Basically, in terms of the roots of these issues, there are the gendered impacts as well as poverty, overcrowded housing, dislocation from traditional lands, and residential school attendance by family members, which have also been linked to negative mental health impacts.
With respect to the insufficiencies of existing services and programs and next steps to take, from what I've said already with respect to systemic and attitudinal racism, it should be clear that there are gaps in the availability of non-stigmatizing and culturally secure services. In fact, the large majority of patients are at high risk of re-traumatization.
If I might, I want to drill down for a second. If we thought about one-third of adults in the country experiencing complex trauma that meets the PTSD criteria I described above, that would be 300,000 people that any health care provider or community member would want to refer for urgent supports, including access to counsellors and therapists with expertise, and culture-based counsellors and supports. We've heard from my colleague Dr. Lalonde about effectiveness, and we know this around identity and culture-based supports. Yet in my clinical work here in Toronto, there's not a single therapist I can refer people to. So I do part-time work as a family doctor focusing on mental health supports and therapy. There's not a single person I can refer people to, yet I would estimate that there would be 10,000-plus aboriginal people needing those kinds of supports.
In summary, complex trauma over hundreds of years impacting hundreds of thousands of people requires lifelong, comprehensive systems. Truth and reconciliation requires restitution and remedies. Acknowledgement is important, but in the current acknowledgement process there are inadequacies, even of the supports, for the survivors who have been reporting, and their re-traumatization has become apparent. An investment in the Aboriginal Healing Foundation from 1998 to 2014 was just a beginning, yet it's been cut.
I believe I've presented evidence for a substantive investment in mental health that includes both aboriginal-specific services and mainstream services. Thank you.