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Member of Parliament

Stephen Ellis

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Cumberland—Colchester
  • Nova Scotia
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $134,737.37

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 189 - May/2/23
Mr. Stephen Ellis (Cumberland—Colchester, CPC)
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague from Cariboo—Prince George, who introduced Bill C-321, said he could go on about this particular topic for hours and perhaps years if we allowed him to. As I listened very carefully to his speech, it made me very emotional to hear the harrowing stories that have been told to him. Of course, we know that those things are difficult to hear and difficult to understand. As I have said in the House before, I have been a family doctor. I graduated from medical school 30 years ago. It is difficult to understand, very carefully, what people have to put up with day in and day out. When someone works in an emergency room, they will, every day, see paramedics and nurses and, as we say in Nova Scotia, LPNs, and CCAs, support workers and other staff who work inside the hospital and have suffered violence. That is something that becomes very hard to understand. For those who are not interested in perpetrating violence, it becomes very hard to understand how someone could possibly have any interest in harming the person who is there to help them. For the majority of people around this country who are listening in this evening, I am sure that does not compute. However, it is important that we make it very clear to the Canadian public that this does happen and that it happens on an everyday basis. Underlining that fact with some personal experience is something that is very important. We can all talk about numbers. We can talk about the percentage of paramedics in Ontario and Nova Scotia. Sixty-seven per cent of them were verbally abused and 26%, in 2014, had been subject to a physical assault. In North Bay, Ontario, 60% had endured violence, including sexual harassment and physical assault. We all know very clearly that this has no place in the workplace. The strange fact, though, is that it happens in the health care workplace, where health care is being delivered, which, as we have heard from multiple members, could be at the side of the road or in a hospital setting, a nursing home or the person's own home. We know very clearly that this happens. I have heard the word “hero” used here this evening. It is heroic, in a sense, that the workers who endure this kind of violence show up to work again. It is inexplicable. There really are no words for it. If this type of violence occurred in another workplace, it would very likely be a career-ending injury for many folks. In the health care field, as strange as it is, perhaps owing to the fact that many health care workers are there because they have a heart for the work, they show up to that work again and again, in spite of being abused verbally, physically and, sadly, also sexually. Have I seen this happen? Yes, I have seen it happen, and that presents a very difficult situation. The verbal abuse endured by frontline medical staff in 2023 is beyond belief. People who believe that they can take their frustrations out on other people has, sadly, become some sort of weird, acceptable situation in our society. My friend and colleague from Cariboo—Prince George brought that forward in a very eloquent and elegant manner. Understanding that, of course, there is frustration with the medical system, we know very clearly that those frontline workers are not in charge of the medical system. They are not the administrators of it. They are not the funders of it. However, those folks who are frustrated by the level of care they have received and the time they have waited still feel it appropriate to lash out at those frontline health care workers who, we know very clearly, are there to help and have gone into these professions with very good reason and a clear conscience. We know, sadly, that in our society, many frontline health care workers, especially nurses and often paramedics, are females. We also know, sadly, that is a particular difficulty because certain individuals of our society feel the need and, perhaps the superiority, I do not know what goes through their minds, to lash out at females in our society. This appears to be something that happens much more regularly, and, obviously, this is borne out in studies. I have a daughter, Samantha, who is a paramedic. We have that kindred shared relationship to understand the things that she has seen and experienced. She is a tough cookie. She was a rugby player in university. However, we can all understand very clearly that having those things said and done to one certainly takes its toll over time. Once again, it has been said very clearly that that contributes to compassion fatigue, burnout and the reason why people begin to leave their profession. Especially in today's day and age, when we know that there is a significant need for nurses, paramedics, physicians and any type of health care worker, it must not help them to think they are not being supported by their society. This is an epidemic, which is a bit of an overused word, but it is an epidemic of violence against frontline health care workers. For those who choose to work in these professions, it is important to understand that there are 338 of us in the House of Commons who want to support them and to say that the violence that they endure, sadly, on a regular basis is not acceptable, and that it needs to be a mitigating factor when perpetrators of such violence are brought to justice. We need to get to the root causes, to understand what we could do as legislators to help with prevention, what we could do as legislators to help change this country so that the attitude is different. We know that those steps are all so important. Certainly as an interim step, allowing frontline health care workers to know that we are there, from all across this country, to support them is going to be a necessary and important step so that they know they are not forgotten. I do not think it would be helpful to the House or those listening at home to continue to talk about the terrible cases we have heard about very clearly this evening. I will not belabour those points, other than to be very clear that I would challenge my colleagues in the House, not only those who spoke but also the folks who would have the opportunity to pass this bill on to committee and to perhaps make amendments there. I challenge them to make a bill here that, when it goes to committee, is even better. It is not that I want to criticize my colleagues, but let us not weaken this bill; let us strengthen it. Let us make it broader. Let us define those things that need definition. Let us not let perfection be our enemy and allow this bill to not get into the great laws of Canada. I think that is the challenge we have. I spoke about another challenge in the House before. I believe that we actually have an opportunity here to do something. There are so many days when coming to the House of Commons can be very frustrating. Quite honestly, oftentimes, not much happens and not much gets done. There is a lot of talking and there are a lot of words, but there is not a lot of action. This bill is something that we could have as an actionable and effective tool to help reduce the violence against frontline health care workers. When we have an opportunity in the House of Commons to actually operationalize something, then we need to seize that opportunity with both hands and be able to move that forward so it becomes the law of this great country. My colleague from Cariboo—Prince George has captured a moment in time that is going to allow us, with the support of all of my colleagues, to do that here in the House of Commons. I hope that we are able to do that, because it is something that would be transformative.
1385 words
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