Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my next question is for the government leader in the Senate and concerns a topic I’ve raised twice previously, but it hasn’t yet been answered: the serious matter of a national 9-8-8 suicide prevention hotline.
In December 2020, a motion from B.C. member of Parliament Todd Doherty to create this hotline unanimously passed in the other place. When I originally asked you about this, leader, I noted that given your government’s inaction on the motion to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRCG, as a terrorist entity, we would need to keep pressing the government to make the 9-8-8 hotline a reality. Little did I know then that I would be asking you the very same question, today, a year and a half later.
Leader, you’ve taken this question on notice twice before, in December 2020 and a year ago, in June 2021, and failed to provide an answer. What is your government’s plan and timetable to implement a national suicide prevention hotline?