Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the first day of Mental Health Week, the Mental Health Commission of Canada will invite members of Parliament to lead 308 conversations about suicide prevention.
I am not an expert. Everything I have learned, I have learned from conversations with experts, service providers, survivors and many others.
Between May and August, MHCC hopes every member of Parliament will host similar conversations. It needs our help to engage our networks and to share what we learned, not only with MHCC but with the public. I encourage all members to join in Monday and start a dialogue on suicide prevention this summer.
I am also asking everyone touched by suicide, every Canadian working so hard to save the lives of vulnerable Canadians, to reach out to their members of Parliament and offer to help them start that conversation. Together, we can save lives.
In Canada, there are 4,000 deaths by suicide each year. Experts say that two-thirds of those are preventable. We need to talk about suicide and suicide prevention because not talking about it is not working.