Yes, and I think this is also documented in the Mental Health Commission's mental health strategy. We have a mental health strategy from the commission, but it's not an action-based strategy that we're talking about here.
The G7 country with the lowest spending on mental health other than Canada is at 9%. They invest 9% of their overall health spending in mental health. We're at 7.2%, so we're 2 percentage points behind the next lowest.
When the U.K. found that they were quite behind, they began making dramatic investments. But their investments have been yielding savings in other areas of health, which they've reinvested. They've also yielded savings in corrections, which they've reinvested. They're up to 13%, and they still don't think they're at the right level. Just to give you a sense, we're at 7% and they're at 13%.
You mentioned Allan Rock, and I think it's important to piggyback on these two issues. There is precedent when Allan Rock was health minister, and we were the only G8 country at the time that didn't have a drug strategy. The Paddy Torsney committee, as many will remember, set out to examine that. The federal government created Canada's drug strategy, made investments, but they also set aside investments with Health Canada for the drug treatment funding program.
I've been at the provincial level. We get provincial funding for health, but the drug treatment funding program was developed and disseminated federally, just as Karen was saying in regard to all these other things, so there is precedent. The provinces worked with this direct funding from the drug treatment funding program, managed out of Health Canada federally.
I know it's not an easy thing to address. On a piece of paper, 2 percentage points a year means nothing, but when you consider how significant the gap is, 2 percentage points year over year over year, that's how big the gap is. In some provinces and some areas of the country, it's like the emperor has no clothes. There are more gaps in mental health services than there are services.
The transformation and investment needed, in the wisest way—you can't just throw money at it—is going to need more coordinated action, as other countries have demonstrated. It's going to need some kind of federal transformation fund in addition to what you're transferring to the provinces.