Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #53 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was child.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #53 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was child.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Thomson, and Mr. Jowhari.
Go ahead, Mr. Garon. You now have the floor for six minutes.
11:35 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I join my colleagues in offering my condolences and thoughts to the parents and loved ones of the victims and to the affected community in Laval. This reminds us that our children are our most important asset. We need to think about them and take care of them. I think we are all united in that thought today.
Ms. Thomson, I'm going to pick up on my colleague's question about the partisan part, it seems. I thought it was a very good question.
Are there any standards, rules or measures in Quebec regarding the provision of psychological care for children?
11:35 a.m.
Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association
I don't know, but I can look into it and send you an answer in writing.
Do you want to add anything, Ms. Foster?
11:35 a.m.
President-Elect, Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association
Mr. Garon, could you repeat the last part of your question so I understand?
11:35 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Are there standards for the services that must be provided to children? Is this a market where there are standards imposed by the Government of Quebec?
11:35 a.m.
President-Elect, Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association
Yes, psychotherapy has been regulated in Quebec since 2012, which is very different from the rest of the provinces. It's regulated by professional order. So as a couple and family therapist, I'm a member of the Ordre des travailleurs sociaux et des thérapeutes conjugaux et familiaux du Québec, despite the fact that social workers are—
11:35 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
My question was more the following: are there any government objectives for services to children?
11:35 a.m.
President-Elect, Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association
We'll have to get an answer to you about that later.
11:35 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
It would be interesting if you could provide us with that information.
I've noticed that for a number of years people have been coming to Ottawa to ask for money, transfers and national policies in areas of provincial jurisdiction. That's true for psychologists, respiratory therapists, students and education. It's true in just about every field.
It seems to me that we've gotten into the habit of coming to Ottawa to ask for transfers because Ottawa is where the money is. Now, these transfers have policies and conditions attached to them to the provinces and to Quebec, with measurement tools and accountability, to try to verify if the money is going to the right place.
Don't you think it would be simpler if the money were in Quebec City and you went directly to Quebec City to say what you wanted and you would measure the results? Don't you think there's something wrong with all this?
11:35 a.m.
President-Elect, Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association
That's a good question, isn't it?
11:35 a.m.
President-Elect, Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association
That's for sure.
We're currently part of Canada and have to follow its ways of doing things. We make our requests to the federal government because it's the one that deals with this throughout Canada. If we can get this sorted out at once, it would be better for all counsellors and psychotherapists in the country.
11:35 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
So sending money to the provinces would solve the problem all at once. That's music to my ears.
Dr. Afifi, I've read many of your research papers over the past few days. Among other things, you've studied the effects of traumatic experiences such as spanking on the long-term development of children.
Do you think that everything that has happened during the pandemic, such as the lack of socialization, school closures and delays in education, could have a long-term impact on children? What are the potential costs to the provincial health and education systems?
11:40 a.m.
Professor, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
We do know from the data that's been collected so far that the pandemic is definitely having an impact on children. Currently, it's shown mostly in mental health but there can be physical health problems as well. We have children who were born during the pandemic who haven't been adequately socialized and have delays in speech. We have a lot of increased anxiety and depression throughout that.
Early intervention is necessary, absolutely. Could it be ongoing and have an impact? [Technical difficulty—Editor]
11:40 a.m.
Bloc
11:40 a.m.
Professor, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
In terms of whether there will there be long-term impact, I would anticipate absolutely that there is going to be long-term impact, but again, what we need to understand and know how to respond to that is data.
We need to be able to be doing research. We need to be able to be provide evidence-based treatments for individuals, because if we don't intervene now when they are young, it has the potential for mental health problems to continue across the lifespan and become worse.
With that, we need to make it accessible to all children in a timely manner. We need to be making sure—
11:40 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
If I may interrupt, I have a specific question about that.
There is a lack of acceptable public longitudinal data that should be collected by Statistics Canada. You've made that point, and so have other witnesses. Can you give us a concrete example of a research question about children's health during the pandemic that you are unable to answer today because of this lack of data from Statistics Canada?
11:40 a.m.
Professor, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
A concrete example is that because we don't have good data before the pandemic, it's hard to ask and answer questions whether or not the mental health of children has changed due to or after the pandemic.
If we had long-term data collection in place, we could simply ask the questions of whether or not depression and anxiety increased and we could measure it precisely with data, if we had baseline data to compare it to.
We don't have those data structures and infrastructures in place for children in mental health, and with that we don't have a lot of measures of other things that are important that are related to mental health, such as poverty, racism, violence. All of that was also increased due to the pandemic, and the pandemic influenced different people in different ways.
If we had data in place before the pandemic, then we could easily compare to see if things decreased. Without the before data, we can just say what it is now. Can we say that it changed? We can say that this is what it is now, if we collect the data now, but we don't have the ability to compare differences.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
11:40 a.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
I would like to add my voice to that of my colleagues on behalf of the New Democratic Party to express our deep sorrow and grief over the recent events in Laval. Our hearts go out to the parents, families and all those affected by that unbelievable tragedy.
I'm going to start, Dr. Afifi, with you.
How solid is the connection between corporal punishment, or hitting children as a form of punishment, and subsequent mental health issues?
11:40 a.m.
Professor, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
The evidence is 100% certain that if you hit a child, you're increasing the likelihood that they will have poor outcomes. That includes mental health and physical health. It also includes across the other domains of development—education, justice, etc.
Does that mean every child who is hit will have these outcomes? No. Some children will be more resilient, and we're learning about why that's the case, but with 100% certainty, there's no question with the decades of data and thousands of studies that if a child is hit, spanked, slapped, whatever word we use, you're increasing the likelihood of poor outcomes for that child. That child will be less likely to reach their full potential and less likely to be in optimal health. That's 100% certainty.
Importantly, there are no studies, not one study, that show that hitting a child is beneficial to the child.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Funnily enough, the Criminal Code of Canada actually authorizes parents, teachers and other guardians to use physical force or discipline to punish a child under their care. It is subject to a test of what's reasonable under the circumstances.
Domestic violence, by definition violence in the home, is self-evidently harmful with respect to partners. Why does it seem to be a persistent issue to apply that same approach when it comes to corporal punishment of children in the domestic situation?
11:45 a.m.
Professor, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
It's a problem that we have in Canada that we haven't repealed section 43 of the Criminal Code. The only people that we're allowed to hit in our country by law is our children. They're the most vulnerable and the ones that we need to protect the most, arguably, but we're still allowed to hit them.
We need to repeal section 43 for the important reason of.... It's not making it criminal and it's not putting parents in jail. That's not the reason and that's not what's happened in over 60 other countries in the world. We're behind on this.
It first happened in 1970—
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
We'd have to have a bill in Parliament to repeal that very section.