Mr. Chair, members of the committee and Mr. Dallaire, we want to begin by thanking you for inviting us to participate in this consultation. We know that the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada are already working on mental health and suicide prevention. We thank you for your interest in going even further.
For 30 years, our association has been advocating for suicide prevention in Quebec. It brings together researchers, responders, clinicians, survivors of suicide loss, as well as private, public and community organizations.
Our main areas of activity are education, citizen engagement, and training for responders and citizens. As you can see, our association has no military expertise. Our appearance before the committee today stems from our experience in advising various community stakeholders and developing prevention strategies for a wide range of settings. We did that recently for agricultural producers and for detention centres.
How do we reduce the number of suicides among our veterans? What we all know is that there is no simple answer and that a multi-pronged approach is required. The few approaches that we could propose during this hour and that we feel are essential have to do with education, training and the services provided.
I will begin with education, or cultural and mentality changes.
Thanks to repeated awareness-raising campaigns, mentalities have started to change on the issues of suicide and mental health. Taboos are less entrenched and are starting to fade. Unlike 10, 15 or 20 years ago, suicide is no longer seen—or is less so—as inevitable and as an individual problem. People are more aware that it is a collective problem and that prevention is possible.
People talk more about their mental health issues and asking for help is more valued. We have come a long way in this area, but there is still much work to be done. That is why we are here today.
We have a few suggestions to make with regard to education. We are convinced that it should begin with proactive education of active armed forces members, especially those who belong to units at higher risk of suicide, such as combat trades.
There are all sorts of initiatives. For instance, we may be talking about strengthening the cohesion around an individual who is experiencing difficulties or is separated from their unit for health reasons. There are messages reiterating that taking care of our mental health is just as important as taking care of our physical health. There are also campaigns promoting existing help resources.
We must also work on reducing the social acceptability of suicide. That acceptability appears to be stronger among men who conform to the traditional male role. Certain therapeutic approaches are aimed at reducing that acceptability and manage to make suicide less acceptable and to highlight the fact that, by finding other ways to put an end to their suffering, they can become models for their children and models of resiliency for their community.
We firmly believe that suicide must not be an option, on an individual or a collective level. That is why we support messages to that effect inviting people to find other ways to deal with their distress and suffering.
We also believe that, as part of education, society should avoid glorifying individuals who have died by suicide, since that involves a risk of contagion. To avoid that, the media must be educated. I know that is being done already, but the message must constantly be repeated, as newsrooms and journalists are always changing.
We must also educate people in charge of ceremonies when a death by suicide occurs, as well as grieving families. That is a very delicate thing to do, but we must pay attention to that if we want to save the lives of suffering veterans. Some practices can have consequences, such as the erection of monuments honouring military members who died by suicide. We see them as a real risk to veterans who are suffering, who are vulnerable to suicide and who have lost a tremendous amount of recognition and value. Those veterans could see suicide as a way to regain some honour and recognition. Let us be clear: appropriate funeral services must be provided for military members who have taken their lives, just like for military members who died of other causes, but attention must be paid to the potential glorification and contagion aspect.