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House Hansard - 166

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 8, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 166 - Mar/8/23
Mrs. Élisabeth Brière (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, Lib.)
  • Mar/8/23 7:09:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Courtenay—Alberni for his advocacy for Canadians' mental health and for giving me the opportunity to talk about this important issue. Canadians must be able to access timely, evidence-based, culturally appropriate and trauma-informed mental health and substance use services to support their well-being. Our government believes mental health is health, and we have made mental health a key priority. We have already made unprecedented investments, including $5 billion in bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories, close to $600 million for a distinctions-based mental health strategy for indigenous peoples and $270 million to support the Wellness Together portal. In 2017, our government invested $5 billion over 10 years to improve Canadians' access to mental health services, starting with an initial transfer of $100 million, which will be increased to $600 million annually until 2027. The investment is being provided directly to provinces and territories via negotiated bilateral agreements to help them expand access to community-based mental health and addictions services for children and youth, expand integrated services for people with complex needs and spread proven models of community mental health care and culturally appropriate interventions linked to primary health services. When the pandemic hit, we launched the Wellness Together Canada portal to give Canadians online access to information on mental health issues, mental health programs, instant support via text, and even confidential counselling sessions by phone, video and text with social workers, psychologists and other professionals. We also fund the Hope for Wellness helpline, which offers crisis intervention services by telephone or chat. It is available in English, French, Cree, Ojibwa and Inuktitut. On February 7, we announced an investment of more than $198 billion over 10 years to improve health services for Canadians, including mental health services. Today, we have announced agreements in principle with nine provinces. We continue to work towards tailor-made agreements with each of these provinces to reflect the needs of patients and workers, agreements tailored to their population and geography. We believe that mental health must be an integral and integrated part of Canada's public health care system. Section 3 of the Canada Health Act references mental health. Our government is fulfilling its commitment to transfer billions of dollars over the coming years to the provinces and territories to support mental health and addiction services through a combination of both increasing the Canada health transfer and through $25 billion for 10-year FPT bilateral agreements. This will include mental health as one of four shared priorities and will further integrate mental health throughout the health care system and workforce.
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Context: House Hansard - 166 - Mar/8/23
Mr. Gord Johns
  • Mar/8/23 7:12:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, across the country, governments are turning to trusted community organizations to cope and to deal with services around connecting and recovery. The demands are complex and they are high. They have been exacerbated by the pandemic. These organizations are struggling with underfunding, rising costs and labour market shortages. The national organizations are looking for a “caring for carers” investment in the mental health and frontline community service workers in this budget. I hope the government would look to that as part of its recovery agenda. In that, they are looking for $100 million for evidence-based mental health supports for frontline community service workers, to expand immediate access to mental health and substance use health supports for staff, to fund research on best practices and to enhance organizational capacity building for psychologically healthy and safe workplaces. I hope the government honours that in this budget. Madam Speaker, we will probably see this when we get back, because the government has been failing on every promise it has made on mental health. Hopefully, it will deliver before then.
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