November 10, 2011  -- In September, Kitchener-Conestoga MP Harold Albrecht tabled a private member's bill that sets up a national suicide prevention framework.

In the past decade there has been an alarming increase in the number of suicides in Canada -- to over 3000 each year. Suicide is also the second-leading cuase of death among Canadian youth. As MP Albrecht noted in tabling his bill, this is not just a tragedy, this is over 3000 tragedies each year.

MP Albrecht's bill, Bill C-300, An Act respecting a Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention would require the federal government to, among other things: 

• provide guidelines for suicide prevention
• promote collaboration and knowledge exchange among different jurisdictions
• promote the use of research and evidence-based practices in suicide prevention
• define best practices for the prevention of suicide.

I strongly support this Bill. Canada is the only industrialized country without a strategy to minimize the incidence of suicide.