Mr. Speaker, I want to stand and say how pleased I am to see the strong support of parliamentarians across the political spectrum for this particular bill.
As a physician, I am very familiar with violence of all kinds, including workplace, domestic, and societal violence. Due to the fear, stigma, and shame associated with violence, most people do not talk to anybody but do feel safe talking to their physician. I was always a repository of all of this information and knowledge, sometimes unable to do very much about it except to advise a patient about what to do.
Today, we see full disclosure. Everyone is disclosing now, and because of that full disclosure, some people feel very safe in joining the ranks and the throng so they are not singled out. However, it does not mean the shame has gone away. It does not mean that the stigma has gone away. It does not mean that blaming the victim has gone away.
It is not enough to talk about the issue. We have to do something concrete, and who, other than this place, this Parliament, can do something concrete about this? We make laws and we create policies, and we create programs that will deal with the issue once and for all.
I believe this bill is creating—albeit some people think it should be amended, etc.—a first step to keep a promise the Liberal government made when it first came to power, that it would deal with exactly this particular workplace harassment and this particular culture in the workplace.
We need to look at this. I know people have spoken about different types of harassment and violence. I want to say that violence is not just physical and it is not only sexual. Psychological violence is rampant in the workplace, where people do things or do not do things or do not say things because of the fear of losing their job or a promotion or of reprisals by the people who are in authority in the workplace.
We need to really look at a full and comprehensive spectrum of violence. Psychological violence is as important and as damaging as actual physical violence. There is a great deal of psychological violence in the workplace.
To look at this, we need to look at an integrated approach. I think we are looking at—