Madam Speaker, the leader's remarks in terms of the action component were that we need to establish and fund a national suicide prevention strategy, which among other measures would promote a comprehensive and evidence-driven approach to deal with this terrible loss of life by suicide.
The key point is that suicide is preventable. Our leader said in his remarks that the suicide rate is three times higher in Canada than in the United States. Many others here have expressed part of the reason for that difference. Those numbers are just plain unacceptable.
It has been moving to listen to the heartfelt remarks by members in the House today from all parties. Now we have to turn that emotion, that concern and that expression into action. We all say, when suicides happen, “If only...”. We do not want to be back here in a year after other situations occur and say, “If only...”.
Yes, we can talk about the numbers, but the numbers are a person whose death is so hard on families and friends. Such a loss is human, but it is a loss of social and economic potential.
We all know of people we have lost from our communities. I know of one who worked on my election campaign in May. A week after the victory celebration we heard the word that he had committed suicide. He was a farmer who left a family and two kids. He left 70-year-old parents whose hopes and dreams for their retirement were destroyed, because this young fellow in his late thirties was doing the farming. That was their future. That was their hopes and dreams.
There was much horror and destruction in that family. I can remember the night of the victory celebration and dance. Everyone was happy, and this happened a week later. We all asked the question, “Why? What did I miss? What did we miss as a whole?”
I recall vividly my days as a farm leader during the farm financial crisis of the 1980s, when interest rates were at 23%. Some of us in the House do not believe interest rates were ever that high. The minister of financial institutions certainly does. We were both in that movement together at the time, with an interest rate of 23.5%. Farm debt was coming out our ears, and we all felt that pain. That was the time of penny auctions, and farm suicides were at the highest they ever were.
Two friends of mine in Saskatchewan committed suicide. One, aged 27, committed suicide one day, and his 28-year-old friend committed suicide the next. What worked reasonably well was that we set up farm crisis hotlines through which people came together.
We all think we are tough. We can abuse people in the House and we can take abuse in the House, but during those times I would walk across the yard at 5:30 a.m. and say, “My pride is shot. I am the one who could potentially lose this farm. Is the world better off without me?” Those are the thoughts that go through one's mind, and those are the actions that some of our colleagues in the farm community took at the time.
What worked reasonably well was setting up farm crisis hotlines. They were in Ontario, the west and Atlantic Canada. People with some expertise came together to sit down, and people could sit down and talk about their problems. They would find out that their neighbours had pretty near the same problems that they did. It was being able to talk about it and be open that gave people the courage to face their problems and move ahead.
It is one of those things. When people with financial problems or mental problems are walking down the street, sometimes people will walk to the other side of the street. It is not like a physical ailment, for which people will come and offer support, and I think we have to recognize that. Understanding that reaction has to be part of a national strategy.
One other example I will give out of those times is of a friend I had in Alberta. I personally was working on his case with the farm finance issue. We were just a couple of weeks from a deal; through this restructuring, he was going to lose half his farm. He called me one night, late, and I happened to answer the phone at one o'clock in the morning P.E.I. time. I think it was ten or eleven o'clock in the province he was in.
He basically said, “Thanks for your effort, but that is it. I am packing it in.”
Now, I happened to answer the phone. I talked to him for a bit. I called a friend who was not an hour from his place. That guy did not do what he intended to do; he lost half his farm, but he has lived a pretty good life since that time.
It just shows the importance. It is not just mental issues. It is stress issues or family issues, and things happen quickly. We need to develop the understanding and the encouragement for people to talk and to accept help in those times of personal trauma that cause us to do things we otherwise would not think of doing.
The bottom line is, as my colleague previously said, we do need a national strategy. We are a federation, a country, and we can do much together. This is an area where I think we basically all agree in this House. Much more needs to be done.
As a country we have a history of doing much together, but what it requires to get to that action I talked about earlier is federal leadership. I encourage the federal government to not only support this motion today but to turn it into action, to call the necessary meetings with the appropriate people in the provinces across the country and to act on what the motion says. It is the action that at the end of the day will prevent us from having to say why we did not act.
I will close with this quote from Dr. Nizar Ladha, president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association. She says:
Canada stands alone as one of the few developed nations without a national strategy for the prevention of suicide. It is astonishing that more isn't being done to stop this serious yet often preventable public health problem. We need leadership from our federal leaders to advance good health policy. Many psychiatric disorders lead to untimely deaths by suicide in all ages. This can change if we tackle this complex problem with a nationally coordinated and multi-faceted approach.
That is the action we need to see as a result of this motion.