44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 17, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak this morning to Bill C-32, the fall economic statement implementation act. More specifically, I will be talking about a very exciting research institution that should have been mentioned in the fall economic statement but was not.
The Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment, or CIPSRT, is headquartered in my riding, at the University of Regina. However, before I get into the details of the vitally important work that CIPSRT is doing, I would like to invite my fellow MPs to imagine themselves as witnesses to a number of tragedies that recently occurred across our country.
On November 10, 2021, a cyclist was killed after being run over by a dump truck. He was the fifth cyclist in that city to be killed that year, on top of numerous other car crashes. This happened in Montreal, in the Prime Minister's riding of Papineau.
In May of this year, following severe thunder and lightning storms, a 59-year-old man was killed when a tree fell on him. This happened right here in Ottawa, in the official opposition leader's riding of Carleton.
In 2018, a driver heading westbound on a highway lost control of her vehicle, veered into the eastbound lanes and was struck by two other vehicles. The out-of-control driver was killed, and five others were injured, including a young child. This also happened in Montreal, in the Bloc Québécois leader's riding of Beloeil—Chambly.
In May of last year, a 23-year-old man was shot dead in a violent gang attack at a shopping centre that saw two other people wounded and sent patio diners ducking for cover and using tables as shields. That happened in the NDP leader's riding of Burnaby South.
Last but not least, there were the horrifying events from the Labour Day long weekend, in which an ex-convict armed with a knife went on a stabbing spree in his hometown and a neighbouring community, leaving 10 dead and 18 wounded. I am, of course, speaking of the events at the James Smith Cree Nation and the village of Weldon in my home province of Saskatchewan.
I could go on for hours, citing tragedies in every single riding in this country, from coast to coast to coast. However, the question I would like members of the House to ask themselves is this: If they had witnessed even one of these events, which we all easily could have, how would they be affected? I bet we would all feel stressed out. Many of us would probably have nightmares. Some of us would even come away with a sort of PTSD that we would experience the next time we were driving down a highway, walking through a shopping mall, cycling past a dump truck or maybe even just walking by a tree during bad weather.
Keep in mind that I am speaking of the sorts of psychological scars that we would carry from just one single event, but our frontline public safety workers, including police, firefighters, paramedics, soldiers, border services, correctional services and many others face this type of trauma every single day, often multiple times per day. For our safety and well-being, frontline public safety workers not only face daily physical risks, but also live in a constant state of psychological siege that does not end when they punch the clock at the end of the day. It follows them home, affecting their health, sleep, relationships and more.
Several members of the House had the opportunity to meet and talk with representatives from CIPSRT at their breakfast reception here on Parliament Hill earlier this month. Dr. Nicholas Jones and Dr. Nicholas Carleton, affectionately known as “the two Dr. Nicks”, brought MPs up to speed on a number of shocking facts about the psychological fallout suffered by public safety workers. For example, studies have shown that fully one-quarter of all paramedics have had suicidal thoughts over the course of their careers, and the profession has a rate of suicide attempts roughly double that of the general population.
The two Dr. Nicks also told me that a significant part of the problem is the mental health culture within many of these professions. For police, firefighters, soldiers and others, there is often a tough, “suck it up” attitude about mental health that in the long run only serves to make the problem worse.
It can be difficult to break through this frame of mind. After all, the people in these professions are trained to be tough, to be authority figures. They are trained to be the people who remain calm and in control when others are panicking, and so one can easily imagine how very difficult it must be for these people in these professions to let their guard down, to allow themselves to be vulnerable and to ask for help when usually they are the ones providing help to others.
When speaking about social problems, advocates often like to use the word “epidemic” to describe them. This word most certainly applies to the mental health challenges faced by public safety workers, yet despite the growing extent of the problem, relatively few public resources have been invested. This is where CIPSRT comes in.
Founded in 2018, the institute was established as a knowledge hub, working in conjunction with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to investigate the treatment of post-traumatic stress injuries for the country's public safety workers. While CIPSRT may consist of a multidisciplinary research team, it does not merely conduct studies and gather reports. Instead, it is actively engaged in developing practical, real-world tools to assist public safety workers.
It is unfortunate that one of the rules of the House is that we are not allowed to use props, because I would love to demonstrate one of the very innovative solutions that CIPSRT has developed. One of these innovations, which the two Dr. Nicks demonstrated to me at the University of Regina earlier this year, is a daily stress monitoring device and app.
Essentially, the public safety worker uses a stress monitoring device once per day. This device collects data about the person's blood pressure, heart rate and other physiological signs. The device is sophisticated enough to distinguish between physiological changes brought on by stress and those brought on by, say, going for your morning jog. All of this data is then fed into an app that the public safety worker and his or her therapist can monitor over time. If those stress levels are starting to go off the charts, or off the app in this case, then those public safety workers can ask themselves what was happening at those times that triggered that stress. Likewise, the therapist can start to work on intervention strategies to bring down those stress levels before they get to dangerous levels.
