and women in our forces have to take charge or respond to terrible evils. We see it so often. What we have heard today is a great heartfelt response and support for those men and women who put their lives on the line daily and who bring it home to their families.

It is important that we recognize more can be done and that we have to go forward.

I would like to thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George. I want to thank everyone in the House for recognizing how important this is. Hopefully, we can move forward with unanimous support of Bill C-211.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder, well known as PTSD.

Last Saturday, I had the privilege to attend the annual first responders appreciation dinner in my riding. Having served as an RCMP officer, this topic is very close to my heart.

Bill C-211 seeks to establish a national framework to ensure that our first responders, whether it be military, paramedics, police personnel, firefighters, emergency dispatchers, veterans, and corrections officers, get the timely access to the resources they need to deal with PTSD.

PTSD is classified as a psychiatric stress-related disorder that develops as a result of a traumatic event. PTSD can develop following direct or indirect exposure to violence, accidents, war, death, or terror attacks. PTSD experienced by first responders and military personnel is the result of years of stressful job-related calls, witnessing distressing deaths, and repeated violence.

Episodes may cause an affected person to become angry, irritable, jumpy, agitated, depressed, or frightened. Many have used alcohol and drugs and have damaged relationships because of this.

The bill, if passed, will require the Minister of Health to convene a conference with the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, provincial and territorial counterparts, representatives of the medical community, and patient groups for the purpose of developing a comprehensive federal framework to address the challenges of recognizing the symptoms and providing timely diagnosis and treatment of PTSD.

Every day, thousands of men and women across Canada go to work, whether first responders, police, firefighters, or military personnel, and they willingly put their lives on the line to support and protect Canadians and their country.

Their jobs demand that they be prepared to show up to any scenario at any time, ready to face the challenges of their line of work. They treat our wounds, they protect our communities, some witness some of the worst that humanity has to offer. Then they return home to their families and try to live a normal life.

When most of us would head in the opposite direction, they are the ones who run toward danger. Their heroic efforts sometimes mean they are left to deal with the haunting images, sounds, and smells, which will stay with these men and women for life. Being a witness to human tragedy and suffering can become difficult to cope with in the days, months and years afterward.

We can look today at what is happening in B.C. Our first responders are dealing with the opioid problem and how it is affecting their jobs.

As a former RCMP officer for 35 years, I personally know what first responders go through, both emotionally and physically when they arrive at a scene.

Many years ago when I was a young air cadet, probably around the age of 12, I remember talking to a lot of different veterans on Remembrance Day, and there were a lot in those days, about their war experiences. I remember one particular gentleman from our community who drank a lot. I remember him telling me that he drank to hide the past and the horrors of war. This was probably the first time I was introduced to PTSD.

As I went through my working career as an RCMP officer, I remember in the sixties when a friend of mine came off an extended period of being undercover, where he intermixed with some pretty wild and dangerous individuals. He could not switch back to a regular life and suffered immensely, both mentally and physically. He eventually had to leave the force. This was PTSD, but we did not know what was wrong with him at the time.

I had a very good friend who I will call Mr. T. He was a lot like the guy on TV, but he suffered for many years with PTSD. He could not pull those hidden demons from within himself. As his commander, he came to me and talked about suicide. He received help and I worked with him closely over the next decade and even after we both left our careers in the RCMP. He could not get rid of the ugliness with which he had to deal.

As I am saying this, I thinking of Mr. T, as he is not here anymore. He committed suicide two years ago. I wish he had called me as I would have gone wherever he was to help.

I can think of a number of my colleagues who which I worked. A number of them drank too much, but were they doing this due to PTSD? Yes, they were. However, in all honesty, we did not know what it was. We did not know what to call it years ago.

I have to thank those members who have come forward in the last number of years, whether military, RCMP, paramedics, who were proud and strong enough to make public their problems and seek help.

It is out there among our first responders. As government we must work with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to ensure that help is there for all first responders.

Unfortunately, there is a stigma around mental health issues, including PTSD. Those who are affected hate to admitting they need need assistance is showing weakness to their peers. Instead, they keep it to themselves, hidden, silently carrying a heavy weight until they can no longer bear it.

According to statistics by TEMA, an organization that supports people with PTSD through research, education, training and peer support, 188 Canadian public safety and military personnel have died by suicide since 2014. Five first responders and four military members have died by suicide in this year alone. That is nine people in only two months.

This is absolutely heartbreaking. These brave people risk their lives to serve their communities, so where are we when they need our help? They have served us, but we have not served them. This is why we so desperately need a national framework to address this issue.

The Prime Minister has already called on his ministers to act on PTSD and make the mental health of our men and women in uniform a priority, and I thank him for that.

In the mandate letter of the Minister of Heath, she is called to “make high quality mental health services more available to Canadians who need them.”

In the mandate letter of the Minister of Veterans Affairs, he is directed to “Provide greater education, counselling, and training for families who are providing care and support to veterans living with physical and/or mental health issues as a result of their service...Work with the Minister of National Defence to develop a suicide prevention strategy for Canadian Armed Forces personnel and veterans.”

In the the mandate letter of the Minister of Public Safety, he is directed to “Work with provinces and territories and the Minister of Health to develop a coordinated national action plan on post-traumatic stress disorder, which disproportionately affects public safety officers.”

If that is not a clear directive from the Prime Minister to support exactly what the bill seeks to achieve, I do not know what is.

This is not a Liberal issue. It is not a Conservative issue. It is not any single party's issue. This is something that crosses party lines and it should be supported by all sides of the House.

Bill C-211 is an opportunity for all parliamentarians to stand together and acknowledge the very real impact that PTSD has on the lives of our men and women in uniform. The federal government must show leadership on this issue. I urge everyone in the House to support the bill. If we do not, we fail these brave men and women.

Most important, I want to thank my colleague from Cariboo—Prince George for his private member's bill, Bill C-211.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George for not only introducing this bill but for his tireless advocacy on this issue: the mental health of our veterans, public safety officers, and first responders. I would also like to thank the many people both here in the gallery and in our communities who have been advocates on this important issue.

The member's bill calls for a federal framework for post-traumatic stress disorder. It calls on the Minister of Health to work with the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Veterans Affairs, along with the provinces and territories, representatives of the medical community, and patient groups, to develop a federal framework to address the challenges of recognizing the symptoms and providing timely diagnosis and treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

I am very pleased that our government will be supporting this legislation, with some minor amendments. I will speak a little later about some of the concerns I personally have with the bill.

This is an issue that has actually touched this House, as we lost one of our own members to a post-traumatic stress injury. Lieutenant Colonel Sam Sharpe was first elected to the House of Commons in 1908 and re-elected in 1911 and 1917 as the member of Parliament for Ontario North. He was a sitting MP at the start of the First World War and helped raise the 116th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force and commanded the battalion during its operations on the fields of Europe. His unit was present for the assault on Vimy Ridge and fought at Avion and Passchendaele.

After suffering mental injuries on the front, what at the time was called shell shock, he was hospitalized in England and subsequently returned to Canada. Lieutenant Colonel Sharpe died by suicide on May 25, 1918. Thankfully, our armed forces have come a long way since then and now recognize that mental injuries can also occur on the battlefield.

Just a few weeks ago, I met with Syd Gravel and Brad McKay, who wrote a guide to help first responders in the creation of peer and trauma support programs, entitled Walk the Talk—First Responder Peer Support. The two former police officers commented about how far the conversation had come since they built their own peer support networks in secret in 1988.

There has been a lot of work done in many provinces across Canada, including in my province of Ontario. My colleague, the Minister of Labour for Ontario, led efforts last spring that made it easier for first responders in Ontario to get treatment, created an awareness campaign, and required first responders to have a prevention plan.

