Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on my colleague's comments about solutions being at the grassroots level.
We are talking great things tonight, but the worst thing that can come out of this would be a program that would fail.
No offence to the Department of Indigenous Affairs or Health Canada, but they come up with a program and they announce it. Then every single community in the country has to try to fit the criteria. Then they are denied by bureaucrats. That is not useful.
I would like to see a commitment come out of tonight's debate. When ITK and the Inuit have a mental health strategy, if it is a qualified plan, they implement it themselves. In the Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory, if they have a plan for mental health that works for their communities, they implement it. It is no longer the hamster wheel of programs running in these various departments, because they are programs that fail.
In terms of mental health services, I would like to hear my colleagues say that we will take the funds here and put them into the regions so that they can do what needs to be done, culturally and correctly.