Todd Doherty still feels the guilt, the anger, and the torment, nearly four decades after he lost his best friend to suicide.
It happened when they were 14 when Kenny, his cadet companion in Williams Lake, decided to end his life and it left Doherty with gut-wrenching questions of what he could done differently to prevent it from happening. That feeling has never left him and it’s motivating the MP for Cariboo-Prince George to do something about it to try to prevent others from having to cross that bridge into despair.
Backed by the Canada Suicide Prevention Service, Doherty is leading a push to bring in a three-digit national suicide prevention and crisis intervention hotline to meet the growing demand for mental health counseling services. He wants every Canadian to be able to call 9-8-8 to instantly connect despondent individuals with a trained professional who can talk them out doing anything drastic and knows how to help them find the help they need.
Doherty says calls to the Canada Suicide Prevention Service have increased 200 per cent during the pandemic and he said the BC Health Services crisis hotlines are overwhelmed with calls, resulting in increased wait times. He’s sat with teenagers who have lost friends and the families of first responders left to try to pick up the pieces and he says the time is now for action.
“When we have an emergency for police, fire and ambulance it’s just instinctive to call 9-1-1, when you want telephone information it’s instinctive to dial 4-1-1, and now with COVID and increasing anxiety and isolation we know that leads to more and more mental health issues and suicidal thoughts,” said Doherty. “I just thought now is the time to bring a national suicide prevention hotline to our country. We know our national mental health organizations have been working towards this and I have been working with them on this. I have the support of the Canadian Mental Health Association. ”
On Oct. 17, U.S. president Donald Trump signed a bipartisan bill which will make 9-8-8 the number to call to reach the national suicide prevention hotline and Doherty says it makes sense to keep the same number to increase the likelihood Canadians remember it.
“Mental health injury, mental illness is very real and the stigma is massive,” Doherty said. “Part of the stigma is the barrier to getting help, whether it is being seen as crazy or weak or not being believed, or the inconsistency from one end of our country to the other to the other in terms of receiving help of being eligible for help. We need to remove those barriers. Let’s get rid of the 10-digit number and get one that’s dedicated to suicide prevention that is a simple three-digit number, 9-8-8.
“The numbers show suicide is the second-leading cause of death for men aged 15-44 – it’s the ninth-leading cause of death in our country and in some areas it’s at near-epidemic rates.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and BC premier John Horgan have encouraged Canadians to call the 2-1-1 help line to find suicide prevention services but Doherty says those services vary by region or province there is no guarantee callers will get a live voice on the other end of the call.
Reaching out and asking for help is so hard, with the stigma that is built around suicide,” he said. “When you finally are ready to (make that call) you don’t want a recording or elevator music on the other ends, you want a caring compassionate voice that can help you through the darkest moments.”
This is not the first time Doherty has tackled a mental health issue since being first elected in 2015 as a Conservative MP. In 2018, he initiated a private member’s bill that was passed into law which provided the federal framework for diagnosis and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in first responders.
Doherty has tabled a motion to introduce the national three-digit number legislation and he’s hoping to debate the topic soon in the House of Commons so it can go to a vote. He’s confident all the federal parties will support it , as will the phone companies needed to provide the system infrastructure.
“I’m not saying this will curb suicide - there’s so much more that needs to be done - but it will save lives and it’s one critical step forward if we’re able to do it,” said Doherty. “None of this is political for me, it’s personal, and I just don’t want any other families to go through what the families I know have gone through.”
