Harold Albrecht

[Health, April 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, in reference to the Supreme Court of Canada decision yesterday, our Minister of Health stated that the Liberals need to confront the fact that access to high-quality palliative care is available in a very patchy manner across the country.

While Liberals keep talking about their commitment to palliative care, their free spending budget does not earmark one single dollar for it.

Why do the Liberals continue to break their promises by saying one thing and then doing another?

[Health, April 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, by international standards, Canada has fewer doctors specializing in palliative care than countries such as the U.S. or Australia.

Out of 77,000 physicians in Canada, a recent survey identified only 51 palliative care specialists, as well as 123 family physicians whose practices focus on palliative care.

Where is the evidence that the Liberals have any concrete plans to address this crucial issue of palliative care?

[Situation in Indigenous Communities, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for speaking from his heart, and for his initiative in connecting directly with aboriginal leaders to get their perspective on how we could move ahead in dealing with prevention on this issue.

Most of our discussion tonight has been focused on prevention, and rightly so. However, there is another aspect to suicide that I referenced in my talk, and that is on those who are left behind. There are a number of good postvention initiatives out there. I am going to list a couple of them, and then I will ask my colleague if indigenous leaders may have referenced some tools that they would recommend and that we should be aware of in the House.

The collateral damage project, run by Scott Chisholm of Thunder Bay, is an excellent resource. If members are not aware of it, I would encourage them to go online. The collateral damage project helps those who have walked through the trauma of having lost a loved one to suicide.

There is another website, and in our modern age, it is important that we avail ourselves of all the tools available. I am certainly not suggesting that online tools will help to eliminate all suicide, but it is another active way that we can be involved. Your Life Counts is another online tool that I think would be helpful.

I am wondering if my colleague is aware of other postvention initiatives to help those who have been traumatized by the scourge of suicide within their communities or in their families.

[Situation in Indigenous Communities, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his service to our country. I cannot imagine the trauma caused by observing the results of some of these unfortunate incidents. In my comments, I referred to the fact that suicide does not stop the pain, but simply transfers it to others who are left to bear that burden.

If there were a simple solution, or even 10 simple solutions, I am sure everyone in this room would be sharing them with us tonight, but there is none.

One of the suggestions I have that I think is a help, not the answer, involves our front-line workers, and I listed a few of them. I think of hockey, baseball and lacrosse coaches. These men and women are working weekly, if not daily, with our young people. I think we do a disservice by not equipping these kinds of volunteers with the skills. Yes, we teach them first aid and how to apply a splint to a broken ankle, but we could also teach them how to use safeTALK. It is an effective mechanism that has been developed to teach lay people like me how to possibly intervene. I do not have to solve the problem, but I have to listen and possibly discover that a person is crying out for help and then get them to the available resources.

I think that implementing safeTALK across Canada, especially on our reserves, would be one way of possibly reducing the number of unfortunate premature deaths that we are observing today.

[Situation in Indigenous Communities, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I think all of us in the House are grasping for ways to effectively address this tragedy. It is so heartening for me, not only tonight to hear the kind of commitment that we are making, but over the last number of years on the initiatives that I have embarked on along with many colleagues on all sides of the House. I find that we are committed to working together to provide hope to those who have descended into a cycle of despair.

[Situation in Indigenous Communities, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Cariboo—Prince George.

I want to thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for opening up this opportunity to discuss this important issue tonight.

I rise in the House this evening to lend a voice to a topic which lies heavily on my heart and I know the hearts of all my colleagues on both sides of this chamber. This is not the time to debate what could have been done or what should have been done, but rather, we need to come together with a solution to the issue we are currently facing. There is no time to waste on partisanship when lives are at stake.

Canadians need us to lead by example by coming together and rallying around this hurting community to help them in every possible way. In that spirit, I use the word “discussion” rather than “debate” because I am convinced that the House is eager to take action on the national tragedy that suicide represents.

This is an epidemic that is larger than Attawapiskat and unfortunately, it is growing. It is not okay that the leading causes of death for first nations people under the age of 44 are suicide and self-inflicted injuries. It is not okay that first nations youth die by suicide five to six times more often than non-aboriginal youth. It is not okay that suicide rates for Inuit youth are among the highest in the whole world. This issue needs to light a fire inside all of us to do all that we can to not allow this epidemic to continue.