I believe that the federal government can help other provinces and territories learn about the various best practices that have been created. While stakeholders are applauding the fact that this conversation is taking place, they know that there is still a lot of work to be done. Mental health and healthy inclusive workplaces are two areas where I am hoping, and working hard, to make a difference as a member of Parliament.

With regard to the specifics of Bill C-211, I applaud the member's efforts and his genuine concern for the mental health of our military, veterans, public safety officers, and first responders.

I do have concerns about the limitations in this particular bill about the mental health of our first responders and public safety officers. The bill invites the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Veterans Affairs to a conference but leaves out the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. The Minister of Public Safety has already been working, along with the Minister of Health, on creating a national strategy on this issue. Early last year, the Minister of Public Safety and his former parliamentary secretary held a national round table on post-traumatic stress injuries, or PTSI, and the effect on public safety officers.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, I am extremely proud of our work last fall when we tabled the report, “Healthy Minds, Safe Communities: Supporting our Public Safety Officers through a National Strategy for Operational Stress Injuries”, recognizing the need for a national strategy on operational stress injuries, not just post-traumatic stress disorder.

Any framework we develop should include policies on prevention, screening, education, intervention, and treatment. We heard from witnesses who told us that mental health injuries suffered by first responders and public safety officers on the job were far more extensive than just PTSI and included broader operational stress injuries. We heard that though many will develop PTSI, they are far more likely to suffer from depression and substance abuse. Sadly, they are more likely die by suicide.

We heard from witnesses who told us that the research and data within the military context is 15 years ahead of what is available with respect to public safety officers and that very little is known about the incidence and prevalence of OSls among public safety officers.

During our study, we heard from the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, which is doing tremendous work to support our military personnel and veterans facing mental health issues.

Our committee called on the government to use our report to develop a national strategy; to create a Canadian institute for public safety officer health research, an advisory council, and an expert working group to develop policies; and to share research on prevention, screening, education, intervention, and treatment nationally. The committee also urged the government to study presumptive legislation for public safety officers, as several of our provincial cousins have.

That is why our committee recommended that PTSD be considered as falling within the broader health issue of operational stress injuries, defined as “persistent psychological difficulty resulting from operational duties performed while serving” as a public safety officer, along with other mental health problems, such as depression and substance abuse.

The committee heard from public safety officers regarding the uniqueness of their work environment and the fact that they see trauma in their own communities frequently. The officers could have connections and relationships with the people they serve.

Our committee called on the government to create a Canadian institute for public safety officer health research to “enhance the mental health and wellness of our Canadian public safety officers through evidence-based research, practices, policies and programs”.

I was pleased to read the Minister of Public Safety's response to our report, in which he said that the government recognized the need for many of our recommendations. I know that the Minister of Public Safety shares my concerns about the mental wellness of our public safety officers. After all, we need to take care of our public safety officers, because they take care of us. We have a responsibility to return our military personnel and public safety officers to their families as we received them, mentally well.

Caring for the health of our public safety officers, both mentally and physically, is not only important to their well-being but ensures that our communities are safe. RCMP, police, firefighters, corrections officers, paramedics, aboriginal firefighters, parole officers, and those who work alongside them told the committee that their members can suffer greatly from mental health illnesses because of their jobs.

I also have concerns about the terminology used in Bill C-211. Mental health issues faced by our veterans and public safety officers are much braoder than just post-traumatic stress disorder alone.

Since the public safety committee tabled our report, I have also heard from a number of nurses who have experienced operational stress inuries. One in particular stands out. An Oakville resident who had a long career as a nurse recently shared a personal story about a house fire that occurred more than 20 years ago, where a woman and her two children perished. The nurses who worked on the case faced severe psychological trauma. To those nurses, I want to recognize their injuries in this House and admit that we know very little about the impact of their jobs on their mental health, and we must do better.

I believe that a national strategy and the sharing of best practices by the federal government could benefit many employee groups who are suffering while recognizing the distinct differences in their work.

I know that the Minister of Health is aware of the effects traumatic events can have on our nurses. Recently, she wrote a letter outlining that she understands that caregivers and emergency staff who provide treatment are often dealing with difficult situations that may affect their own mental health and that there is a need to provide mental health support to our health care providers.

Finally, I believe that any conversation about this issue needs to include those stakeholders who have faced these issues, and they should be at the table as part of the discussion.

In conclusion, I am very pleased to support this bill. Bill C-211 has already raised, and will continue to raise, awareness on an important issue. Again, I applaud the hon. member on his efforts.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to sincerely thank my colleague, the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George, for bringing forward this bill to build a national framework on an issue that is critically important to Canadians, and in turn our national safety and national fabric. These are our first responders. They are military personnel, veterans, correctional officers, and police. These are the people who protect and defend us day in and day out and care for us in our most urgent times of need. It is our duty to care for them as they grapple with post-traumatic stress disorder.

While more is understood about PTSD, or as Veterans Affairs calls it, operational stress injuries, every day, there is much more work to be done. We owe it to our first responders to do everything in our legislative power to make this happen. That is why I am honoured to stand today in support of Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on PTSD, the private member's bill brought forward by my hon. colleague.

One of the greatest privileges of being a member of Parliament is the opportunity that it affords us to interact with our veterans and military personnel. I have had the opportunity to spend time on Canadian navy vessels, HMCS Halifax and HMCS Montreal, to talk with veterans from coast to coast, and to spend time with the reservists and officers of The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. I am proud to be a member of the officers' mess at John Weir Foote V.C. Armouries in my hometown of Hamilton.

Unfortunately, these brave women and men who gather at these armouries know PTSD and operational stress injuries all too well. That is because, tragically and regrettably, Corporal Justin Stark, a 22-year-old reservist with The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, took his own life in those armouries. It was October 2010, and he had returned to Canada just 10 months earlier from a deployment in Afghanistan.

Please also allow me to mention what many hon. members will know and recall, because I would be remiss in mentioning The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders without acknowledging a major tragedy that faced us. Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was shot and killed in the attack on the National War Memorial in October of 2014, was also an Argyll. As we talk about the scourge of PTSD that plagues his former colleagues, we should always remember the courage and valour of all military personnel.

We were mindful of the tragic circumstances that led Corporal Justin Stark to such a dark place when we announced an operational stress injury clinic for downtown Hamilton in January 2015. I was pleased to join my colleague, the hon. member for Durham, then minister of Veterans Affairs, for that announcement. The clinic would serve the Hamilton and Niagara areas, as well as parts of southwestern Ontario. All of these areas were previously served by a clinic in Toronto, and this brought the resources, counselling, and therapy closer to home for many veterans and personnel. One has to imagine that when dealing with such complex issues as mental health, operational stress injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorder, having these resources closer to home makes a huge difference in speedy diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and care.

This is a good and practical example of the kinds of things that Bill C-211 would help to facilitate. It would help to coordinate all of these resources at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels, and clinics such as this one that were funded by the federal government and operated by the province. Bill C-211 would set in motion a long-overdue and much-needed coordinated federal-provincial strategy, so that an inventory of such resources can be taken, gaps can be identified, and people in desperate need of help can be properly served.

Unfortunately, Corporal Stark is not an isolated example. When I chaired the veterans affairs committee, we heard expert testimony on post-traumatic stress disorder in our Canadian Armed Forces. What a tragedy that these brave women and men, who enlist to defend the freedoms we cherish and value so much as Canadians, are themselves imprisoned and thereby robbed of their own freedoms on their return from duty because of the psychological terror and devastating effects of PTSD. May this sadness move us to action.

While I have focused my examples thus far on military personnel and veterans, I know of many police officers, ambulance attendants, and firefighters in my community, the greater Hamilton area, who have been equally impacted by PTSD.

It is well known that among paramedics, the incidence of PTSD is very high. Almost a quarter will be impacted. Think about that. Almost a quarter of paramedics grapple with PTSD. These are the same people we count on in our hour of need. It is time we gave them the same priority they give us. It is time to take action as proposed by the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George.

