Well, thank you for noting that.
Those of you who were in Parliament the day I gave my first speech, in the first hour of debate, will recall that I acknowledged spiritual factors.
Obviously, there are biological, psychological, and physiological factors that experts here will know a lot more about than I, but one of my concerns is that we often, to our peril, ignore the spiritual aspect of our physical makeup, in terms of our attitudes towards ourselves and our self-worth.
Often it's the spiritual community that surrounds people in their hour of need. I can say, from my personal experience over this last year, having lost my wife, that the spiritual community was my first line of defence, if I can use that analogy. Actually, I had a personal conversation with Dr. Goldbloom a few months back, and he acknowledged the participation in a religious group as being one of what he refers to as the “upstream factors” in prevention.
I think it's important that we don't simply have that barrier. We use the analogy sometimes of people who have an ambulance stationed at the bottom of a cliff to take people to the hospital. Well, the next step is to put the barrier up above so that there is no need for ambulances at the bottom, but the best step is to go beyond that and hope that they won't get to that barrier.
For me, the spiritual aspect is important, and it is important that we acknowledge it. The leaders of many churches and religious groups, in our small towns especially, are equipped to have the compassion and the outreach mentality to help those who are struggling with self-worth.
All I'm asking is that we don't miss this key component. I'm not saying that it's the be-all and end-all. It's a key component of the prevention aspect, and of going as far upstream as we can and not simply putting a barrier up at the bridge.