There are many views on how this is best done, and I share my view from some of the experiences I have accumulated over the past 10 years serving as a member of Parliament. There have been many good steps taken to address this tragic issue of suicide, but much more needs to be done.

As co-chair of the all-party Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care, I, along with NDP and Liberal colleagues, conducted a study on the complex issue of suicide prevention and our findings are recorded in the report called “Not to be Forgotten”.

What became clear is that suicide is a complex phenomenon with multiple, often intertwining and overlapping causes. The complexity of suicide makes it obvious that solutions cannot be reduced to a mental health approach alone, but must take all aspects of the person into account, including physical, social, cultural, and spiritual factors.

One witness who appeared before our parliamentary committee was Dr. Antoon Leenaars, a psychologist and suicide researcher. He shared with the committee:

Suicide is multi-determined. The common psychological factors...are unbearable pain, cognitive constriction or tunnel vision, ambiguities about life and death, a mental health disorder, a weakened ego, a disturbance in a relationship or some other ideal like one's health or youth, rejection-aggression, and a desire to escape. This complexity calls for diverse suicide prevention strategies. This is necessary to not only solve what is sometimes assumed to be primarily a “medical problem”, but also to address the deep taboo and its stigma, and to address the problem with specific vulnerable groups, such as First Nations and Inuit people, armed services personnel, youth, and elderly (especially those facing end of life issues). The complexity of suicide dictates the necessity of a parallel complexity of solutions. There is never the solution. Therefore not only a mental health approach, but a public health approach, is urgently needed.

Research done by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, as recorded in our committee report, found that the culture of first nations peoples was thrown into turmoil by the policies of colonialism. In this report it was clear that the whole complex of relationships, knowledge, languages, social institutions, beliefs, values and ethical rules that bind people together and give a collection of people and its individual members a sense of who they are and where they belong plays a profound role in mental health and well-being.

Prior to the breakdown of their culture, suicide was rare among first nations people. However, as I previously stated, today, suicide among first nations youth is at epidemic proportions. The development of a sense of healthy identity is profoundly related to one's culture and its ability to reproduce itself in its members. Thus the anthropological and sociological dimensions can have a deep impact upon the psychological.

It is important to be reminded that suicide intervention really does work and many lives are saved every year. Despite this fact, Canadian response is mainly due to the efforts of individuals and private groups who strive against the tide with very few resources. We have many great examples of local groups across Canada that are doing heroic work in preventing suicide.

When I first heard the news of the 11 suicide attempts in Attawapiskat, my heart sank and I immediately remembered an incident from 2011 when I was contacted by Tana Nash of the Waterloo Region Suicide Prevention Council. She informed me of the fact that three suicides had occurred in three different high schools in Waterloo region in one week. Help was urgently needed. At that moment, I knew that I wanted to do something to deal with issues; albeit, I knew my attempts would be less than adequate. I knew that something must be done to address the tragic loss of hope, especially among our young people. To that end, I embarked upon drafting Bill C-300, an act respecting a federal framework for suicide prevention.

As a nation, we have not done enough to implement a coherent program of suicide prevention. Some provinces have begun to make great strides, especially Quebec. Yet, in general, efforts to prevent suicide are still a patchwork, depending upon the generosity of individuals, many of whom have been personally impacted by suicide.

This is why it is so urgent that the government implement the federal framework on suicide prevention as soon as possible. With its immediate implementation, we would be able to give to the groups on the ground the much needed tools and resources they so desperately need.

When fully implemented, Bill C-300, through the Public Health Agency of Canada, would provide guidelines to improve public awareness and knowledge about suicide. It would disseminate information about suicide, including information concerning its prevention. It would make publicly available existing statistics about suicide and related risk factors. This is one of the weak points that many of the groups which came to our committee pointed out: the statistics relating to suicide are so old and so out of date that there is really no way to plan forward in going ahead. The bill would promote collaboration and knowledge exchange across domains, sectors, regions, and jurisdictions. It would define best practices for the prevention of suicide. It would promote the use of research and evidence-based practices for the prevention of suicide.

The principles embodied in Bill C-300 could be contextualized and individualized to communities, depending upon their unique circumstances. I want to underline that fact. This is not a bill that would tell communities how to do it. My colleague earlier pointed out that we need to give communities the ability to contextualize within their own communities.

