MPs push for suicide hotline as COVID-19 continues to take mental toll

A motion to take "immediate action'" to establish a suicide prevention hotline was approved in the House of Commons last year, but has still not been activated.

Todd Doherty still remembers the despair he felt when he learned one of his closest friends took his own life at age 14.

The day it happened, Doherty and a group of friends had gone swimming and were laughing and joking on their way home. All seemed perfectly normal until the next day, when his friend didn’t come to school.

Almost four decades on, Doherty torments himself about whether he could have done something to stop his friend from killing himself.

“He was one of my best friends,” the B.C. Conservative member of Parliament told The Canadian Press. “I live that day over and over again.”

Yet the tragedy also inspired Doherty to try to help others, which is why he spearheaded a push in the House of Commons last December to establish a three-digit national suicide prevention hotline: 988.

Doherty’s motion to take “immediate action” to establish the suicide prevention hotline was approved in the Commons in December 2020, with unanimous support among MPs, each of whom Doherty had contacted personally.

But more than a year later, the crisis hotline has still not been activated. That has prompted questions and concerns, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on Canadians’ mental health.

“We need to do whatever we can to protect the well-being of Canadians and save lives,” Doherty said.