The only group of first responders for whom the rate of PTSD is worse than it is for paramedics is correctional officers, who have an incidence rate of 24% to 26%. When we talk about that, it is easy to understand the pressures they are under. When I researched my own private member's bill in the last Parliament, I encountered many correctional officers, and I have heard gut-wrenching accounts. Beneath the statistics, these are real stories, real people, real families, and real cries for help.

We know that what is stipulated in Bill C-211 is just a first step. It would require the Minister of Health to convene a conference with stakeholders from all relevant federal departments, provincial and territorial representatives, the medical community, and patient groups. It is a sound and logical step. Developing a framework is a necessary and needed result. It would be a step forward in addressing the challenges, recognizing the symptoms, and providing timely diagnosis, thereby speeding access to treatment for PTSD.

It is a complex problem. It is not going to be solved overnight. A federal framework would only go so far, but it would bring together initiatives and legislation at the provincial level in a coordinated and national strategy. Is it not time?

To me, this is a simple decision. There is only one right answer. For the sake of the mental health of people who care for and protect and defend us every single day, I urge all members of this chamber to wholeheartedly support and vote in favour of Bill C-211.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to one of the most important bills I have had to deal with since I was elected. God bless all our first responders, and God bless Canada.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-211, An Act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to private member's bill, Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mental health is a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.

Improving the mental health of all people living in Canada is a priority for the federal government, which is one of the reasons why this government will be supporting Bill C-211 with amendments and we will work to address those at committee stage.

The Minister of Health continues to engage provincial and territorial governments to deliver on important investments in health, with mental health as a priority area of focus.

On December 19, 2016, the Government of Canada offered to give the provinces and territories approximately $11 billion over 10 years for mental health care and home care in addition to $544 million over five years for federal and pan-Canadian organizations to support initiatives on prescription drug and health innovation. Many provinces have decided to work with the Government of Canada by using the funds to improve mental health services for Canadians.

In addition, the Government of Canada is promoting people's mental health and well-being by supporting programs that build resilience in individuals and communities to help them overcome adversity. This involves all levels of government, national indigenous organizations, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is the lead federal organization for mental health promotion and mental illness prevention. The agency supports federal coordination in these areas across the health portfolio and other departments to provide a coherent approach to promote, protect, and improve the mental health and well-being of all Canadians.

The health portfolio, in collaboration with other federal departments, supports policy development and community-based programming across various life stages. Key areas related to post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD in Canada, include family violence prevention, suicide prevention, targeted indigenous mental health promotion initiatives, and helping victims cope after emergencies.

Being a victim of violence is a significant risk factor for developing post-traumatic stress disorder, which is more commonly known in Canada by its acronym, PTSD. Domestic violence, including intimate partner violence and child abuse, is a serious public health issue and a significant risk factor for developing PTSD. Some 32% of adult Canadians reported that they have been the victim of some form of violence before the age of 16.

Research shows that women who have experienced intimate partner violence have heightened rates of PTSD, injury, chronic pain, sleep disorders, substance use problems, and other mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.

Children who have been abused or exposed to abuse in the family also have a higher risk of developing mental health issues, including PTSD. Those who were maltreated as children are twice as likely to have poor mental health and are over three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts. Boys who have been victimized or raised in violent homes are at an increased risk of becoming perpetrators of violence as adults, and girls exposed to violence in the home are at an increased risk of being victimized as adults, thus continuing the cycle of violence.

Our government is supporting community projects aimed at improving the physical and mental health of individuals who have been the victims of child abuse or intimate partner violence, thereby helping them to rebuild their lives. Our government is also investing in projects to better equip health professionals to work safely and effectively with survivors of domestic violence using strategies specifically tailored to the trauma experienced by each individual.

The Public Health Agency of Canada coordinates the family violence initiative, which brings together 15 federal departments to prevent and address family violence from multiple perspectives. Partner departments meet regularly to share new research and findings, provide advice on design and project ideas, contribute to policy initiatives, connect to stakeholder networks, and ensure that new knowledge is applied across all sectors.

As part of this initiative, information is also shared through the Stop Family Violence web pages on behalf of all the family violence initiative partners. This is a one-stop source of information and resources for professionals and for the public.

At the heart of what we are talking about today is the fact that people who have PTSD are more likely to self-harm or commit suicide. Sadly, more than 4,000 Canadians commit suicide every year.

In accordance with An Act respecting a Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention, the Public Health Agency of Canada coordinated the development of a federal framework for suicide prevention. The main goals are to raise public awareness, reduce the stigma surrounding suicide, disseminate information about suicide and its prevention, and promote the use of research and evidence-based practices for suicide prevention.

Tools and resources are also being developed to help reduce the stigma and raise public awareness about suicide, informed by research evidence on safe messaging for Canadians. In addition, a guide of standard terminology and practices for federal departments to avoid stigmatizing and inappropriate language in communication products is under development.

An online suicide prevention resource has been launched, including information on where to get help, resources for professionals, and links to additional resources and information. Funding has also been provided to support the Canadian distress line network to develop a 24/7 national suicide prevention service. Once fully implemented, this line will ensure that individuals in crisis, regardless of where they live in Canada, have access to free and confidential support on a 24/7 basis, in a way that works best for them, by chat, text, or phone.

The Public Health Agency of Canada co-leads the National Collaborative on Suicide Prevention together with the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention and the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Their members include various health and community service organizations that work to promote mental health and prevent mental illness and suicide across the country, including the Assembly of First Nations and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami organization.

Federally, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Health Canada, and the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse, which are federally funded, are also partners under this umbrella. The mission of this Canada-wide collective is to enhance the capacity for suicide prevention in an effective manner by connecting people, concepts, and resources across the country.

Indigenous populations may be at increased risk for PTSD because of historical and intergenerational trauma. First nations, Inuit, and Métis experience some of the most significant health inequities in Canada. The proportion of indigenous individuals experiencing mental illness during their lifetime is 55% versus 33% of the non-indigenous population. Evidence shows that health is adversely affected by culture loss; racism and stigmatization; loss of language and connection to the land; environmental deprivation; and feeling spiritually, emotionally, and mentally disconnected from one's identity.

The federal government also supports indigenous populations through programs that are culturally adapted to the communities they serve. For example, the aboriginal head start program offered in urban and northern communities promotes the healthy development of indigenous children from birth to age five and helps them achieve their full potential in adulthood.

The community action program for children and the Canada prenatal nutrition program also support the healthy development of vulnerable children aged zero to six years and their families. Special emphasis is placed on the inclusion of indigenous pregnant women, children, and families. The Nobody's Perfect parenting program is a strengths-based, educational health promotion program for parents of children aged zero to five years living in socio-economic conditions of risk. The program is offered in indigenous communities across Canada.

These targeted programs help Canadians develop protective factors that will help them build their mental resilience and lower the risk of PTSD, because they are based on the knowledge that a significant number of mental problems stem from childhood.

People who have been exposed to natural disasters and extreme events are at risk of developing mental illness, including PTSD. Extreme weather events as a result of climate change are expected to increase in numbers and severity. Many climate scientists agree that the Canadian wildfire activity of the past few years is well above average and is connected to the warming climate.

I see that I only have one minute. I thought I had 20 minutes, so I will conclude at this stage.

The federal government's efforts on PTSD so far include following through on some of these recommendations and taking advantage of existing federally run activities that target the needs of specific populations. Many of these programs and activities could also be used to support other communities in Canada.

Through these concerted efforts, and the ongoing commitment to sound, evidence-based approaches, our government continues to work to improve the lives of Canadians and those affected by PTSD.

