A Conservative motion to create a single, three-digit suicide crisis line has won unanimous approval in the House of Commons.
Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty, who brought the motion forward, says it would work like calling 911 – except people would call 988 instead.
“Canadians support it. We need it especially now during this time where we’re seeing just ever-increasing numbers of suicide and mental health challenges,” he said on the NL Noon Report. “Now the real heavy lifting comes.”
Doherty says government will need to work with the provinces, regulators, mental health stakeholders, and service providers to make the service happen. He notes the Canadian Suicide Prevention Association first asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to create the crisis line in 2006.
“So now we get to work,” he added. “Now it’s incumbent on the government to work with our national mental health stakeholders, our telecom regulators, our service providers on a plan to implement 988.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to designate 988 as its national suicide-prevention line. It’s expected to be up and running by the summer of 2022.
Officials from Canada’s Health Department will rely on input from their U.S. counterparts to implement the service in Canada.
“[The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health] is currently assessing the requirements for converting the phone service to a three-digit number by undertaking an international scan and stakeholder engagement,” said a document put together by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
“Going forward, PHAC officials and the CAMH will be meeting with U.S. counterparts to learn more about the U.S. implementation plan for the new 988 number. This will support the development of an approach to introducing a three-digit number for suicide-prevention crisis support in Canada.”
As an MP, Doherty has long pushed for more mental-health supports in Canada since he was first elected in 2015. Its after a friend of his took his own life as a teenager, according to the Prince George Citizen.
Doherty tells NL News he couldn’t help but think of all the lives that could have been saved had such a crisis line been created when it was first pitched.
In the House of Commons, MPs have unanimously passed a motion proposed by Todd Doherty, the Conservative MP for Cariboo–Prince George, B.C., calling on the government to immediately work with the provinces to establish a single national suicide prevention hotline. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/VC51TMuKux
— CPAC (@CPAC_TV) December 11, 2020
