Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I have the honour to inform the Senate that pursuant to the orders adopted by the Senate on April 28, 2022, and May 18, 2023, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology deposited with the Clerk of the Senate on June 8, 2023, its fifteenth report entitled Doing What Works: Rethinking the Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention and I move that the report be placed on the Orders of the Day for consideration at the next sitting of the Senate.

(On motion of Senator Omidvar, report placed on the Orders of the Day for consideration at the next sitting of the Senate.)

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Thank you, Senator Black, for that question. It’s a timely one, as we are almost ready to complete our deliberations. Sadly, as you know, suicide does not recognize boundaries of a city or a town. It lives within the boundaries of the mind. But unfortunately, it is part of our national narrative regardless of size and region.

We have heard from a number of witnesses, Senator Black, on the issues that you have raised. On the one hand is the imbalance, I would say, between the need for services and the access to resources. We heard, in particular, from remote northern communities and we heard about the Inuit and Indigenous realities. We also heard from a medical professional with an interesting framework addressing the questions that you have put on the table in terms of rural responders and access.

We have also had some discussions on the higher incidence of firearm ownership in rural communities and the link to suicide, as suicide by firearm is far more lethal than other means. However, our study is not a study about suicide. It is a study that evaluates the national suicide prevention framework. It’s therefore a big-picture look at the troubling rate of suicide and what the framework needs to do to address its priorities, actions, outcomes and reporting going forward.

I hope the chamber will welcome the report that we will table not too far off in the future and look at its proposals that we are making to the Government of Canada. I hope that answers your question, Senator Black.