Health committee  Actually, I have thought about that, and that was specifically why I decided to target men between 30 and 50 in the commercial we did, and to have a guy who looked like a normal guy who would be playing hockey with his friends on the weekends and going out for coffee with a littl

Health committee  As I stated earlier, have open communication with them. Do not give them the “snap out of it” speech. They would snap out of it if they could. They want to snap out of it. They're not able to. It's a health issue. It's brain chemistry. They need medical attention. They need other

Health committee  There's just a lack of knowledge, I think. Maybe some of the stigma that's been around for decades has stuck with them too, so maybe they think, well, I don't know, is the person just kind of weak and can they snap out of it? So again, lack of knowledge and that stigma thing are

Health committee  Dave was, if anyone knew him, a perfectionist. He was a perfectionist from the time he was a kid. With that type-A personality he probably always had a certain level of anxiety in his life. Typically he was a high achiever, so he wasn't satisfied with anything other than being

Health committee  I think it's the exact things that are targeted by this bill, actually: the public awareness about suicide, and not just depression and mental illness but also suicide, as well as providing this federal framework. I think it's so needed. There is great work done by people with or

Health committee  There's a bank account open, but it's depleted of funds right now, after we ran all the commercials. But, yes, I'm looking actually to have another golf tournament this year. Last year, we couldn't have it because a few of the people on the committee were extremely busy with diff

Health committee  I think some of that would certainly be outside the scope of the federal government. It was more a situation where, yes, he received treatment, but knowing the severity of what he was suffering with came too late. At a point when you lose hope, when the really great help.... If

Health committee  I think, certainly, the type of awareness that exists now about depression and mental illness didn't really exist when Dave was coming out with that story in the fall of 2008. I think he was kind of a trailblazer and was one of the first people who came forward who was currently

Health committee  I was mentioning earlier, when Ms. Davies asked me a question, that in recent years, stigma around depression and mental illness has seemed to be improving. But what I forgot to mention at the time was that while that is improving, I'd say that stigma related to suicide is kind o

Health committee  I wanted to add just one other short thing about that. For me, the story that happened with Dave is such a tragedy that to not have some good come out of it is not the ending he would have wanted and that I want for him.

Health committee  Sometimes people even mistook you for him a little bit, and vice versa.

Health committee  I think it's extremely important. It encourages that person who's in this terrible frame of mind to speak about it, and when they start to speak about it, that's likely when help will occur. As well, I know from different support groups I've been involved in since Dave passed a

Health committee  I'm certainly not a doctor, but at the same time it's trying to keep them speaking about it, and open. Isolation is something that draws them further inward and makes them also think there's no other option. That is the timeframe when usually hope.... As long as you can try to

Health committee  We've set up a bank account. It was all very low key. It was just a few of my friends and Dave's friends. Andrew Scheer, who is now Speaker Andrew Scheer, was actually one of the people who helped organize the golf tournament. We just decided to do this, and then I said, “Let's

Health committee  As to a first step, the reason we made the commercial was to encourage those men who might feel as if they are alone, as if no one else could have possibly felt like this before. The main message at the end of the commercial is that you are not alone. There is help. Please reach