Mr. Speaker, not to abuse the floor, but I have a feeling that in my own speech, I might not actually get to this point.
I just wonder if my colleague would care to comment on one of the conclusions that comes from chapter 9, which was written by Dr. Annette Bailey of Ryerson University, in a book called Gun Violence, Disability and Recovery.
She talks about one kind of service that is needed that really does not exist provincially, and certainly not nationally, which she refers to as “trauma-informed grief counselling”:
Several service providers interviewed feel there are insufficient grief support services for survivors of violent crime in general. Those that do exist often do not address the specific needs of gun violence survivors, whose trauma may be compounded by stigma, guilt, and self-blame.... Making trauma-informed counselling available to survivors, however, “requires a shift at the national level in recognising grief as a mental health issue”.
I would like to ask whether my hon. colleague would agree with me that, apart from the preventative initiatives he spoke about correctly, we are probably missing serious downstream questions about the impact on victims, including family members, and that recognizing grief as a mental health issue could take us some way to a more holistic, fuller view of the impact of crime on victims.