Thank you for the question.
I think it's important to point out that the work done by Ms. Hay, for example, is wonderful, and it is needed. There is in fact research showing that tele-therapy can confer some benefits for some patients who might otherwise have mobility or accessibility issues. It's important to continue to focus on these strategies. However, it's important to focus on prevention strategies as well. If we know that over one quarter of our youth prior to the pandemic required mental health care, this is a sign that our society is broken, in some sense. We need to focus on the strategies so that they do not need those services. Of course, those services are great, but hopefully people would be healthier.
Less screen time and more face-to-face activity would be better, as would good regulations for the amount of screen time on a developmental schedule, such as zero screen time for youth under six and then up to one hour a day with supervision, but also good guidelines for the kinds of content people consume and the kinds used. For example, we know that active communication with loved ones with social media is good. It's associated with increased well-being. Passive, mindless scrolling of anxiogenic information is not good.
There are plenty of those guidelines, but unfortunately, as I expressed to the National Assembly of Quebec last week, most of the protective factors that we can recommend do not presently apply under the current public health guidelines, which we know are required to protect our vulnerable population. However, moving toward, focused protection strategies targeting different groups with different risk factors where we know that young people really need these opportunities to connect, in particular in school and in universities, has also become an emergency.