Human Resources committee  Your question was, have we? We are so early getting going. The answer is, we have not, but we will. The answer is yes. Let me tell you where my bias is on this issue. I had a sister who suffered for many years from severe depression, including a suicide attempt. She subsequently died of cancer.

Human Resources committee  If I could just say one closing comment to all of you, thank you for having us. I don't say this to flatter you. It's really important that Canadian leaders like yourselves get involved in this issue. If it is okay with you, Mr. Chair, we will come back to the members of the committee and through them their other colleagues in the House over the next little while to talk about events you could participate in with us.

Human Resources committee  Do you want to go ahead?

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. The reality is that when we de-institutionalized in this country.... We closed the old asylums, as they were called when I was a kid, the mental hospitals. In theory, we were putting people out into community-based facilities, except that we didn't build the community-based facilities very fast.

Human Resources committee  That certainly happens. The reality is that there's growing recognition now among at least the major employers in the country that there's a real need for them to begin to deal with it. We have a workforce advisory committee that is working with a number of companies now on pilot projects to figure out--I'm going to use the same word as we use for people with disabilities--what workplace accommodation is required for them to be able to employ people.

Human Resources committee  Yes, we have, although we haven't looked at the exact numbers. When the Senate committee looked at that issue, we came to the conclusion that you needed to find a way—whether through a tax deduction or some income-tax-driven measure—that would recognize, frankly, that governments are getting an awful lot of free service, because if the family members didn't exist, a lot of these people would have to be institutionalized, which would cost the federal and provincial governments a lot of money.

Human Resources committee  Right. Look, a “normal” job isn't going to work for some people, there's no question. On the other hand, at the present moment, what happens is that if you have a mental illness, if you suffer from depression and so on, employers are inclined to simply not hire you, even though the fact is that 90% of the time you could do a very good job.

Human Resources committee  Yes, and I have two comments. Is the system inefficient? It's colossally inefficient. It's inefficient because there are so many service providers operating in any given municipality that the same number of services are provided by a large number of service providers. Do I think you could ultimately redesign the system so it would be a lot more efficient, and with the administrative numbers more money would fall to the bottom line?

Human Resources committee  Of course, and the only way you can really deal with that problem is indirectly, and it is by reducing the stigma to the point where people don't feel they have to deny it. The problem now is that people are so afraid. If someone has a mental problem and they are so afraid that their friends, their family, will say to them, get over it, there's nothing wrong with you, etc., then they're afraid to raise it with even their closest friends.

Human Resources committee  By the way, just to give you an example, 30 years ago breast cancer was exactly where mental health is. Thirty years ago, a woman with breast cancer wouldn't tell anybody. Indeed, the newspapers wouldn't report it because they weren't allowed to use the word “breast” in news stories.

Human Resources committee  Given your comment, I'm going to ask Mike Pietrus to comment on the anti-stigma program. Ideally, I suppose, if you told me that we could put money into only one segment of the population, I would put it into children, and I would put it into children for two reasons. One, you would stop the problem when they become old, you would get it early; and secondly—and this is an amazing comment—only one in six, only 17%, of Canadian children who need professional help get it.

Human Resources committee  I can't speak for them, but I will tell you what my guess is, and it's probably pretty accurate. The stigma that is attached to mental illness and substance abuse is sufficiently strong that most of them don't even necessarily provide services to those people. In other words, there is a feeling that if you have a mental illness and a substance abuse problem, you're kind of “over there”, and we will deal with the broader population of poor or low-income Canadians.

Human Resources committee  Just get hold of Jayne. I go back to where I started. We have to get everybody in on this, and any help we can provide to any of you, either collectively as a committee or individually, we'd be more than happy to give.

Human Resources committee  The single most important thing for dealing with individuals with a mental illness, frankly, is more supportive housing. If you look at the Senate committee report, we recommended a very significant increase over a decade in supportive housing units. That would be number one. Number two would be, as I said in response to Mr.

Human Resources committee  That's right. Thank you for that. Before turning to my colleagues, let me respond to your first point. I did not know you had the private member's bill. Afterward, let's make sure we know how to keep in touch, because that's really critical. What I said about the pilot project, though, is that I'm hoping to have conversations in the relatively near future with HRSDC about running a pilot project on exactly the kind of thing you talked about.