Furthermore, safeTALK training for all front-line service workers and volunteers on reserve would be a major investment in proactive prevention of suicide. Community members, such as teachers, doctors, nurses, coaches, pastors, club leaders, and many more, are in a unique position to recognize the early warning signs and would be able to ask the right questions that could very well lead to saving a life.

I am certain that everyone in this chamber can tell us how they, their families, or a member in their community, has been negatively impacted by suicide. Each of us knows someone whose sense of hope was overcome by despair and who ended his or her life by suicide. However, we know that suicide does not end the pain. It simply transfers it to the family, to the friends, and to the community.

This particular community that we are discussing tonight is currently in extreme pain. Now is the time to do all that we can to deliver hope.

Evidence is accumulating that when aboriginal communities design their own interventions, typically based upon traditional cultural values and practices, the efficacy of these interventions is high. Therefore, there is hope, but much more needs to be done. We need to offer hope to those who are facing this unbearable pain and who subsequently descend into a state of hopelessness and despair.

Hope is dependent upon having a sense of connection to the future, even if that future is short term. Hope is the oxygen of the human spirit. Without it, the spirit dies.

I am a person of hope. The very fact that this important discussion is happening tonight in the House of Commons in Canada is a huge step forward in providing hope.

We stand with our brothers and sisters in Attawapiskat to provide immediate practical help. We want them to know that they are in our thoughts and prayers. I pray they will know that their lives have value and meaning, that they are loved by their families, their friends, their fellow Canadians, and their Creator.

[The Budget, April 11th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her comments about the budget. Certainly, she articulated many of the expenditures and she did say something like it might seem like spending. Well, it is actually spending. It is really a poor investment.

Here are some of the promises the Liberals made that were definitely broken.

There was reducing the small business tax. We have heard from many small businesses and from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that this has been a huge disappointment for our small business community.

There was running a deficit of no more than $10 billion. A $30 billion deficit in the first year of this budget is really quite crippling to our economy.

Finally, there was a clear commitment to immediately invest $3 billion over the next four years to deliver more and better home care services for all Canadians. This includes more access to high-quality in-home caregivers, financial supports for family care, and when necessary, palliative care. There was nothing in the budget that dealt with this $3 billion commitment. Therefore, either it is not going to be funded or it simply needs to be added to the existing $10 billion deficit. I would like to ask my colleague which it is.

[The Budget, April 11th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, in response to the last question, my colleague was not sure to which broken promises my colleague was referring, so I would like to remind him of just a few. I do not have time, by any means, to go into all of them.

Reducing the business tax rate is a clear broken promise. Small businesses are really devastated by this broken promise. Running a deficit of no more than $10 billion is a broken promise. There is quite a bit of difference between $30 billion and $10 billion. I think my colleague would agree with that. As I commented a few minutes ago, there is the broken promise on extending palliative care and home care services.

However, I have a different question that I would like to ask. In relation to the finance department's report, April 2015 to January 2016, it clearly indicates a budgetary surplus of $4.3 billion. It states, “For the April 2015 to January 2016 period of the 2015–16 fiscal year, the Government posted a budgetary surplus of $4.3 billion”. This is from the finance department of the Government of Canada.

Does my colleague agree that the report from the Government of Canada's finance department is accurate?

[The Budget, April 11th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague across the way and to some of the promises he made to his constituents. I want to remind him that he and his party made a number of promises to constituents all across Canada, including reducing the small business tax rate, running a deficit of no more than $10 billion, and an immediate commitment to invest $3 billion over the next four years to deliver more and better home care services for all Canadians. This would include more access to high-quality in-home caregivers, financial support for family care, and when necessary, palliative care.

I do not need to remind my colleagues in the House that we need to do far better in providing palliative care for Canadians, especially at this point when we are looking at the possibility of introducing Canada to physician-assisted suicide. If we cannot offer good-quality, accessible palliative care, we should not be entering the debate.

I want to ask this, for my colleague. Where is the immediate $3 billion investment? If he is going to say it is coming next year, then really our deficit is not $30 billion but $33 billion. I want my colleague to answer that question.

[Committees of the House, March 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I will try again. If the House gives its consent, I move that the first report of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations presented in the House earlier this week be concurred in.