The House resumed from February 9 consideration of the motion that Bill C-211, An Act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Health

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, since introducing my private member's bill, Bill C-211, I have heard from hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals who are in the fight of their lives. There is no standard diagnosis or care for PTSD that is consistent from the east coast to the west coast. Our first responders, our veterans, and our firefighters, who have sacrificed so much for our country, are not receiving the proper care and support needed to deal with PTSD.

Lives are at stake. My simple question is this. Can we count on the Prime Minister and his Liberal caucus to support Bill C-211 when it is voted on at second reading, yes or no?

Federal Framework on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity today to debate the creation of a federal framework on PTSD through Bill C-211. I would like to thank the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George for shining light on this important issue, and for his very thoughtful remarks today. It is hard to do justice to an issue of this magnitude in a little less than 10 minutes, but certainly I will do my best.

Over the course of the next few minutes, I hope to highlight the importance of the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder, nationally and in my own community; the impact it has not just on the members of our military but on emergency service workers as well, as so many have alluded to; and the impact the bill could potentially have in collaboration with some other initiatives going on in communities across Canada and within the federal government today.

Beginning with the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder in our military, I have to commend anyone who has had the opportunity to serve. So many who go do so knowing that they may not return safely, or may not return at all. Far too many of those who do serve overseas and who are lucky enough to come home do so with physical or emotional scars that run so deep they may never be cured.

In my view, the cost of engaging our military in a mission that puts the lives of Canadians in danger includes the cost that it takes to ensure they are well. If we can afford to send our citizens to war, we can afford to take care of them when they come home, full stop.

The Canadian Forces are in a mental health crisis. The Afghanistan mission serves as a perfect example. Every member in the House knows well the turmoil that those who have served face today. Since the end of the mission, at least 71 members of the Canadian Forces have taken their own lives. By comparison, I believe the total who lost their lives in combat during the course of that mission was 138, and every one is a tragedy. The fact that we are now over the 50% loss of lives in the mission through veterans who have taken their lives by suicide is a statistic that should shock the conscience of every Canadian. We need to do something about this, and we have the capacity to do something.

This is a difficult issue for the region I represent because of some recent events that took place earlier in January in the community of Upper Big Tracadie. Just minutes away from the town that I was born in, an infantryman took his own life. When we hear members of his family speak about it, they speak about the inner demons he faced and was unable to overcome. What made the tragedy that much worse was that it was not just his life that was taken, but the lives of his family as well. His mother Brenda was killed. His wife Shanna, who recently graduated from St. Francis Xavier University, where I studied, and who worked in the hospital I was born in, as well as his 10-year old daughter, Aaliyah, were killed as a result of this horrific incident.

This bill may not have done something for that specific incident, and it may take a long time to make a difference. The initiatives we are trying to launch at the federal level may take a very long time to make a difference, but my father always told me the best day to plant a tree is today, so we may as well take the chance while we have it.

It is not just our military. So many others are impacted by post-traumatic stress disorder. Our emergency service workers go through turmoil, which I am so lucky to not have witnessed myself. Every member of the House who has not worked as an emergency service worker can probably not understand. I have been taking meetings with police officers, firefighters, and paramedics who have explained the unimaginable horrors they live through in the course of an ordinary day. As other members alluded to, they hear the sounds they have heard, the smells they have smelled, and relive the events time and time again. It keeps them up at night and interferes with their ability to enjoy life in their full capacity as a human being. That is not right. We need to offer them the services they so desperately need to be full and well.

This issue is not without hope, although I may have painted a bit of a desperate picture. There are things we can do. I commend the effort in Bill C-211 to bring together different ministries, like the Minister of Health, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and the Minister of Defence, along with medical service providers, and, importantly, patient organizations.

We know the answer is not simply to put money into a program, but to make sure that any investments are made wisely to see the outcomes that are actually going to improve the quality of life for people living in our communities.

When I look at initiatives that are going on with all parties, I look at the report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I look at the multi-party committee on veterans affairs which has undertaken a study on mental health and the suicide crisis among veterans in Canada. I think this is a very positive thing.

Within a week of his being sworn in, I saw an article in The Globe and Mail saying that the Minister of National Defence had instructed the highest ranking members of the forces to make the suicide crisis a priority. I see investments with provincial governments like my own in Nova Scotia where dollars have been earmarked for mental health.

We can see in Canadian communities that this is a priority as well. We see organizations like TEMA that try to draw attention to the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder, but also help individuals who are trying to become well.

To those who defend our interests overseas, who keep us safe in our communities, and who respond when we are in need of emergency services, I would like to communicate that whatever I can do to ensure they have the mental health care they need to be whole and to do their jobs so my family and I can sleep safely at night, I will do what I can.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Victoria for stating his unequivocal support for this private member's bill, and my hon. colleague from Guelph who made a speech although we have yet to hear whether his party, the government, will be supporting this legislation.

First responders, firefighters, military personnel, corrections officers, police officers, front-line health care workers, like our dedicated nurses, and countless others face traumatic situations in their day-to-day work, the work they do to serve their fellow citizens and to protect our great country. While the work that these men and women do is well known, what is less known is the mental demands that these occupations require.

In these professions, men and women are regularly exposed to graphic scenes and images that anyone would find difficult and sometimes even heartbreaking to see, making them exceedingly susceptible to PTSD. As the official opposition critic for Veterans Affairs and having spent over three decades as a firefighter, I am all too familiar with the devastating effects of PTSD, and how it plays on those who wear the uniform and the negative impacts on their families.

PTSD is a condition that is characterized by persistent emotional distress occurring as a result of physical injury or severe psychological shock. It typically involves disturbances of sleep, and constant, vivid recall of the traumatic experience with dulled responses to others and to the outside world.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is characterized by the onset of psychiatric symptoms after exposure to one or more of these traumatic events. The characteristics of PTSD develop in four domains: intrusion, avoidance, alterations in cognition and mood, alterations in arousal and reactivity. People can react in many different ways. They might feel nervous, have a hard time sleeping, or go over the details of the situation in their minds. Others have more serious symptoms and their lives can be seriously disrupted.

Our society requires that these people continue to do their job, so it is the government's job to ensure that they have the ability to seek the help, should they require it.

Bill C-211 will help ensure that men and women who are suffering from PTSD are able to get the help they so desperately need. We need to develop and implement a federal framework on PTSD that provides for best practices, research, education, awareness, and treatment.

We really need people to help. Military personnel, veterans, and police officers are expected to lend a hand when the need arises. The bill calls for a federal framework “to address the challenges of recognizing the symptoms and providing timely diagnosis and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder”.

Bill C-211 is a private member's bill sponsored by the member for Cariboo—Prince George. I want to highlight and acknowledge all his hard work on this bill. Ever since we were elected to this Parliament, I have had the pleasure and the honour of working with the member on this, and I know how extremely invested he is to ensure that our first responders, our military personnel, and our front-line health care workers are looked after.

These brave men and women do so much for our society and give back in ways that cannot be expressed in words. They give their lives to serve our country. Bill C-211 would require the Minister of Health, the Minister of National Defence, and the Minister of Veterans Affairs to consult with the provinces and territories, as well as stakeholders from the medical community and patient groups, in order to develop a comprehensive federal framework to address the challenges of identifying the symptoms and providing a timely diagnosis for the treatment of these men and women who are suffering from PTSD.

There are some statistics that I would like to share in order to highlight the high PTSD rates among Canadian first responders: 24% to 26% of corrections officers suffer from PTSD, 22% to 24% of paramedics suffer from PTSD, 16% of firefighters suffer from PTSD, 10% to 12% of police officers suffer from PTSD, and 5.3% of military personnel suffer from PTSD.

We cannot forget those who serve on the front lines of the medical field, including doctors and our hard-working nurses. These statistics clearly highlight that large percentages of workers in these essential professions are suffering.

