Senator Dalphond: Thank you, Senator Housakos, for this worthwhile initiative.

[English]

There are three bills the Senate has adopted that you are certainly modelling your bill on: the Framework on Palliative Care in Canada Act adopted in December 2017, the Federal Framework on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act adopted June 2018, and the National Framework for Diabetes Act adopted in June 2021.

Do you have any indications or results from these bills? Maybe not the one on diabetes that came in just before we broke for the election, but the bills adopted in 2017 and 2018 all have the same deadlines you have: 12 months for a framework and 18 months to report to the House and the Senate. Do you have any information about how these frameworks have, in fact, been implemented?

Senator Housakos: I’m not aware of each and every one of them. I know, regarding the one on PTSD, that the government was a little bit tardy on meeting the timelines, but they did have the national conference and did table a report in Parliament in regard to that particular motion.

When it comes to motions, as you know, they are suggestions we make to the government, and we hope the government finds it in their benevolence to embrace them.

In this particular instance, one of the reasons why Senator Boehm and I decided to put it into a bill is it comes with more veracity of weight than just a simple motion. But in all fairness, we’ve tried to make this a non-prescriptive as possible, giving the government all the flexibility it would need.

We are just looking to move the sticks forward incrementally, as they say in football, pointing it in the right direction and shaking the tree a little bit. We find that successive governments have been reticent in tackling this issue, so we feel passing this bill in this state in a flexible and cooperative way will encourage the government to take the baton and run with it, as they have with most motions, even if, as in the case of PTSD, they were delayed six or seven months.

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: I have a question for the sponsor of the bill.

[English]