Allow me to introduce myself. I have been with the Union des producteurs agricoles for 47 years, 43 of which as a permanent member. For the last four years I have been working as a consultant on mental health issues.
Over the course of my career, I have regularly seen cases of terrible mental distress and farmers with suicidal thoughts. Sadly, some of these thoughts were put into action. This has been my motivation in continuing my work with the UPA.
Mr. Caron mentioned our three sets of recommendations. We based them on various studies on the farming sector that are available for consultation, should you wish to do so. The main one is Enquête sur la santé psychologique des producteurs agricoles du Québec, a study on farmers' mental health conducted in 2016 by Ginette Lafleur and Marie-Alexia Allard. The authors examined 78 cases of farmers who had taken their own lives; more than half had sadly been diagnosed as suffering from mental health problems. We concluded that we must improve access to services and tailor them to farmers, which brings me to our second set of recommendations.
Let's go back to the recommendation on improving psychosocial and healthcare services. The community as well as the healthcare sector have to understand the realities of farming. To that end, we suggest that the Canadian Mental Health Association develop a program for farmers. As you can see, our recommendations are always based on the realities of farming, such as lifestyle, work hours, and the unending pressure on our members to be more productive.
We are also recommending a prevention strategy based on promoting health and a better work-life balance. This year, we have chosen to promote work-life balance. Agriculture is a vocation, and farmers are passionate people who regularly work more than the recommended amount of hours. They are often forced to, of course, but they also do it because of their passion. We seek to promote a better work-life balance for farmers.
Then there's the issue of public healthcare and psychosocial services across Canada. Access to these services is fairly good in our cities and suburbs, but in many regions in Quebec, and I presume elsewhere in Canada, it is quite difficult to get decent services.