I want to share the story of Natalie Harris, a paramedic from my riding, who was on the front line and the first on the scene of a brutal double homicide. Natalie, who has become a friend and an inspiration to me throughout this process of supporting the member for Cariboo—Prince George, experienced unimaginable traumatic events while working a shift as a Simcoe County paramedic.

Rather than focus on the event and the effects it had on Natalie, I want to focus on her advocacy to help others who suffer from PTSD. Natalie began her road to recovery by simply telling her story. She told her story to a lot of people. In fact, it was at an event in Barrie that we first meet. That night, I told Natalie that I would help her raise the awareness of the issue at a national level, and here we are.

Shortly after the election, the member for Cariboo—Prince George and I talked about the work that he had done to that point and his plans to introduce this bill.

For Natalie, the work continued in spite of some lapses and triggers. She continued, and continues, to speak out, continues to support others suffering from PTSD through social media and a support group she calls Wings of Change. Recently, Natalie wrote a book, to reach even more people with her story. What an inspiration.

Mental health is important to talk about. Those who suffer from PTSD need better resources.

Bill Rusk of Badge of Life Canada stated:

...there’s more of a chance of [police officers] following through [with suicide] because they have the means readily available to them, as opposed to a member of the public, who might have the same feelings, but not the means readily available.

We have a problem here, and it needs government's attention.

Mental illness, like PTSD, can strike at any time, to anyone, regardless of one's age, race, gender, occupation, or income level. It does not discriminate, and it is non-partisan.

Vince Savoia of Tema shared the sad news from his research on PTSD that roughly 60% of first responders who committed suicide in 2015 were diagnosed with PTSD. These are great tragedies.

We need to give our servicemen and servicewomen the help they need and allow them to live their lives to the fullest, rather than be burdened by their illness. People who are in these professions wake up every single day and know that, when they go to work to support our country and their fellow Canadians, their life is at risk. They perform brave tasks day in and day out and are left with the haunting images, sounds, and smells for their lifetime. Bearing witness to the tragedies and suffering that they see often becomes difficult to cope with.

Through the work of this bill, meetings with stakeholders, and the development of this framework, it is my hope that the men and women who do so much for us are able to have the services they require and know that they are not alone in this fight. We owe it to these servicemen and servicewomen, who serve us relentlessly day in and day out, to address PTSD, as it can severely impact their lives and the lives of their families.

In a larger context, mental illness indirectly affects all Canadians, whether through a family member, a friend, or a colleague, and 20% of Canadians will personally experience a mental illness in their lifetime.

Our first responders, veterans, and front-line medical personnel are sick, not weak, and they need this country's help. Therefore, I ask all members in this House to support the bill that was brought forward by my friend and colleague, the member for Cariboo—Prince George.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in support of Bill C-211. I thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George for bringing the bill forward. I also thank my colleague from Guelph for his thoughtful remarks.

This bill would create a federal framework for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. That is a mental condition that can devastate an individual, impacting the individual's family, his or her ability to work, and even his or her ability to perform simple tasks.

As is the case with other mental health conditions, public awareness has often grown in the wake of extreme events, such as wars or natural disasters. Sadly, this has been our experience in Canada as we have seen men and women in the Canadian Forces returning from Afghanistan and struggling for years with the burdens of their experiences there. However, we should not think that this is simply limited to those kinds of extreme events. A soldier returning from a distant combat zone may be the first image in our minds when we talk about PTSD, but more and more, we are learning that stress, trauma, and our body's complex responses to it are issues throughout society, far from battlefields or police precincts or emergency wards.

We see it on university campuses, where students are helping expand access to mental health services and offer more support for survivors of abuse, including sexual abuse.

We see it in workplaces, where employers and workers are finding ways to reduce the stigma of mental illness and encouraging those who once suffered in silence to find the help that they need.

Nearly a decade ago, one academic study pegged the lifetime incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder across the Canadian population at nearly one in 10. In most cases, this could be linked to a single event, such as the unexpected death of a loved one, sexual assault, or witnessing a violent death or injury.

While any Canadian can experience PTSD, certain Canadians are disproportionately likely to shoulder the burden. In particular, I am referring to front-line workers who volunteer for duties that expose them to extraordinary stress. They are police officers and firefighters. They are paramedics and prison guards. They are military personnel and others whose public service can take a great personal toll. Studies have found that members of these professions can experience PTSD at rates at least double that of the general population.

A number of provinces have moved forward on legislation to remove the barriers that Canadians in these professions may face. For instance, in my province of British Columbia, first responders who experience PTSD must prove that it is work-related in order to receive support and compensation.

Last year, in my home province, the NDP labour critic tried to amend a bill in the provincial legislature to fix that problem and make it easier for those first responders, police, firefighters, and others to get the help they need and deserve. It is absolutely shameful that the current Government of British Columbia declined to fix that problem.

Let me share just one story to illustrate why this is so important.

Lisa Jennings was a paramedic in Victoria. In the summer of 2014, Lisa suffered an assault while responding to a call. In the wake of the attack, she suffered flashbacks and suicidal thoughts. After consulting with a psychologist, she filed a claim for workers' compensation. Her claim was denied not once, not twice, but three times, because the board was able to argue that her condition was not the result of the trauma that she had experienced in that assault. In fact, because she had visited a psychologist after her parents and her brother had died in quick succession, she was labelled as having “a well-documented psychiatric history” and her claim was denied. Shameful.

Lisa fought back. With no financial support other than a small disability pension, she appealed the ruling. She even lived in her car while doing so. As Lisa said, “This is for all the first responders in B.C.”

I am happy to report that three weeks ago, Lisa Jennings won her battle. An appeal tribunal reversed the earlier decisions, clearing a path for other first responders to access the support they need after suffering trauma in the line of duty.

A story like that should shock all Canadians and should move us in this place to act. Luckily, we have before us a proposal that would take one step forward, providing the much-needed federal leadership in this context.

What would the bill do? It would instruct the Minister of Health to convene a conference with her colleagues in National Defence and Veterans Affairs, provincial and territorial governments, and stakeholders in the medical community to develop a comprehensive federal strategy framework on post traumatic stress disorder.

This framework would help illuminate the prevalence of PTSD across Canada, as well as its social and economic costs to Canadians, by facilitating better national tracking and data collection by the Public Health Agency of Canada. It would also seek to improve treatment by making it easier to share best practices and by establishing guidelines for diagnosis, treatment, and management of PTSD.

Last, it would broaden awareness of this condition by setting down guidelines for the creation and distribution of educational materials for public health providers across the country.

I want to raise one final issue.

Several months ago, I was contacted by Mark Farrant, a Toronto man who served as a jury foreman on a first degree murder trial. In the course of that trial, he and other jurors were exposed to graphic and disturbing visual evidence and testimony surrounding the brutal murder of a young woman. Jurors are sworn to secrecy, and the moment after the verdict is delivered, released back into their daily lives. In the wake of that experience, Mark began to experience symptoms that would later be diagnosed at PTSD. It would come to disrupt his personal life, his young family, and his successful business career.

Yet, as Mark discovered, jurors in Canada are uniquely unsupported by our justice system. There are supports for judges, court staff, and many others who are exposed to the same graphic evidence and stressful situations, but not for ordinary Canadians who are required to do their civic duty as jurors. It is time that changed. Canadians, no matter where they live, who do their civic duty and serve on a jury, ought to have the proper support services available.

To that end, I raised this issue with my colleagues on the justice committee last year and have written repeatedly to the Minister of Justice, asking that her department assess what steps it can take to address this gap. It is my hope that the justice committee will soon become the first parliamentary committee to study this problem during its upcoming review of the Criminal Code.

