I want to start by thanking each of the parents and parent advocates who are with us today for their courage and their selflessness.
You're taking a very tragic situation that you experienced yourselves and are trying to turn it into something where you advocate for others. Although it may be a way to keep your children's memory alive, of course it won't do anything to reverse what you've experienced. You're certainly working to try to make sure others don't experience and have to go through what you did without support and without compassion. Thank you for your efforts and your work on behalf of other parents of loss.
You've all talked a little bit about that point of contact, generally at the hospital level, where there needs to be some change in terms of the information. It's the sharing of information that you're given, in terms of what's available as supports for parents. That is at a provincial level, but as a committee, we do have the ability still to make a recommendation that this is something that we encourage to see happen. It can be done through a mechanism like the federal-provincial health ministers' meetings, for example, where that's something that's encouraged, that there be that information provided across the country. That's something we can certainly still recommend.
Also, if there are truly privacy issues in that sharing of information at the government level, there's an ability for a form to be signed or something that would allow that to happen. That can surely be figured out. We certainly appreciate those suggestions. I think they're very important and well-taken suggestions.
I want to touch on one particular aspect of that, and I have one other question. I want to have each of you try to address it if you can.
First, we've heard from you today and from other parents about some of the terrible experiences of having to tell the story of your loss, multiple times in some cases, to numerous bureaucrats and civil servants to try to access what might be available to you. Different results have come in different places. I think two things come from that.
First is the idea that there would need to be some kind of a dedicated line that might be available at Service Canada, for example, where bereaved parents or people who are experiencing bereavement can go to talk to someone who actually understands their needs and has the proper information available to them, so that we don't have different outcomes and different experiences amongst everybody. I wanted to get your comments on that. Is that something you think is important to see?
The second one would be on the idea of the benefits themselves. Many of the parents who have come before us have talked about the importance of this being a leave specific to bereavement. Paula's example is a great reason why that's important. Sick leave has been raised, but it isn't possible for everybody for various reasons. Maybe you experienced that you weren't able to get it. In some cases it has been used already—during the pregnancy, for example.
The idea is that benefit would need to be specific and it would need to be automatic, so that we don't have to fight the bureaucracy to access it. It's something that's available to all grieving parents.
I want to get comments from all of you on that particular aspect of it—the importance of it being automatic, specific and universal in terms of a benefit—and the idea of a line that would be available to all parents, where there is someone who actually understands bereavement.
We'll ask all four of you, but we can start with you, Cheryl.