44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 17, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/17/22 2:29:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, across the country, access to pediatric health care is in crisis. Children's hospitals are overwhelmed.
In Quebec, sick kids have had to be transferred 150 kilometres away from their home to get care. In Saskatchewan, a four-year old girl with cancer had to wait 20 hours in the emergency room for a bed to free up in the hospital's pediatric unit.
When will the Liberals take action to get care for our children who desperately need it? Are they going to do something for Christ's sake?
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- Nov/17/22 2:40:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have lifted 450,000 children out of poverty. That is not some random number. These are children, human beings. The Government of Canada is taking concrete steps to shape Canada's future, whereas the Conservatives have never set goals or even expressed the intention to do anything to fight poverty.
I spent seven years on the opposition benches watching them cut program after program.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and his very important bill.
I imagine that many people in the House have children. I have children myself, and with the Internet these days, all kinds of things can happen. We are always wondering what is going on. It is terrible to think that intruders can get into our homes and take advantage of our children through screens. It is quite worrisome.
What we are about to do is really important. Changing the wording will have very important consequences.
However, while we are talking about the problem of child sexual abuse, does my colleague have any ideas on how we could go even further to counter this phenomenon?
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Madam Speaker, there is much more that can be done to protect our children here in Canada. There is so much stress out there right now.
I do not want this bill to become a partisan bill, but part of the stress being created out there is the cost of living. There are people who are homeless. There are children in vulnerable situations because of the conditions this country is under right now. Getting our country back on track, getting people back to jobs and having the ability for families to live and thrive as families are key to being able to do more for children, as the member suggests.
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Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member could talk a little about how this bill will help enforcement and also for making sure children are safer.
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- Nov/17/22 6:42:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to ask for further clarification on a question I brought up earlier on youth and children's access to mental health supports and the backlog of these supports as a result of Liberal inaction. This seems particularly timely as National Child Day here in Canada is coming up on November 20.
I want to start by expressing that I am a parent of two, and many in this chamber are also parents. I worked directly with children and youth in our school systems. I worked directly with youth and families in addictions. I saw the implications for children and youth directly of a lack of appropriate, accessible, timely and adequate mental health supports for children and youth.
We are talking about the accessibility and location specifically and having it somewhere nearby and having barrier-free access to mental health supports. The costs are a huge barrier. I am looking at free or appropriately priced mental health care, which should be free, and having it be appropriate. When it comes to availability and consistency, often youth struggle to build relationships with a service provider without that consistency, and of course, it should be culturally appropriate.
The wait-lists and backlogs, as we all know, are often months and sometimes years long. These youth and children were not only not accessing the support in relation to the immediate symptoms they were experiencing, but also those symptoms were compounded because they were not getting access to the supports. The illnesses they were experiencing often increased. I saw youth whose medication was either under-prescribed, overprescribed or inappropriately prescribed due to a lack of access to care.
When mental health supports are consistently unavailable and inappropriately funded, it reinforces the stigma attached to mental health supports. It reinforces the narrative that mental health supports are not important. We know that mental health and physical health are inextricably interconnected. We cannot disconnect one from the other. This is not only having a direct impact on youth and children, but it also has an impact on their loved ones. It has an impact on our capacity to support one another in the community.
We need to have federal leadership today. The stats do not lie. In 2020, one-quarter of the hospitalizations across Canada for those five to 24 years of age were around mental health, yet we are still seeing inaction. There was $4.5 billion promised by the Liberal government over five years, and to date none of that has been delivered. This is money, much-needed support, that has been promised and committed that is not being used to support children and youth with mental health. Some $250 million from 2021-22 and $625 million from 2022-23 has not been allocated.
I think of my colleague, the member for Courtenay—Alberni, who put forward Motion No. 67, pushing the government to establish the Canada mental health transfer.
I see I am running close to my four minutes, so I will ask the government when it will be sending this much-needed mental health transfer to the provinces and territories.
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