While, sadly, we are still waiting for any federal response, I am happy to report that as a result of Mark Farrant's tireless advocacy, and at great personal cost, his home province of Ontario just weeks ago launched a program to provide free counselling to jurors who needed it. Therefore, if Bill C-211 is referred to committee, I will be seeking to develop an amendment to ensure that the issue of juror support is considered in any federal framework on PTSD.

The bill before us today gives us a chance to stand beside Canadians like Mark Farrant in Toronto and Lisa Jennings in Victoria, who swam against the tide at personal cost to do us all a public service. In that spirit, I ask all members to support the bill.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

moved that Bill C-211, an act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-211. However, before I get into my speech, I want to first acknowledge and thank the first responders, the veterans, and the active military members who have emailed, called, and with whom I have met in person. Many of them are on the Hill with us today. I want to acknowledge their courage in coming forward, and their fight to break the stigma and the silence. These are brave men and women who have been ridiculed, shamed, told to “suck it up and move on”, told that they are making it up, that they are faking it, and, worse yet, that they are weak. I want to thank them for trusting me enough to share their stories with me.

I also want to thank the family and friends of those who could no longer fight for their strength, and their commitment to ensure their loved ones are remembered and that their fight was not in vain.

Moreover, I want to apologize to all for it taking so long to get to this point. I have had this speech prepared for a while now, and as I wrote it, I took time to reflect on the hundreds of individuals whom I had the privilege of meeting with over the last year, those who helped get this bill off the ground, and the thousands more who continue to live in silence.

Mr. Speaker, today is not about you or I, or our colleagues. This is not a Conservative, a Liberal or an NDP issue. Today is about the brave men and women who serve our communities and our country without hesitation and without fail.

I would like to read an email that I received about two weeks ago. It states:

“Our paramedics and other first responders in Canada are amazing. We demand they show up for anything, at any house [at any time] in any weather. They fix our injuries, treat our sickness, restart our hearts. Then they wash their hands, head for home, and rise again to answer the call of duty. They do this job...without thanks, because they want to heal and ease pain. They do this job without fanfare or pursual of fame, and then feel like they get tossed to the curb when the stress builds up too much. Our first responders across Canada need to be treated like the heros and humans they are. This Bill needs to pass.”

There is no rescue for the rescuers. This is just one email, one story, but there are thousands more like it across our country.

One week after being elected, on October 19, 2015, I arrived in Ottawa as a newly-elected MP for the riding of Cariboo—Prince George. I had with me two documents and a head filled with big ideas. The first document was an analysis of challenges and opportunities that existed in my riding. The second was the background for Bill C-211.

Over the course of the two years I spent campaigning, both to win the Conservative nomination and the general election, I met with people from all walks of life. I heard deeply personal and intimate stories of hardship and pain. Many of these individuals were struggling with PTSD themselves, or they knew a colleague, a friend, or a family member who had contemplated suicide or had taken his or her life. They experienced the pain and suffering that was a result of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bill C-211 was born out of these stories, because it was through these stories that I realized there was no standard of diagnosis, care, treatment, or even terminology for PTSD that was consistent from one end of our nation to another.

The outpouring of letters and phone calls that my office has received since the bill was first introduced last year has been overwhelming. The stories are overwhelming. I have worked hard to meet with individuals and organizations across the country. They are only asking for proper care to be made accessible to our front-line warriors, those who have dealt with the sights, sounds, and smells that average Canadians would find horrifying and heartbreaking.

Our brave men and women put their uniforms on every day, knowing full well that they may have to take the life of another person during the course of their service to our communities and our country, or that in their service and their dedication to our country, they may indeed make the ultimate sacrifice themselves.

Bill C-211 seeks to establish a cohesive and coherent national framework to ensure our military, first responders, paramedics, police personnel, firefighters, emergency dispatchers, veterans, and correctional officers get timely access to the resources they need to deal with PTSD.

The bill sends a message to our silent sentinels that this is not a battle they have to fight themselves, that someone is fighting for them. It is up to all of us, federal, provincial, and territorial legislators, to come up with a plan to ensure that no one is left behind; that our terminology and laws are consistent across the country, from the east coast to the west coast, so an RCMP member serving in Nova Scotia has consistent care with his or her colleagues across our nation; so a firefighter who is not well has the courage to come forward and say “I am not well”; that our veterans or current military know that just as they stood tall for our families, someone is fighting for them, that they know they are not alone, that they can get the care and attention they need when they need it, wherever they need it.

Bill C-211 is about being human. It is about taking a stand. It is not about assigning blame, not passing the buck, not turning a blind eye and saying that it is not our problem. Bill C-211 is about breaking the stigma of mental health injuries. It is about helping them build the courage to come forward and tell their story and seek help.

I have been told over the course of the last year that PTSD is a provincial matter, that this is an issue for the industry to solve. I have also been told that people should know what they are getting themselves into when they sign their job contracts and go into service. I want to reiterate that it is up to all of us to come up with solutions, because lives are being lost.

We are inundated in the media of stories of another veteran or another first responder who have taken their lives and lost the fight due to PTSD. This is unacceptable. Since I tabled my bill over a year ago, countless lives have been lost. This is shameful. We must do better. This begins with education and a willingness to listen without judgment, because less known to the general public are the mental demands that these occupations face. This includes working in a profession that regularly exposes them to graphic scenes and images that anyone would find disturbing and difficult to see.

My bill focuses on first responders, veterans, and military. Even in these three groups, we have differing terms, references, and sector inclusion. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with a gentleman by the name of Mark Farrant. He shared with me that jurors, who in accepting their civic duty swear an oath to the crown, in fulfilling their duty to the crown were subject to the horrific crimes committed. They bear witness to graphic details and images over the course of their duty, whether it is nine days, nine months, or 19 months. Then, just as they are sworn to secrecy, they are turned out in anonymity to somehow reconnect in our communities, void of the experience and human tragedy that they have witnessed. They are tossed aside.

While not part of this legislation, it is my hope that bringing this forward and speaking to it tonight, the Minister of Justice can perhaps review this issue, and it can be part of our national discussion regarding mental health. We can talk about those who are impacted by this.

The reality is that experiencing human tragedy affects us all differently. Just as one story is not the same, there is not a one-size-fits-all treatment. These incidents and experiences cannot be erased from our memory. One cannot just hit reset. Instead, the images, sights, sounds, and smells keep playing on a continual loop. Simple things can trigger anxiety attacks or severe depression.

Staff Sergeant Kent MacNeill of the Prince George RCMP told me recently that for over 16 years he has served as an RCMP in his community. Over eight of those years he has led serious crime investigations. Just in his daily commute, he passes by two sites of horrific crimes. A simple action of dropping his daughter off at school can trigger his PTSD.

Triggers can come at any time and any place, without warning. A noise, a sight, a sound, or a smell can trigger the debilitating effects of PTSD. Most of us can never imagine what our warriors go through on a daily basis. I know there are practical questions that members across the way may be asking. Will there be a cost for implementing a national framework for PTSD? The simple answer to this is yes, it will cost money, but I counter with this. What is the alternative? What is the cost of inaction? How many more lives are we willing to lose before the government, before we, step up to the plate?

If members on all sides choose to vote down Bill C-211, what then are we proposing as a substitute? What is the message we are sending to those who we trust to be there when we are in need, those who without hesitation answer when the world calls? The question we need to ask ourselves today is what value do we place on these brave men and women?

Right now, we have a piecemeal system of scattered provincial legislation. Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have all taken steps to rightfully adopt legislation to deal with PTSD. While we are making progress on this front and we have come a long way in recognizing PTSD, leadership is needed at the federal level. The standard of care varies from one province to the next, and we have people falling through the cracks. Individuals suffering from PTSD have an 80% higher risk of suffering from depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts. As a society and as legislators, we have failed to come up with solutions to help our heroes, our warriors, the families, and the survivors, because a hero in the east should be treated the same as a hero in the west. Let us get this bill to committee so that we can discuss it, and amend it if necessary. Even with this, we have studied this enough to recognize that much more needs to be done and action is required.

