First of all, thank you for the very important question.
As far as we've come in terms of talking about mental illness, there's still such a huge stigma involved in talking about the fact that you, personally, might have struggled, or struggle, with mental illness or that a family member does, yet so many of us have a very personal story around mental illness, whether it's in our own family or someone else we love.
I want to acknowledge, first of all, how brave people are when they come forward and talk about that publicly and they share their story, because it actually empowers other people who are living with mental illness to share their stories as well.
It's important to remember that we've made the largest investment in mental health services in Canadian history, an unprecedented $5 billion over 10 years to the provinces and territories. It specifically targets improving the mental health services that the provinces and territories provide.
As you said, we're going to keep working on setting national standards, because what we know is that where you live oftentimes determines the quality of care you get or the variety of services you receive. As someone who has worked extensively in this area, I can tell you that it's incredibly important to me that people have access to services that meet their specific needs.
We know that oftentimes we can get acute services or maybe not preventative services, or vice versa, depending on the community. Those standards are going to be very important because it will give Canadians reassurances that, no matter where they live in the country, they will have access to services that are equivalent to the access of people who live in another part of the country.
I will come back and report to you on how we proceed. I'm looking forward to the meeting shortly with my provincial and territorial counterparts, where we'll get an update from them on the work they're doing on those standards.
Thank you.