Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be part of this important debate today on preventing suicide and the need for a national suicide prevention strategy.
I congratulate the Liberal Party leader and member of Parliament for Toronto Centre for bringing this issue forward for a full day of debate. As he stated so clearly, this issue, which has been a taboo, needs to be aired and discussed, We need to address the shame around suicide that has kept it hidden in a closet.
I also congratulate the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention and other organizations that have been working so hard to raise awareness of the awful epidemic in our society.
We have heard from a number of members the statistics that show that we have a great problem with suicide in our country, particularly with first nations. I note in the Globe and Mail series on suicide that the rate in Nunavut of 15-year-old to 19-year-old men is 40 times the national average. That is completely unacceptable. It is a discredit to our nation in the eyes of the world that we have such a differential rate of suicide between our aboriginal communities and our non-aboriginal communities. It is to that issue that I will be dedicating my remarks today.
Clearly, we need a national suicide prevention strategy. In the province of Quebec, there has been a substantial drop in suicides as a result of its provincial strategy. We know that we can do better in this country.
I was pleased to hear some of the comments by the Conservative members about the actions that governments have taken over the years, but it has been a fragmented approach. The national mental health strategy has no suicide prevention component. There is no coherent vision. There is a disconnect between the national program and pilot projects and what is being done in our provinces and territories. We need an integrated partnership with leadership from the federal government.
There are so many factors behind the tragedy of suicide. There are also so many consequences for the families, friends and communities that experience this tragedy.
As the Liberal Party leader said, none of us are immune from experiencing the grief of suicide, not our families nor our social networks. I experienced that grief as a young woman when one of my closest women friends took her life. It was confusing, distressing and despairing for those of us who knew her that we had not been able to prevent that from happening. This is a humanitarian issue of the highest order and it is time that we grapple with it.
During question period today, the Prime Minister spoke of his government providing hope and opportunity to first nations communities. He talked about the economic opportunities. I do not see that, frankly. It is not reflected in the statistics. Many first nations communities have a woeful lack of activities for their young people. They lack educational success and economic opportunities.
I want to refer to a document put out by the provincial Government of British Columbia that talks about risk and protective factors. Among those factors are school factors. The predisposing factor for suicide among youth is a long-standing history of negative school experience or a lack of a meaningful connection to school. However, a protective factor is success at school. British Columbia has a far lower rate of graduation from schools in aboriginal communities as compared to schools outside of aboriginal reserves, and that needs to change.
Students who are on reserves are part of the federal responsibility and they are shorted the education dollars compared with what is provided by the provincial government off reserves. That needs to be addressed and it needs to change.
With respect to the risk and protective factors in the community, community marginalization and socio-economic deprivation are risk factors but protective factors, opportunities for youth, availability of resources and community control over local resources, are things that can be done.
As the minister of environment and parks in British Columbia, I had the opportunity to visit a number of remote, small aboriginal communities in order to find ways for those communities to connect with economic activities in the extensive B.C. parks system. I learned that these communities, which had once been thriving, self-sufficient, proud communities, were, in many cases, suffering from 80% or more unemployment. When there are no jobs and the young people are seeing no economic prospects, that feeds into the cycle of despair, a lack of motivation, of hope and of opportunity that has the young people drop out of school. That is still a very present concern and that has not been addressed in a systematic way through a strategy by the federal government.
I also want to note that a very important factor is activities and sports for young people. This is true for aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike. We know there are a number of groups that are more likely to not participate in sports and recreation and those are people from lower income families, people with disabilities, new Canadians and especially first nations. Activities, such as sports, are very important for aboriginal youth in remote and sometimes inaccessible communities. They need to have something to do after school and somewhere to go. They need to have productive activities so they can challenge themselves. They can do team sports or individual sports.
I would like to share a personal story on this level as well. I attended a barbecue in Vancouver for a friend who was celebrating a 65th birthday. Among the small group of family and friends was a group of aboriginal people, the chief, his wife and three children, and two councillors. They came from a remote, inaccessible northern community to the barbecue to celebrate my friend's birthday. When it came time to speak, the chief shared that his son had taken his own life and that among his family there had been a dozen young people who had taken their lives over the previous decade and a half. However, that had changed and that had changed because that community, in partnership with my friend's initiative, had begun to take some of the resources in their area, take ownership and create jobs, create an enterprise using the local resources. That led to a flow of funding into their community.
When the chief asked the young people what they needed, in the despair of the suicide in that community, and what could be done with the funds flowing into the community due to the enterprise, the answer was that they need a recreation centre and they really wanted a pool. The chief came to Vancouver to testify his personal experience that, since the centre was built and the swimming pool was put into their community, there had not been a single suicide. It was a very moving story and very illustrative of what can be done. Are we doing that in Canada?
We have a sport tax credit that, unfortunately, cuts out those very people. If they do not pay income tax, they do not get access to that sport tax credit.
I appeal to the Government of Canada to do more on the economic front and on the recreation facility front, especially for first nations.