I want to thank the committee so much for the invitation. I'm delighted. It seems the third time's the charm to be able to present to you today.

My name is Elizabeth Donnelly. I'm an associate professor, but I am here today primarily because I have spent the last decade, and more, of my life focusing on workforce health issues for paramedics. I'm currently a co-investigator with Dr. Mausz in the Violence in Paramedicine Research Group.

In addition to my research, I have maintained certification as an emergency medical technician for over 20 years. I have done a significant amount of frontline work, so this is not theoretical work for me. This is very much about the folks I worked with and about keeping them safe.

Because I was initially supposed to testify last month, I just want to very briefly reiterate the points that my colleague made about our research.

Violence against paramedics is wildly under-reported, primarily due to a culture of a under-reporting and this idea that tolerating violence has become an expected professional competency. These beliefs about violence being unavoidable are changing after the creation of a novel reporting strategy and significant organizational change. Violence reporting is increasing, and while it's still under-reported, our research has found that paramedics are reporting violence every 18 hours, are assaulted every 46 hours and experience violence that results in physical harm every nine days.

The issue of violence against paramedics has been a concern for the paramedic community for years. The Paramedic Chiefs of Canada put out a position paper a number of years ago outlining a host of strategies that needed to be operationalized to keep paramedics safe. These included research to better understand the scope of the problem, evidence-informed strategies to keep our paramedics safe on the front line, increasing public awareness, and—most importantly for the folks on this call today—changes in policy and legislation.

This has been reinforced in the white paper they put out on the future of paramedicine in Canada, where violence was specifically identified as a health issue in the paramedic community. This has also been captured in the report that Mr. Doherty noted, report 29, which recommends amending the Criminal Code.

The paramedic community is doing their part. Many services have deployed this novel reporting tool. Many of them have agreed to share their data with my research group, so we are going to have a better idea of what's going on. It's a huge concern for our community, because we already have significantly higher rates of mental health challenges.

While the evidence base is still emerging within the Canadian context, it has been identified as a correlate to depression, anxiety, stress and burnout in other populations. Also—not specifically with paramedics—exposure to violence has been identified as associated with an intent to leave the profession. Right now, we're struggling to get providers on the roads. We're struggling to staff the trucks. We need to retain every human being that we have to provide the services that Canadians count on.

The paramedic community needs you. It needs the justice system for so many different reasons. Because violence was so long considered unavoidable and because tolerating it was an expected professional competency, we need everyone to say, “No, that's not true.”

Paramedics are helpers. They show up. They train. They prepare. They will be there in the night, upside down, in a ditch. They will show up for you when you need them.

Is it really reasonable that we tell our paramedics that we want them to show up but also to deal with intimidation, racial slurs and sexual harassment? Would you expect that in your workplace? Would that be acceptable for your constituents? I don't think that's true.

Legislation alone isn't going to solve this problem. It's complex. It's going to require comprehensive approaches. Paramedic services can do their part by putting programs together to keep their paramedics safe. Police organizations can get involved by investigating and laying charges. The Canadian government can do its part by amending the Criminal Code.

Amending the Criminal Code will do a lot of different things.

The first thing is it—

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