Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and Harold, and to the witnesses. This is certainly, as my colleague said, something that touches us all, and something I'm sure we could talk about for quite some time.
I'm going to focus on a couple of things, and make some comments, maybe. I think one of the keys, as we talk about mental health, is reaching out to people who perhaps are falling through the cracks. As much as we look inward here, people aren't likely to be following House of Commons debates, or going to read the report that comes out of the standing committee, or even the Mental Health Commission's report.
That's why I was so encouraged—again, as popular as Libby and Hedy may be in Vancouver—to see the Vancouver Canucks, and specifically one of the big rugged defencemen, Kevin Bieksa, promoting mindcheck.ca, which is a kind of tribute that the organization has launched as a result of the death of Rick Rypien. As a professional hockey player, you'd think he had everything going for him, but he took his own life after many years of struggling to overcome depression.
I just wanted to salute them and encourage people to check that out. It's pretty powerful to see them. You think of these professionals as being tough and having everything going for them. They lay it out there for Canadians and say, it doesn't mean you're weak. It doesn't mean you're not trying. Anyway, anyone who's seen that message will be very touched by it.
We talked about gatekeepers a little bit.
Harold, you and I share the same faith background. I say this with some trepidation, but I know one of the concerns I've had, as someone who is of the Christian faith, is that there are times when our leaders take away the physiological aspect of this, and where people I know have gone to their church leaders, and it's been, you're a little bit weak spiritually. The term that I've heard, even in non-religious circles, is about battling demons. I react very strongly to that. This is a medical condition, and often folks in every walk of life see it as something other than that.
I guess that brings me to my question. Another concern I have is that people who have a mental illness, at least the ones I've been close to, are constantly doing everything they can to get away from the medication. They've been diagnosed. They've been given treatment options. But as opposed to something like diabetes or high blood pressure, where you just say, I'm going to have to be medicated for that, I think there's this stigma where people are running away from the treatment options they've been given.
Perhaps someone could address this. Is that a problem? Is that widespread? Is that just something I've heard anecdotally? What is being done to educate people that you work as hard as you can, but for some folks, they just need to accept the fact that they're going to have to accept the help that's been given to them?
I'm sorry about that rambling intervention.