Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to recognize Bell's Let's Talk Day, an initiative dedicated to fostering a national conversation about mental illness in Canada.
Roughly one in five Canadians face mental health challenges and they often suffer in silence. Many fear the stigma associated with the term “mental illness”.
It touches all our families. I am proud of our son, Ben, who turned his personal experience into his play, Indifferent Eyes. It is a story of the drastic measures taken by a man suffering from depression in order to be better understood.
It is because of brave Canadians, like Clara Hughes, Roméo Dallaire, James Bartleman and Margaret Trudeau, who have opened up about their struggles, that we can begin to chip away at the terrible stigma still associated with mental illness. It is about finding solutions to problems.
The government and the Mental Health Commission have long promised an anti-stigma campaign. Canada needs a comprehensive mental health strategy. What, by when and how?
We thank Bell and Clara Hughes. It is time for the government to act.