Good morning. Bonjour. I am here in the capacity of president-elect for the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, or CCPA. I represent more than 12,000 members who provide essential mental health services across Canada.
I would like to speak today about the significant mental health trends affecting children and how the government can take immediate action to relieve some of the burden to Canadians of the cost of mental health care.
Children in Canada are desperate for and yet are struggling to access mental health support. There is clear and growing need for help, but our system is failing these children. Long wait times demonstrate that the demand for services outweighs the capacity of providers.
Counselling therapists and psychotherapists can and are willing to meet the demand. These mental health professionals have had to be the most available during the pandemic, compared to other health professionals.
Strengthening Canada's mental health care supports by increasing accessibility to providers is essential to pandemic recovery and to a thriving and healthy society. Despite health care being a provincially regulated matter, there are small, actionable, and yet impactful federal policies and legislation that can be amended in order to improve supply and access to qualified mental health care providers in Canada.
At present, counselling therapists and psychotherapists are the only regulated mental health service providers that must remit tax on their services. Physicians, psychiatrists, registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, psychologists, occupational therapists and social workers are all exempt from GST/HST on their psychotherapy services.
Counselling therapists and psychotherapists are excluded from this exemption. This contributes to reduced access to mental health services for children by creating unnecessary financial pressure.
The profession of counselling therapy/psychotherapy meets the threshold for tax exemption in the Excise Tax Act, as it is regulated in five provinces. However, because the profession does not regulate the same title in all five provinces—title being a provincial decision—the Department of Finance does not accept that counselling therapists and psychotherapists are the same profession in order to meet that minimum threshold.
The profession is the same in all but name. Counselling therapists and psychotherapists across Canada share a common scope of practice, abide by similar codes of ethics and standards of practice, have a comparable training and education profile, and have a commitment and obligation to ongoing continuing education. They are qualified, competent, and available to meet the skyrocketing mental health care needs of children in Canada, and yet the additional cost of GST/HST tax on their services is limiting their capacity to serve their communities and those seeking care.
To ensure universal access to all mental health professionals, services provided by psychotherapists and counselling therapists should be tax-free.
This exemption would enable a child seeking care to access a few additional sessions over the span of a year. These extra sessions could make the difference between a child's ability to fully integrate their learnings and positive changes and habits for improved well-being. We call on the committee to support CCPA's recommendation to the federal government to legislatively amend the Excise Tax Act through a financial bill that adds the profession of counselling therapy and psychotherapy to the list of GST/HST-exempt health care professionals.
Thank you very much. I'll be pleased to answer your questions in French or in English.