ParlVu screengrab Conservative MP Ron Liepert addresses the House of Commons on Feb. 4, 2019.

OTTAWA — A Conservative MP who lost a daughter to suicide choked back tears Monday during the first debate over an NDP MP's private member's motion calling for a national prevention strategy. The motion, titled M-174, was introduced last year by NDP MP Charlie Angus. Among other things, it calls for national public health standards to identify and monitor at-risk groups and for Parliament to publish an annual progress report complete with updated statistics. For Calgary Signal Hill MP Ron Liepert, the issue is deeply personal. He addressed the House of Commons by saying his remarks were his exclusively and "not prepared by anyone else." Thursday will mark the one-year anniversary of his daughter's death by suicide, he said. "It's a call that no parent should ever have to receive." Talking about the issue helps erase stigma: Liepert With an election on the horizon, Liepert said the arrival of M-174 comes late in the parliamentary calendar and may not move beyond the debate stage. It's still important for MPs to at least talk about the issue to help erase the stigma that surrounds suicide, he maintained. "Hopefully, if at least one person hears our words today and decides not to act, it will be time well spent," Liepert said, adding in his experience, talking about the issue "does help to get rid of some of that anger." Watch Tory MP Ron Liepert's full speech:

Angus said suicide has been a major issue among First Nations in his northern Ontario community where young people have been dying "in twos and threes" in recent years. Suicide rates among First Nations youth are five to seven times higher compared to their non-Aboriginal peers, according to Health Canada. Without a national strategy in place to guide provinces, it's "one horrific crisis after another," Angus said. He used the example of Quebec's multi-level model as a successful policy to replicate nationally. Quebec's prevention strategy, implemented in 1998, has reduced the number of youth suicides by 50 per cent. Motion calls for ' culturally appropriate' prevention programs Though Quebec's strategy has been hailed as a success, the province's coroner doesn't collect information about ethnicity — impairing government's ability to develop suicide prevention programs for Indigenous populations. Angus's motion specifically calls on the government to develop tools to collect this information so "culturally appropriate community-based suicide prevention programs" can be created. A comprehensive national strategy is needed because entire communities can be impacted by a "psychic shockwave" following the death of a young person by suicide, the Timmins-James Bay MP said.