Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm here today representing the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health.
Two of my colleagues, Dr. John Service, our past chair, and Connie McKnight, our current co-chair, are only available for questions.
The Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health has filed a brief that we hope is understandable, readable, and that sets out our targets without too much interspersion.
Judy has already mentioned the CARP support for the Canadian Mental Health Commission. Of course, that's the main thrust of our own request.
The Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health is the largest coalition or association of national not-for-profit NGOs, including consumer family organizations, service providers, and professional organizations. There is no other like it in Canada or in the world. We cover the entire spectrum of service delivery, including patients, and we pick up the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Canadian Psychiatric Association, plus disability groups such as the National Network for Mental Health.
We have a broad voice. We have a tremendous grassroots capacity to get to our communities and understand what they want. And I'll tell you exactly what they want. They want you to recommend to the federal government—to Mr. Flaherty and whoever else you have to go to—to fund the establishment of the Canadian Mental Health Commission, as recommended by the Senate standing committee.
The Senate standing committee, as I'm sure you know—and I'm sure you've all seen this “Out of the Shadows at Last” document—recommended that the Canadian Mental Health Commission be established and become operational by September 1, 2006. We're a bit late, but we're ready to move forward as quickly as possible. We have great hopes that you will do that. The funding required is $17 million a year, which is not significant, in our opinion, compared to the other funds paid on health care activities.
The other aspect that we'd ask you to fund is the research component, again as recommended by the Senate standing committee, which is a $25-million-a-year fund that would go to the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, one of the Canadian institutes of health research, and would be managed similar to the AIDS fund, which you already fund on a regular basis.
The third funding aspect that we want you to look at very carefully is the funding of the Public Health Agency and Health Canada to fund surveillance and data-gathering aspects. As much as we'd like to, we can't rely on the Canadian Institute for Health Information and others, because hospital records show only about 15% of the actual mental illnesses in Canada. The vast majority of mental illnesses are treated in the community by psychological services, EAP providers, and others. It's absolutely essential that we acquire that data in order to provide us with comparative information, so that we can deal with the real aspects of the cost of mental illness in Canada.
The brief sets out in significant detail the cost of mental illness in Canada. I'm sure you all know the business issues; it costs $33 billion a year. Health care costs are about $14 billion. Suicides are incredible. We have an unconscionably high rate of suicide for a country that calls itself advanced. We have issues in our aboriginal mental health that are beyond belief and need to be dealt with. Poverty issues are more often than not associated with mental health issues.
Within its own jurisdiction, the federal government has the capacity to move forward on a number of issues, particularly federal correctional issues. As Judge Ted Ormston will tell you, the courts are now the largest warehousers or keepers of people with mental illnesses. It's a national disgrace as well, and something that should be attended to.
And as I'm sure you know, Howard Sapers issued his report yesterday and made it available to all MPs.
The second issue is the Department of National Defence and the mental health issues of our armed forces. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is incredible. Again it's something that needs to be addressed, and it can be addressed through the Mental Health Commission.
Those are just some of the issues.
Quickly, one of the questions that was asked of me was to compare mental health with other groups.The prevalence of mental illness in Canada is 10.4%. The one-time federal allocation for mental illness research is 1.5%. The ongoing federal allocation for mental illness research is 1.3%. Diabetes has an impact rate of 4.8%. It gets 30% of federal funding.
I'll stop there, but I'd be happy to answer any questions, as would Dr. Service or Connie McKnight.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.