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In a report Sunday, a parliamentary committee made a string of recommendations designed to unite the underfunded patchwork programs across the country. The proposals range from training people who work with farmers to detect psychological problems to tweaking the Criminal Code to punish people who intimidate and cyberbully farmers.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

Canada should co-ordinate and fund nationwide mental-illness programs for farmers such as telephone help lines and awareness courses in order to ease the health problems sweeping the country’s agricultural communities, federal lawmakers say.

Ottawa should also accelerate plans to broaden high-speed internet access in order to help people in rural areas struggling with mental illnesses, the parliamentary committee studying farmers and mental health said in a report on Tuesday.

Farmers and ranchers are more prone to mental illnesses compared with other Canadians, and governments have been slow to address this problem effectively. The all-party committee, however, made a string of recommendations designed to unite the underfunded patchwork programs across the country. The proposals range from training people who work with farmers to detect psychological problems to tweaking the Criminal Code to punish people who intimidate and cyberbully farmers.

“The incidents of mental-health problems in the Canadian agriculture sector are reaching crisis proportions,” Earl Dreeshen, a Conservative Member of Parliament serving on the committee, told reporters on Tuesday. “Farmers, ranchers, producers and their families are increasingly experiencing high levels of stress, depression and even suicidal thoughts.”

Rural mental-health advocates welcomed the committee’s report, even though most of the recommendations are vague. Janet Smith oversees counselling for Klinic Community Health’s farm, rural and northern areas, in Manitoba, and is also a suicide-prevention co-ordinator. The committee, she said, recognized how farmers are more comfortable speaking to mental-health professionals who understand the challenges specific to agriculture.

“When we get a farm caller on our line and the person that they are talking to has a farming background, calls have a richer flavour and outcome,” she said. “It is not uncommon for a farmer, when they call us, to say, ‘Do you have a farming background?’”

Roughly 30 per cent of the people who call Klinic’s farm, rural, and northern help line or chat with its professionals online are farmers, Ms. Smith said. Another 48 per cent are from rural communities (excluding farmers), she said.

Further, the agriculture committee wants the federal government to urge its provincial counterparts to provide cash to programs addressing the farm crisis. Denise Rollin, a project manager at Farm Management Canada (FMC), said successful programs have been shelved because money dried up.

“It is really unfortunate when you get funding for a project, it takes off and it is working, and a few years down the line, there isn’t more funding for it,” she said.

Her organization earlier this month launched a study examining the relationship between mental health and farmers creating business-management plans, such as succession or environmental strategies. FMC wants to know if formulating business plans creates too much stress, or whether the short-term pain is worth the long-term benefits, she said. While the project is under way, Ms. Rollin said, its funding will end in a year.

The federal government should also work with accredited organizations to “better tailor mental health care and insurance coverage to farmers’ specific needs,” the committee’s report said.

While the majority of the report addresses access to mental-health care, it also dabbles in criminal reform.

“The committee recommends that the government of Canada consider including any form of intimidation or cyberbullying targeted at any group of Canadians based on their occupation or place of residence as a Criminal Code offence,” the report said.

The committee, however, struggled to explain how this would work given free-speech laws and one member said it is unlikely to be implemented this session.

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