Madam Speaker, it is an honour always to rise in this chamber and represent my constituents. On this occasion, it is no exception.
Today I rise to support the motion of a New Democratic colleague, the member for Timmins—James Bay, which would establish a national framework to combat suicide. I want to assure my colleague that I read the motion line by line. I have no contention with the substance of the motion, although the complexity of the same is significant.
At committee, our colleagues could hash out how the execution of this would take into consideration the collaboration with provinces, our many first nations, the Department of National Defence, etc. In fact, it would be my contention that the issues of suicide and mental health are of such significant concern that a special committee should be considered.
Only on one other occasion did I use an opportunity in the chamber to relay a personal experience, referring more to the spirit of the bill than the details. I do the same today, as I am convinced that my brief intervention will add significantly to this debate. I do this also because of the overwhelming response I and my family have received from across the country when people have heard me speak out regarding my daughter's suicide and mental health.
On August 12, 2017, my wife Almut and I had just finished having an enjoyable time with my son Lucian, his wife and our grandchildren at his in-laws' cottage a few hours from Thunder Bay. We were boarding a flight from Thunder Bay to Toronto so we could return home to Ancaster. As we were making our way to the gate, I felt my phone vibrate and saw that my eldest son, Christopher, had sent a text to my phone saying that an urgent message had been posted, requesting to have me or my wife, the parents of Lara Sweet, call them immediately. Of course, this seemed bizarre, but any parent would agree that a message of this nature would immediately raise one's anxiety to a very serious level. Since we were at the time just boarding our flight, I asked my son to please call the person and press him or her for information so when we landed in Toronto, we could help Lara as she was living in Oshawa.
We had been through a lot with Lara over the years. We had many great and positive family times watching Lara become a leader in training, an aspiring camp counsellor and a total annoyance to her four brothers. However, Lara had a life-long battle with mental health. She was diagnosed early with profound ADHD and we walked with her through many issues over the years with treatment, counselling, acting out, being arrested by police, searching for her at night, on the streets and visiting her in jail. All this is to that say we were used to responding to urgent and pressing situations with Lara. Our love never diminished one bit through it all.
I did not expect to hear from Chris until we landed in Toronto. I told my wife that we would get an update when we arrived at Billy Bishop airport. To my surprise, while we were still in Thunder Bay, taxiing out to the runway, my phone vibrated again. My son, in a text, informed me that the person who was the author of the Facebook post explained that she was a neighbour of Lara's, that the police were at the townhouse where Lara was renting a room and that Lara had passed away. I was horrified. It was hard to contain the immediate rush of grief, but I knew if I told my wife this information, particularly because I had not had a chance to verify the information as being true, it would be the most difficult two hours of her life before we landed in Toronto. Consequently, I decided to restrain myself, do my best to act normal and call immediately the Durham Regional Police when we landed. That is exactly what I did.
I cannot say to this day how I contained myself; I cannot remember.
The officers were still on the scene. The dispatcher was kind enough to transfer my call to the first officer on the scene who was thorough to ascertain I was who I said I was. He then informed me that Lara was indeed dead and all the evidence pointed to the fact that she had taken her own life, although it would not be conclusive until the coroner's report was complete. Although he told me it would need to be seized as evidence, she had left a note, indicating that she felt she had let people down, that she had relapsed on drugs again and needed to say good-bye.
There have been a lot of difficult things I have had to tell my wife, Lara's mother, but I do not remember anything more difficult than explaining to Almut that Lara was gone. Lara was only 24 years old, bright, caring, with lots of opportunity. Many people wished her well and were willing to do all they could to see her successful. Now we had to face the fact and grasp the surreal reality that we would never see her on this earth again.
Having to go and clean out our child's rented room, notifying all who loved her—and most reacted with overwhelming emotion, so we needed to comfort them—planning our own daughter's funeral, finding the right photos and dress for the casket, are all so disorienting, and the list goes on. The numbness is almost impossible to describe.
At every call that needs to be made—and there are many—one hesitates, wondering what the challenges will be on a particular call. If the call is to the police or the coroner, there is a wait for the detective or coroner's assistant to call back, and most of the time the parent is so immersed in other arrangements that they miss the call. The same goes with all the other many calls and duties. You know you are running on empty, but you just have to keep going.
Fortunately, among all the pain, sorrow and grief, there are amazing events that people of faith call redemptive moments. Family and community come together. We have a large family and a great church family, and all were there to comfort us and help us work through the journey of grief and loss. In Lara's case, there were hundreds of young people who showed up for the visitation before the funeral.
Even though Lara struggled with her own mental health and wellness, she continued on in her Christian commitment and had touched very many lives with her love and compassion. In fact, there is a Facebook page to this day with memories of Lara.
It took months to receive the coroner's report so we could have an idea of what had happened to Lara and confirm it. It was over four months before we could pick up her personal effects, her phone with its pictures from our last times together and the note she left us months before.
People question themselves over and over, even though they know it is not healthy. Nor is there anything they can do now that would change anything by asking, “Did I miss a subtle cry for help that she was trying to make? Did we reach out to her enough? Was I firm enough? Was I strong enough? Was I soft enough with my communication with her? Is there something we could have done early on in her life that would have led her down a more appropriate path, a healthier path? How much mental anguish did she go through on the way to making the decision to give herself a lethal overdose? Did she suffer?”
Then even months and years later, when thoughts are not even remotely in the space of a lost child, a flower, a song, a colour, a word will trigger what my wife calls a “grief bomb”, and the pain is just as real as if it were that day when the loss happened.
I share this painful and personal story to shed light on the importance of the initiative that the member from Timmins—James Bay is asking the House to consider, approve and undertake. Four thousand times a year someone takes their life in this country. It is true that it is not always someone's child or a youth or young adult, but all too often it is.
I wanted my colleagues to know that their important and thoughtful vote to move this motion to a committee for study could eventually mean that the pain our family and thousands of other families endured could be significantly reduced. A national strategy could bring together all those individuals and organizations that are already doing great work on the front lines to address the mental health and suicide crisis, and bring them together to create synergies and best practices so that so many more people who are struggling could be helped.
I thank the House for the opportunity to share. I ask all hon. members to support this important motion so that we can move forward and help who are in desperate need.
