This may be a philosophical argument, and I'm not an expert in some of the policy research in which my colleagues here are. But take, for example, the heavy emphasis by Parliament in the last two to three years on health care waiting times—for cancer treatment, for hips and knees, I think for diagnostic imaging, and for cataracts. I might be missing one or two points, but those were the main ones, I think. Nowhere there was there any mention of mental health.
All of us who work with families and children of low income and even high income know that mental health services, especially for people in smaller areas, are sparse and hard to access, and that this lack causes tremendous impact. I see families and children in my office, and the mother is depressed and can't function, and the child is not functioning at school, and we can't get her in to see somebody, or she can't afford medications. When you ask what we can do federally, those are the types of things, I guess. I think it's placing the emphasis on the right areas and measuring the right things.
All of us baby boomers want to have our hips replaced within a month or two, when the time comes for all of us to have that done. Maybe there needs to be an emphasis on our having to wait a little bit longer and on that money and emphasis going to more important programs that are actually going to pay bigger dividends.
So in response to your question, it's a philosophical emphasis, if you're asking me. We were concerned, from the Canadian Paediatric Society, that child mental health and adult mental health were left out of the wait time issue.