SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Hon. Mike Lake

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Edmonton—Wetaskiwin
  • Alberta
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $178,671.82

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 18 - Dec/15/21
Hon. Mike Lake
  • Dec/15/21 6:48:33 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I am thankful this is an issue that members of all parties can agree on. I will point out for those watching who are interested right now that if they do a Google search and wade through all of the documentation on the government website eventually they will find that there is a 24-7 number for the Canada Suicide Prevention Service. The number is 1-833-456-4566 for those who need that help. Hopefully, soon they will not have to do a Google search to find that number. To close, my question for the hon. member is this. By what date will Canada finally have an operational three-digit 988 suicide prevention hotline?
117 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 18 - Dec/15/21
Hon. Mike Lake (Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC)
  • Dec/15/21 6:40:36 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, tonight I am following up on a question I first asked on December 7, eight days ago. For the context of my question, it is important to note that in the eight days since I asked this question, according to the statistics, 88 Canadians will have died by suicide. In that time, in those eight days, we will have lost 88 Canadians to suicide. It was 370 days ago that the House came together and voted unanimously on a motion from the member for Cariboo—Prince George to take immediate action to establish a national 24-7 suicide prevention hotline: 988. The motion that everyone in this place agreed to was: That, given that the alarming rate of suicide in Canada constitutes a national health crisis, the House call on the government to take immediate action, in collaboration with our provinces, to establish a national suicide prevention hotline that consolidates all suicide crisis numbers into one easy to remember three-digit [number] (988) hotline that is accessible to all Canadians. We unanimously passed a motion that referenced the “alarming rate of suicide in Canada”. We called it a “national health crisis”, and we demanded that the House take immediate action to institute this nationwide 988 suicide prevention hotline. That was over a year ago: 370 days ago now. I will note that in the six months Parliament sat after the motion passed, the government did nothing substantive on the issue. We then left the House in June, knowing we were going into an election campaign. The government had trouble instituting a three-digit hotline to save what amounts to 4,000 Canadians who lost their lives to suicide over the past year, according to the statistics. We have not been able to institute that. We are still consulting, apparently, according to the answer, and the CRTC is reviewing, but let us point out that this is a number that is not being used right now. Parliament has agreed, stakeholders are unanimous in their support and I would assume Canadians would be unanimous in their support for this. We managed, in the ensuing five months after the House broke in June and knowing we were going into an election, to hold a $600-million election in the midst of a global pandemic. We were able to do that, but we are still consulting on a three-digit suicide prevention hotline. I was not satisfied with the answer from the minister that this is sitting with the CRTC's bureaucratic process. In this country, there are very few issues that all parliamentarians agree on. Certainly this is one such issue we could act on with some urgency, in the interests of saving the number of lives of Canadians we are talking about.
467 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border