March 3, 2009

STAND UP FOR MENTAL HEALTH COMEDY PERFORMANCE PROGRAM

J. Kwan: At a rare moment of bipartisanship today, the Minister of Health and I held a joint event at the Ned DeBeck Lounge. We welcomed the Stand Up for Mental Health group, who made a presentation for the members that attended. In the gallery today are six members of them. Individual MLAs will be introducing those who came.

From my particular riding I want to make welcome Paul Decarie, who is also a comic with the Stand Up for Mental Health group. He lives in the Downtown Eastside community, is a mental health consumer and has been performing for eight years. Would the House please make him feel very welcome.

Stand up for mental health
comedy performance program

J. Kwan: Stand Up for Mental Health has used stand-up comedy as a form of therapy since 2004, when it was founded by David Granirer, a counsellor who also suffers from depression. Now there are SMH groups in Vancouver, Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Courtenay in B.C., as well as in Edmonton, Fort Frances, Guelph, Ottawa and Toronto. There will be new groups in Victoria and Halifax this year.

Many people with mental illness suffer from crippling shame and feel hopelessness because they are not "normal." They often hide their mental illness for fear of being shunned. Sometimes they give up on life and get stuck in poverty and isolation. This is a huge waste of their potential.

David Granirer helps mental health consumers create and perform their own original material about their mental health journeys. The experience helps them understand that they are capable, and their contributions are invaluable. Changing hearts and minds with comedy is a gift. The program has been a lifeline for many who take it. Participants have said: "This program has given me a reason to keep on living.”

SMH has also seen people make healthy changes so that they can stay in the program and keep performing. SMH shows are attended by mental health consumers, mental health service providers, family members and, perhaps most important of all, the general public. It reaches corporations and government organizations with presentations on fighting stigma in the workplace.

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One in five Canadians deal with mental illness at some point in their lives. SMH fights stigma, prejudice and discrimination and spreads the message of hope and empowerment. A proclamation proclaiming March 3, 2009, as Stand Up for Mental Health day at the Legislature is prepared but was not ready for presentation at the lunch-hour, when they entertained us today. So I’ll present it to the group later on in Vancouver.

I invite all members of the House to join me in congratulating and thanking the Stand Up for Mental Health group for their thought-provoking and humorous work.