Last October, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security tabled the report, “Healthy Minds, Safe Communities: Supporting our Public Safety Officers through a National Strategy for Operational Stress Injuries”. Bill C-211 was tabled before this committee, and I had the opportunity to participate in that study also. The report echoes much of what I am saying today, and indeed the minister's own response to the committee report said:

...the Government acknowledges the needs articulated by Canada's public safety officers and agrees that, in recognition of the daily challenges that are unique to public safety officers in the community, national leadership and alignment are necessary in order to effectively address this multidisciplinary issue.

Bill C-211 is a perfect place to start and is in line with the government's own commitments. Therefore, it is my hope that we can move swiftly, because we will save lives. Every minute wasted, every hour wasted, and every day wasted, we are losing lives. Action is needed. We are at a crisis level.

As I near the end of what I know is a very long speech, I would like to acknowledge that I am the first one to admit when I stand up in this House that it is usually to act as a voice of opposition to the issue of the day, but Bill C-211 transcends party lines and partisan squabbles. It is an opportunity for all parliamentarians to stand together and acknowledge the very real impact that PTSD has had on the lives of our warriors. If members would bear with me, I just want to read an excerpt from another website:

I get up all hours of the night and check the house over and over. I don't even know what I am looking for. I was asleep about a month ago, and I just knew that someone had fired a gun in my living room. I hear people pound on my door in the middle of the night, when in fact there was never anyone there to my knowledge. One night I got up out of the bed.... I don't know what I was looking for, but on my way through the house, I cocked my weapon. On the way through the house, the .357 discharged and shot a hole through my floor.... I need help, but I have dealt with it for the past two years. It is getting harder to deal with.

By nature, our first responders are part of a culture that frowns upon weakness. The job comes first, and feelings, wellness, and family come second. When lives are affected by PTSD, families are left behind to pick up the pieces on their own. Families are forgotten. Only through bipartisan support and co-operation can we hope to achieve effective and viable strategies, terminology, and education to help deal with PTSD.

Through Bill C-211, we have the opportunity to recognize the sacrifices that our brave men and women have made so we can be here today. Our warriors are our silent sentinels protecting our Canadian values and our way of life. They ensure our maple leaf stands tall, that Canada remains the true north strong and free.

As parliamentarians, let us stand in solidarity in support for those who are willing to give their lives to protect ours. I am asking for the assistance of members today so that we can begin to work on a national framework, and I ask that all members in this House help in achieving this goal by voting for Bill C-211 at second reading, because lives are at stake.

Holidays Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-311, an act to amend the Holidays Act, regarding Remembrance Day.

I will start off by saying that I am one of the people, and I think we all are here, who believe our veterans should be celebrated every day for their supreme sacrifices, as well as those who continue to put the uniform on so that our maple leaf is still standing tall and that we remain the true North, strong and free.

I want to celebrate and acknowledge our colleague from West Nova for putting the bill forward. I think the intent of the bill is the right thing to do. However, as has been mentioned by not only the member himself but a number of other colleagues, the bill is flawed and does require some work. The intent of the bill is to ensure that all Canadians from coast to coast to coast have the ability to pay their respects to our soldiers and veterans and to make sure that November 11 continues to be a sacred day for Canadians. It is an opportunity for us to show our fallen, our veterans, our forces members, and their friends, families, and loved ones, that they are honoured and respected both in life and death. We will never forget.

There are thousands of distractions that compete for our time on a daily basis, be it the work email that needs to be answered, the TV in the background, or that phone call that needs to be returned. However, Remembrance Day is the one day where on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month Canadians pause to remember. It is an opportunity for us to take time to be thankful for the sacrifices of others, whether protecting our country, working with our allies and partner countries, providing humanitarian assistance, aiding countries by helping to restore the peace, or fighting for our freedom. The sacrifices of our brave men and women have allowed us to continue to live in a free and democratic country where we are tolerant and we respect freedom of speech, religion, thought, belief, and expression.

We live in the best country in the world. I know that I do not need to tell the hon. members in this chamber that. We all have the privilege each and every day to walk into this chamber and raise the issues that are important to our constituents.

I want to hearken back to when I was a sea cadet. For a long time, I proudly wore the uniform and I proudly marched in Remembrance Day ceremonies. I had what I consider to be the distinct honour of being an honour guard at a number of those ceremonies. I want to come back to one of the most proud days that I had, which was the day right after being elected last year. Remembrance Day had taken place and I was going to be sworn in the very next day, but I had that opportunity to lay the wreath that said “Canada” on our local cenotaph. I am getting goosebumps right now just thinking about that because there is no greater honour than paying respect to those who have given the supreme sacrifice. There is no greater honour than when we look through the windows and we see the flag.

As I am looking over your shoulder right now, Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but look at that flag and think of the blood that was spilled fighting for our country, the blood that was spilled ensuring that you, I, all of the members in the House, and our friends and our families can sleep silently and know confidently that we are protected.

We all have the privilege each and every day to walk into this chamber and raise the issues that are important to our constituents because of democracy, because of the sacrifices that these soldiers, these brave men and women, have made for our country. Remembrance Day is a time for everyone to come together and pay their respects for the loss of youth, for the blood of their comrades who may or may not rest in foreign fields, and for the sheer anguish of having fought in war.

We are now just understanding what the term PTSD means. It is one of the reasons why one of the very first things that I did in coming to the House was to table Bill C-211, calling upon the government to develop a national framework recognizing the challenging demands that our first responders, our military, and indeed our veterans have faced dealing with PTSD, as we are just now beginning to understand.

November 11 is not the only day to remember that. As I said earlier, we should always be remembering that supreme sacrifice.

There is much debate about the flaws in the bill and whether it is a provincial or federal regulation. The important part is that the bill is going to hopefully go to a committee. The bill as it stands today will be completely different when it comes out the back end, but my hope is that perhaps we can engage veterans from coast to coast. Perhaps we can engage the Legion. We need to have that conversation. We need to always be mindful of those sacrifices and celebrate them.

This day was created to honour our history and remember that the freedom we have in Canada comes at a cost. We are thankful to those who were there and to those who are today always willing to fight for us to have the privilege of waking up each and every morning knowing that we live in peace. As I said earlier, they are our silent sentinels. While most would run away from danger, they run toward it. When they wake up each day, they live with the knowledge that when they put their boots on in the morning, they may have to put their lives at risk to support and protect Canadians and our country.

It should never be forgotten that this freedom comes at the most significant cost of all, the supreme sacrifice. It comes at the cost of bloodshed, injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, and death. Even when our soldiers are able to return home, it will never be the same for them, because they will never forget. They will continue to be haunted by the horrific sights and smells of war. The nightmares and the mental demands do not end. These are graphic scenes and images that anyone would find difficult to see.

It is so important that we educate our next generation, our future generations, about this history, the importance of our forces, and the price that was ultimately paid by the youth of another generation in preserving our freedom. This responsibility falls on all of us as citizens, as educators, and as families across Canada.

We cannot have this debate without bringing in the fact that the Royal Canadian Legions are our guardians of remembrance. There are more than 1,400 branches across Canada. More than 300,000 members give about 1.5 million volunteer hours a day. They give back to the communities about $6.5 million helping our soldiers and veterans come back and have some form of peace. They give back to their communities, and we can never forget that.

It is my hope that by getting the bill to the next level, Dominion Command will be invited to Ottawa to speak before the committee and that veterans will have the opportunity to be heard.

This is about the over 1.7 million Canadians who have served our country, whether in the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the conflicts we have had in recent years, or the ones we are facing today. It is about all of those who have honoured us by serving and some who made the supreme sacrifice.