CIPSRT has accomplished all of this and more through the frugal use of their initial funding of $5 million plus a few project-specific grants along the way. Sadly, all of the good work that CIPSRT has done, and all of the good work that it could potentially do is in jeopardy. Its initial five-year funding commitment from the federal government expires on March 31 next year, just four short months from now. No federal funding has been committed after that date. Furthermore, due to the ethical code of conduct to which researchers are bound, they cannot begin research with new subjects unless there is enough time left for the subjects to also finish the program. That means CIPSRT will not accept any new public safety workers into their program after Christmas.
I was particularly disappointed that the finance minister did not mention this research institution in her 10-minute speech to the House on November 3. There was no mention of CIPSRT in the 96-page fall economic statement, or in the 172-page implementation act that we are debating this morning.
I would like to urge both the government and every member of the House to take a closer look at the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment and the solutions it can provide to this country's public safety workers and their mental health challenges.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party is in favour of a one-for-one policy when it comes to government spending. For every new dollar of government spending we should find one dollar of savings somewhere else. I do not think that is very difficult to do when one considers that the Canada Infrastructure Bank cost $30 billion but has not delivered a single project, and when one looks at the ArriveCAN app that cost $54 million.
I am sure, with a little effort, we could find savings elsewhere in government to fund a very worthwhile program like CIPSRT.
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Mr. Speaker, my view is that it is the role of provincial governments to deliver and implement a lot of these programs. The federal government's focus should be on research into new treatments and technologies that can be used across the country and across the world. That is where I think CIPSRT is in a unique position, in that it does not just talk about the problem, but it has actually developed solutions. It is asking for a rather modest funding allocation of several million dollars to scale up its research and make it available across the country to benefit first responders and everyone.
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Mr. Speaker, the member's question is quite a bit beyond the scope of my intervention. There will always be violent crime, sadly enough, and there will always be earthquakes and car crashes. I hope there will always be first responders to help people when they are suffering some sort of tragedy or crisis. The mental health challenges will always be there as long as we have first responders doing their jobs. It would be nice if we could provide some more support for our first responders, as I outlined in my intervention.
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- Nov/17/22 6:22:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow up on the Liberal government's proposed fertilizer policy, which I also raised in the House just before the summer break.
On December 11, 2020, Environment and Climate Change Canada released a document entitled “A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy: Canada's strengthened climate plan to create jobs and support people, communities and the planet”. The release of this document was important enough to warrant a press conference by the Prime Minister himself, accompanied by several of his cabinet ministers. At 78 pages, this document is a lot to take in, but what is most concerning is that on page 45 it indicates that the government will “set a national emission reduction target of 30% below 2020 levels from fertilizers”.
I had the opportunity over the summer to talk with many farmers and farm organizations about this policy, and there are many people with many concerns. Given that fertilizer is already a major input cost for Canadian farms, it follows that farmers already use as little of it as possible and only as much as is necessary. The only way to reduce fertilizer emissions by 30% seems to be to reduce fertilizer applications by 30%. Such a policy would be harmful to Canadian farmers, Canadian consumers and the global food supply.
According to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, a typical farm consisting of 1,000 acres of canola and 1,000 acres of wheat would have its annual profits reduced by approximately $40,000 per year if these proposed fertilizer restrictions were implemented. Such a massive reduction would be devastating not only to farmers, but to the many urban entrepreneurs they do business with.
A massive reduction in fertilizer would trigger a massive reduction in crop yields, which would then lead to a dramatic increase in the price of bread and bread products at the grocery story. With inflation and the carbon tax already driving up the price of everything at the grocery store, the last thing Canadian consumers need is for the price of groceries to be driven up even higher by these new fertilizer restrictions.
The problem will not be limited to Canadians, though. Indeed, Canada already produces enough food to feed everyone in this country, and we export the surplus to international markets. As brutal as these fertilizer restrictions may be, we should still be able to produce enough food to feed everyone in this country. The problem is that the amount of food that Canada exports to foreign countries will be dramatically reduced. That means these fertilizer restrictions will simply cause many of the poorest people in the world to starve to death.
Given that the only way to reduce fertilizer emissions by 30% seems to be to reduce fertilizer applications by 30%, how will the Liberal government implement this policy? Will it be with a fertilizer tax, similar to the carbon tax, perhaps by restricting the amount of fertilizer that farmers can buy with some sort of licensing program, or is the federal government simply going to nationalize every potash mine in the country and reduce output by 30%?
The Liberal government's plan to reduce fertilizer emissions by 30% does not seem to be particularly well thought out, but I would be curious to hear from the hon. parliamentary secretary as to how exactly the government plans to implement this policy.
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- Nov/17/22 6:30:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in closing, I would like to share some insights about how the government seems to make announcements first and then figure out the details later.
In a reply to my Order Paper question, Question No. 89, the government said that it did not even study how rationing fertilizer would affect the food supply in Canada and affect Canadian agricultural production, nor how lower exports would affect the global food supply. Furthermore, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food admitted in writing, in Order Paper Question No. 90, that the government did not study how rationing fertilizer would impact the economy of Saskatchewan, whether it be from reduced crop yields or from the resulting unemployment, including fewer jobs in agri-retail, at canola crushing plants and at farms throughout the province.
Why is an issue as fundamental as food production not worth studying before an announcement?
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