Evidence of meeting #10 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
I would like to talk to you about the mental health of young people.
According to an analysis published in October, 46% of Montrealers aged 18 to 24 say they experience symptoms similar to generalized anxiety disorder or major depression. Elsewhere in Quebec, the rate is 31%. Nearly one in four Montreal adults, specifically 23%, report that their household has suffered major financial losses as a result of the pandemic.
Bloc
Director, Mouvement Santé mentale Québec
Yes, this is the age when young people enter the job market and organize themselves as adults.
There was already a lot of distress in educational settings such as universities and CEGEPs, and that has increased. There has been more isolation and less socializing with friends and family.
November 30th, 2020 / 12:55 p.m.
Director, Mouvement Santé mentale Québec
Employment is still important.
We need to find strategies to enable social encounters, which does not mean face-to-face meetings. However, solidarity must continue. Listening to our young people and our loved ones is essential. We must make them aware of all the available resources, since they are unfortunately not widely known. We receive many calls from people who do not know where to turn for help.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Thériault.
I'd like to comment regarding documents. All documents we receive will be distributed to the committee once they're translated.
We'll now go to Mr. Davies.
Mr. Davies, please go ahead for six minutes.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Again, thank you to all the witnesses for being here.
Dr. Brotto, I had a feeling you had more to say when you were summarizing the findings, so I would like to turn it back over to you to complete your thoughts on some of the major findings from your study on the impact of COVID on women and gendered Canadians.
Executive Director, Women’s Health Research Institute
Thanks for the opportunity to emphasize the importance, first and foremost, when we're doing research and considering mental health among Canadians, of taking both a sex-based approach, with sex defined as male versus female or birth assignment, and also, importantly, gender. Gender is your sense of yourself as woman, man, non-binary, trans, two-spirited, etc. Sometimes when you ask a person about their gendered experience of mental health, it might look different from what we might assume our sex assignment tells us. It's a really important first conclusion that we keep both sex and gender in mind.
I think a major conclusion, based on our data, is that, when we consider the burden of depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness, we see magnified rates, sometimes three to four times higher, of those psychosocial outcomes for females compared with males. That's likely a combination of biological factors, such as being more predisposed to anxiety, and gendered aspects related to the fact that women are more likely to be front-line health care workers; serve in industries that continue to work throughout the pandemic, such as service industries, and work as janitorial staff; and bear a higher burden of home child care and domestic activities.
This leads us to conclude that when we consider mental health resources, we should keep sex and gender at the forefront of making decisions.
Second, and this was asked in the previous question, we saw a very significant effect of age. As Ms. Ouimet was illustrating, the highest burden was borne by our youngest age cohort, the 25- to 30-year-olds. They reported very high rates of loneliness.
We didn't have time for this data, but hopefully you'll see in the slides that we also took a very intersectional approach. We know that individuals living in rural communities, indigenous women, women with disabilities and women identifying as sex and gender minorities see all of these burdens as magnified.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
On November 24, just days ago, the Women's Health Foundation published a new report series called “Unmasking Gender Inequity”. Was the report informed by your data?
Executive Director, Women’s Health Research Institute
Thanks for that question.
Yes, the BC Women's Health Foundation, which we work in close partnership with, conducted a separate survey that was intended to look at women's experiences in the province and the impacts of COVID on their health and well-being and on help-seeking services.
While it did not draw from our research dataset, we worked very closely with the foundation to share findings, to set priorities and to ensure that an equity lens was placed whenever we asked questions that pertained to women's health.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I have a kind of double-barrelled question here. One of the most acute and disturbing impacts of the COVID pandemic was revealed when you described the impact on gender-based violence. It has been referred to as a shadow pandemic.
Do you have any recommendations for steps the federal government could take to address that aspect of the pandemic? I'll leave it at that and ask this question first.
Executive Director, Women’s Health Research Institute
Indeed, we saw a near doubling of the self-reports of intimate partner violence among women from pre-pandemic to phase one with the highest pandemic controls. This is not surprising. Past pandemics found the same thing, and early data out of China showed us a three times higher rate of intimate partner violence. The real concern here is that women are often trapped and isolated with the perpetrators, so even if they wanted to ask for help, they simply can't.
We need a multipronged approach. First of all, we need to raise awareness about the fact that intimate partner violence rates are unacceptably high, and they increase directly in response to stress.
Second, we need to ensure that health care providers, front-line health care providers, are equipped with how to ask those sensitive questions of women in a safe way at their general wellness visits, which I understand are largely done through virtual care.
Third, we absolutely need more resources, so that when women do ask for help—and I emphasize that only a small minority of women ask for help when they're in an intimate partner violence situation—resources are available for them. We should be thinking about how resources can be available online, coming back to Dr. Cornish's really important points about virtual care, and how we can ensure that those resources are available to women.
Finally, the last thing I'll say about intimate partner violence is that we know it is disproportionately experienced by indigenous women, women living in rural communities, and women who experience other sex- and gender-based intersections. We need to ensure that when we do have resources, they are absolutely tailored to those communities that are most likely to be experiencing it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Davies.
Thank you, everyone. That wraps up our questioning for this panel.
To all the witnesses, I really do appreciate your sharing your time and expertise with us today. It was very helpful.
Before we adjourn, I would like to make particular note of the translators. The translators, day by day, minute by minute, work tirelessly behind the scenes to make this work for us. I understand they had a fairly chaotic day today, so I would just like to acknowledge them and thank them in particular—today and every day.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you to all the members and witnesses.
We are now adjourned.