Good morning, and thank you very much for allowing me to address the committee.
As you are by now well aware, as many as 10 Canadians die each day by suicide, and these mostly preventable deaths devastate the lives of so many others. On that basis alone, our government should play a significant role in suicide prevention. However, this role and the government's response to suicide must be in keeping not only with the seriousness but also with the breadth and the complexities of this issue.
This requires an approach that is authentic, multi-faceted, and nuanced, an approach specific to suicide prevention, intervention, and “postvention”, which of necessity focuses particular attention and action beyond simple inclusion in a broader initiative. Positive outcomes demonstrating our government's true commitment to suicide prevention depend upon specific, comprehensive, and concrete action, and eventually upon appropriate funding as well. While we understand funding for suicide prevention is not part of today's discussion and cannot be tied to a private member's bill, we all appreciate that it must at some point enter in.
Bill C-300 is a first step. Because of this bill, as well as that tabled by Megan Leslie and the recent motion put forward by Bob Rae, Parliament at last has broken its silence on suicide to join in a national conversation. We are very grateful for that.
However, I believe we owe it to Canadians to figure out what it will take to do this right. We must use this bill as a compass to chart our best direction, not take half measures. We know parliamentarians of every stripe are deeply concerned, and many have been personally touched by suicide in some way, as we saw last October when so many spoke of the tragedy of suicide and the need for bold action.
We are told that for every suicide death, there are at least 10 close others whose lives are profoundly impacted. That is 100 Canadians every day. Think about what that means over a decade. Many of these survivors suffer in silence and may themselves become vulnerable to suicide, particularly without compassionate and knowledgeable care and support.
Yet suicides are for the most part preventable. There are solutions, though they are rarely quick or simple. Suicide prevention in Canada is fragmented. The work began with dedicated individuals and small organizations scattered all across the country, and this remains reflected in our current state. There is no national vision unifying our efforts and few mechanisms that allow us to learn from and build on our knowledge and experience. At times, knowledge is confined to special interest or otherwise privileged groups and not easily accessible or transferable to grassroots organizations, front-line workers, and survivors.
When it comes to suicide prevention in Canada, the right hand often does not know what the left hand is doing, even though there are investments being made and great things being done in pockets all across the country. Because of this, good investments can fail to have broad impact, and their usefulness is then diminished.
Indeed, our government has made some focused investments in suicide prevention, but there is no structure to facilitate benefits spreading to all the places where they could be useful. A case in point is the recent announcement by the federal Minister of Health regarding a $300,000 grant to research best practices. This decision was made with the very best of intentions. However, in the absence of a framework and coordinating body, the government was unaware that similar exercises had taken place in other countries and that in 2003 the Canadian Institutes of Health Research had commissioned Dr. Jennifer White to undertake a Canadian suicide research review. This report identified substantial Canadian contributions to the suicide knowledge base and identified important research gaps. Hopefully, the upcoming research will build on Dr. White's 2003 report. In fact, an update of this report, with the addition of the global picture from similar recent reviews, would likely have been more sensible, along with funds directed to addressing some of the gaps already identified.
The assumption that simply making gathered knowledge available means that it will be swiftly put into action ignores the transitional steps needed to turn evidence-based knowledge into useful, practical application. Furthermore, the rapid gathering of this information could have been done in a few weeks by a simple request to SIEC, the Suicide Information and Education Centre, and to Crise to provide the latest material compiled across the globe.
We may well be spending $300,000 to reinvent the wheel. The government cannot be faulted, because there is no structure or appointed body to inform such decisions, nor is there any such structure to ensure that stakeholders across Canada have equal access to gathered information and the capacity to translate it into policy, implement it in practice, and then evaluate the outcome and feed the results back to others who need to learn from them.
This is where the federal government comes in. It is not a small role that the government must assume. It must function as both catalyst and glue to stimulate and cement the needed connections. Suicide prevention requires all levels of government to unite in support of the community groups, survivors, those with lived experience, and the thousands of volunteers who have long done the lion's share of this work. The national government must step forward to do its portion.
The federal government can also address fragmentation by honouring the 1996 UN guidelines on suicide prevention. Surely Canada's approach must be consistent with these guidelines, which clearly state that the litmus test of a country's commitment to suicide prevention is the appointing of a national coordinating body to promote collaboration and collective action and regularly report on progress.
Let us take full advantage of the wonderful opportunity we've been given thanks to the non-partisan leadership of people like Harold Albrecht, Megan Leslie, and Bob Rae. Bill C-300 is a good beginning. However, we need to extend our reach to be sure we do all that we can do for those Canadians whose lives have been or may be touched by suicide. Bill C-300 recognizes that suicide is a public health priority; however, it places most of its emphasis on knowledge exchange.
While this is one essential element of a comprehensive approach, knowledge exchange cannot stand alone. At a minimum, we must also consider establishing a national implementation support team to advance a comprehensive federal, provincial, territorial, public, and private response to suicide prevention. We must develop policies aimed at reducing access to lethal means. We must create guidelines and action initiatives to improve public awareness, knowledge, education, and training about suicide. And we must support an enhanced information system to disseminate information about suicide and suicide prevention.