Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by expressing my thoughts and prayers, and I think those of all members of Parliament, for the children and families who are affected by bullying. It is truly a travesty when something like this happens to individuals and their families, and our thoughts and prayers are with them.
I am grateful for the chance to speak to the motion before us today, which calls on the government to establish a special committee to examine different aspects of bullying and to develop a national bullying strategy.
As a physician, I saw evidence of bullying weekly in my clinic. It was something that was exceptionally distressing for me as a physician and for the parents and children of my clinic. It is evident that this takes place in schools across the country and is something on which we should obviously focus.
I listened with interest to the comments of the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. I certainly wish to acknowledge both his understanding of some of the concepts involved and his commitment to addressing this very challenging issue.
There are many aspects of the motion before us today on which we can all agree. As I mentioned before, the issue of bullying is very serious. The problem affects Canadian communities, families and children.
There is a continuing focus on the impacts that different types of bullying have on children and their families, which as my hon. colleague knows, has already been considered by two Parliamentary committees: one in this House and one in the other place.
All of us can agree that we need to identify and adopt a range of evidence-based anti-bullying best practices and promote and disseminate anti-bullying information. These are activities already being undertaken by the federal government's National Crime Prevention Centre, the RCMP and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
They are doing a fabulous job. I can talk about evidence in my own riding of what the RCMP is doing, and from my work with the Public Health Agency of Canada, I can talk of the great programs it is implementing to take action to combat bullying.
The central premise of the motion before us today is that we need to establish yet another committee to examine bullying and come up with solutions. However, earlier this year our government released a comprehensive national report on health behaviour in school-age children, called: “The Health of Canada’s Young People: a mental health focus”.
The health behaviour in school-age children report is Canada's only national school-based general health survey of children between age 11 and 15. The report aims to increase knowledge and understanding of the health and well-being of young Canadians and the social context of their health attitudes and behaviours.
The report provides accurate statistics, Canadian-based evidence on health attitudes and behaviours related to smoking, alcohol and drug use, physical activity and body image, sedentary behaviour, healthy eating habits, mental health, injury prevention, bullying, sexual health and social settings such as family at home, peers, school, community as well as socio-economic status.
In Canada, the key findings are used to engage dialogue among governments, communities, researchers and other organizations and will contribute to better informed policies, programs and practices for improved child health.
Overseas, Canada also provides the key findings to the international Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children database. Canadian data is combined with data from 35 other participating countries in Europe and North America to produce cross-national reports published by the World Health Organization.
From the studies our government has undertaken, we know that approximately 22% of Canadian children and youth reported being victims of bullying, while 12% reported bullying others and 41% reported both bullying as well as being a victim of bullying. As I mentioned before, the escalation of this issue was definitely reflected in what I was seeing in children coming to my clinic.
These rates have remained relatively stable since 2002. Although overall bullying rates are not increasing, the issue is still of serious concern for many Canadian families, given that bullying can often leave lasting psychological scars on victims and occasionally result in suicide.
Bullying in schools is not a new issue, but rather one that is re-emerging. It is a growing concern in many jurisdictions and a number of provinces and territories have developed strategies and programs to address this problem. Education is one area that plays a crucial role in responding to bullying since most bullying incidents occur on the school premises. As such, recognizing the role and education in the management of schools, provinces and territories have a key role to implement these measures that would address bullying.
Provincial and territorial governments have all recognized that they can and should be taking action to address bullying. This includes developing specific guidelines and principles to assist schools in implementing measures and addressing bullying. For example, Ontario and Quebec adopted bullying legislation in schools in June this year. A number of other provinces, including Alberta, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, are in the process of reviewing anti-bullying legislation intended to amend the education acts in these jurisdictions.
By law, school boards in Ontario are now required to provide programs, interventions and other supports to students affected by or engaged in bullying based on a model bullying prevention and intervention plan developed by the ministry of education. Similarly in Quebec schools need to have an anti-bullying and anti-violence plan that includes prevention measures and concrete responses to the acts of bullying. Legislation in both provinces place a greater emphasis on promoting the prevention of bullying in school.
British Columbia also announced a bullying strategy in June, which includes 10 components. It includes a five-year multi-level training program for educators and community partners to help them proactively identify and address threats. I would like to emphasize that local level commitment. We all know that these things happen at a local level. They happen within small and larger communities. Local communities are taking action and need to be supported in that.
The strategy that British Columbia has online tools, including a smartphone application for kids to report bullying anonymously. It includes dedicated safe school coordinators in every school district and stronger codes of conduct for schools. As well, the strategy puts in place new provincial guidelines for threat assessments and new online resources for parents. That is what the Government of British Columbia is doing to address bullying.
In the Maritimes, the Government of Nova Scotia released a report on cyberbullying in March. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the student support services division of the department of education has established a safe and caring schools Initiative to promote safe and caring learning environments and to be proactive and preventive in addressing violence issues.
All of these initiatives are commendable and significant in their own right. All are focused at the local level where we need to focus. Given that bullying has been linked to delinquency, there is indeed a role for the federal government to play in terms of crime prevention through the national crime prevention strategy. The strategy currently offers a number of very promising initiatives which are all eligible for funding as part of the organization's current funding intake.
The aggression replacement training initiative, for example, is geared to preventing violence among youth aged 12 to 17 years, preventing aboriginal youth delinquency in urban centres and preventing school-based bullying. The project is designed to promote pro-social behaviour in chronically aggressive and violent adolescents, using techniques to develop social skills, emotional control and moral reasoning.
An initiative geared to the same age group is the leadership and resilience program, which is a school and community-based program for students that enhances youths' internal strengths and resiliency while preventing involvement in substance use and violence.
Then there is also the stop now and plan initiative, which is a multi-component family-focused program that provides a framework for effectively teaching children and their parents self-control and problem-solving skills.
As members can see from what I have outlined, our government has a wide range of projects through the national crime prevention strategy, which community groups and stakeholders can apply for funding in order to help address bullying.
Our government is moving forward in a number of ways to tackle the issue of bullying, while also addressing the mental health of our young people in general. The motion before us suggests that another committee for the study is required to further enhance our understanding of bullying behaviour and ultimately result in improved responses. Our government is certainly open to new ideas and approaches. Although, as my hon. colleague has stated, we look forward to seeing how this proposed committee would interact with the other two that are already under way.