I'd be happy to.
You're right. The York region is very much suburban; it's not rural.
I think you'll find that services, particularly in Ontario—and I can speak to those—have historically not been developed so that there is consistency among regions and you will thus find differences that need to be solved. These are going to be solved by really building, as Ian said, a systems approach to investments and making sure that every kid and family has equal access to services.
There will be times when there's going to be specialization and kids may have to travel a little bit longer, but we have to build our system of intensive treatment so they can easily get back home and have services very, very close to home. For right now, there are innovative models in Ontario that are ready to be scaled up. In-home intensive care is something that has proven to be really important in driving really good outcomes for kids who have significant mental health issues.
In our case—and we don't live too far from your riding, since we live at Leslie and Steeles—we had to go to downtown Toronto for treatment. In Toronto it sounds like a short distance, but it takes a long time, and our child there needed specialized mental health treatment and was there 24-7. Having to be in 24-7 care for almost six months had a tremendously traumatic effect both on the 11-year-old and, I have to say, on the family.
We have innovative models whereby my child could have stayed home. She could have stayed home with wraparound intensive treatment from psychology, psychiatry, social work, and all the allied health professionals providing services to both the child and the family to recover from these very serious mental health issues. It's really a necessity for investment to scale and spread these great ideas, but we need commitment in order for that to happen.
Thank you.