In closing, it is a true honour and a privilege today to rise and speak about our troops and our veterans. I will be voting to send Bill C-311 to the committee stage. On a personal note, I hope that all Canadians will make an effort to participate in Remembrance Day ceremonies in their communities on November 11. If that is not possible, I hope they will take two minutes of silence at 11 a.m. to remember those who made such a huge sacrifice for all of us. To those who are listening to this debate today, they have served beyond.

Situation in Indigenous Communities

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will join my hon. colleague in imploring the government to invest more immediately.

One of the reasons I tabled my Bill C-211 is to look at a national framework to deal with PTSD for first responders and veterans, because mental health issues affect all Canadians. We need to have a national strategy. In putting forth that bill I hope to not only help those who run toward danger when others run away from it, but to have this discussion so that we can serve all Canadians and build a national framework so that we can stop this incredibly horrendous epidemic.

Public Service Labour Relations Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure today to rise in the House to debate Bill C-7.

I will start by thanking the RCMP members in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George, and I thank as well my hon. colleague from Yellowhead for his 35 years of service.

I would like it to be on the record that I was an RCMP brat. My stepfather served in the RCMP, which meant that I saw many of the small communities from the tip to the tail of British Columbia.

Our RCMP members are moms, dads, sisters, and brothers. They are volunteers in their communities. They coach minor sports, work with charities, and contribute to the health and wellness of our communities, and not just when they have the uniform on, but every day.

The men and women of the force put their uniforms on and go to work every day knowing full well that they will experience human tragedy. They know full well that their lives may be placed in danger just so that we and our families can sleep well at night. They are our silent sentinels.

The legend of the Mountie is well known: always getting their man, Dudley Do-Right, and my favourite superhero, Captain Canuck, who by day is a mild-mannered RCMP officer and by night fights evildoers.

The red serge and the campaign hat are representatives of our proud country. Core values of integrity, honesty, professionalism, respect, and accountability were exemplified by the first 150 recruits to our force back in 1873 and are now carried by the 28,461 current members of the force.

As I said earlier, my stepfather was in the RCMP. He told me long ago that it was not because of the great wage at the time but because of the pride and respect associated with the force.

The musical ride is internationally recognized. I have travelled with Mounties from coast to coast and overseas in representing Canada, and I can say that the lineups to get photos with the Mounties were always the longest at every event.

However, today our forces, all 28,461, are at capacity. There is a 30% disparity with their unionized counterparts. They are facing increasingly challenging times.

An average citizen may expect or experience one to two traumatic events in a lifetime, whereas a police officer may experience 600 to 900 traumatic events over the course of his or her career. A recent study shows that over the course of a 20-year career, a member of our police forces will face over 900 traumatic incidents.

Over 30% of our police officers suffer from PTSD. We need to break the stigma. We need to give our men and women the confidence that they can come forward and report issues, whether it be harassment or PTSD. We need to give them the confidence that they can ask for help. As well, we need to give the organization, management, and families the resources for training so that we do not unnecessarily lose another life.

We are here to talk about Bill C-7 and about a secret ballot. We are here to talk about allowing those who put their lives in danger every day the democratic right to a secret ballot without fear of intimidation or reprisal. Regardless of what labour policy reads, as my hon. colleague from across the way has said, fear and intimidation happen. Whether it is in our RCMP force, police forces, firefighters, or regular everyday workforces, fear and intimidation of some sort does happen. Harassment and intimidation take place.

Our Conservative stance is that we support the Supreme Court decision and stand with our men and women on the front line. However, we believe those who risk their lives every day deserve the democratic right to vote free of intimidation and reprisal.

Over the last couple of days, I have been accused of being against unions and our front-line members. This could not be further from the truth. Over my time, I have belonged to five unions. I believe they have a right to exist in today's work environment. I also believe that my bill, Bill C-211, calling for a national framework to deal with PTSD for our first responders, RCMP members, veterans, corrections officers, and firefighters, speaks for itself and to my belief and stance in support of those who put their lives in danger every day.

Communities in my riding are facing increased policing costs. They are struggling to be able to fund our police forces appropriately. Whether it is overtime due to illness, injury, or lack of resources, meaning members, we are struggling.

Just in my community of Williams Lake, to the south of Prince George, we have an ongoing issue with gang violence. Just last night, I was meeting with Minister of Public Safety on this issue. Just one tactic to combat this issue that we face, asking for three additional officers, would mean a tax hike of 2% on an economy that is already stressed, on a mayor, on a council, and a town facing challenging times already, and gripped with fear of the increasingly violent activities of these gangs.

We need to give appropriate resources for our police forces, for our front-line members, for our management. We need to be able to give them the opportunity to vote free of fear of reprisal. Amending Bill C-7 to allow for the democratic right to a vote is the right thing to do. The responsible thing to do is to consult with the municipalities that ultimately bear the costs of policing, so that the resources necessary to fulfill the agreements that are there, either for unionized forces or under negotiation, are in place. Giving the resources for our communities, giving the resources for our management and our police force, is the right thing to do.

However, we face challenging times. We have a government that does not believe that giving a democratic vote or voice to those who put their lives in danger is the right thing to do.

I will not be supporting this bill, but I do hope that it can get to committee so the government can do the right thing.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Stamatakis, I just want to say thank you to our guests as well.

In developing my bill, Bill C-211, I am deeply familiar with some of the concerns that are being experienced, but one of the things that I failed to do adequately, and the question has been raised.... How would you define the term “first responder”?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our guests, as well as my colleagues across the floor.

As my colleague Mr. O'Toole has mentioned, I'm deeply passionate about this. This is something I'm very familiar with and I have spent a long time working with those who have been inflicted with PTSD. I have had a lot of colleagues, over the years, who have been dealing with this.

I'm going to direct a few questions, but I'm going to do a shameless self-promotion, if I can, because my passion and my belief in this area and why it's so critical—and I applaud this government for taking this on—is that this discussion is long overdue. That is why I tabled Bill C-211 calling for a national strategy and the development of a national framework dealing with PTSD in first responders and veterans.

Specifically for the areas of concern that we've been talking about here and some of the intricacies in dealing with what our guests are talking about, there has to be a national strategy that deals with and then can build on the standards and consistencies among all of the levels of first responders or the classification. This means the terminology, the best practices, ultimately the care and education, looking at pre- and post-vulnerability, dealing with the very real stigma attached to PTSD, so that our first responders or veterans have the ability to come forward and have a voice, and that we've armed their colleagues and families with the tools to be able to deal with and recognize the concerns and the challenges as we move forward, and the warning signs, so that we don't lose another person.

I do have a question for Dr. Sareen.

In your testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, you referred to a concept called “the rule of thirds” and you indicated that a third of OSI patients can be expected to have a full recovery, a third will have a moderate recovery that leaves some remaining symptoms but it enables a patient to function well, and another third will continue to struggle over a long period of time

I have to challenge you on this. I'm not quite sure we can erase the traumatic incident from people, which they've experienced. I agree on recovery. I think we can provide resources and the ability to cope and to lead a productive life, but I'm not quite sure that we can fully recover, as with any other mental health issue.

Dr. Sareen, can you provide a little bit more insight as to how you came to that recommendation that there can be full recovery on that? I'm interested in your comments.

Federal Framework on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-211, An Act respecting a federal framework on post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce my private member's bill, seconded by the member for Barrie—Innisfil, who served as a firefighter for 33 years. This private member's bill would put in place a national framework on post-traumatic stress disorder for first responders, firefighters, military personnel, corrections officers, and members of police forces such as the RCMP. These are individuals who wake up every single day with the knowledge that when they go to work they may have to put their lives at risk to support and protect Canadians and their country.

It is my sincere hope that with this private member's bill, the men and women who are our silent sentinels know that they are not alone in this and just as they fight to protect our nation there is someone fighting for them. Heroes are human too.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)