Thank you.
I thank the committee for inviting us here today.
I wish to acknowledge the Haudenosaunee people for welcoming us to gather here today on the traditional lands we share. I hope we have a time of learning from one another about the ways in which we may work together to bring an end to the poverty faced by all Canadians, though my particular focus today will be the 6,642,540 Canadians living with mental illness. I hope true action and substantive change will be the result of our collective work.
National Network for Mental Health extends profound thanks to the federal government for the establishment of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, and asks that you continue to support its vital work. One of the strategic goals they are developing includes the importance of the social determinants of health as related to positive mental health. Therefore, this is the one potential area where they'll be able to act as a bridge between the sectors.
Our organization further urges the creation of a Canada mental health act as a means to address the need for a national mental health strategy.
We are very pleased to see that work to reduce poverty is also ongoing during the global economic crisis. We feel it is a proactive step in helping citizens of this country as the country copes with the challenges that the economic changes will bring. It means everything to know that we will be remembered and also assisted.
In past economic crises, people living with mental illness have been blamed, ignored, or, worse, had the few resources we did have taken in the name of cost reduction. I thank the government for realizing that such punitive measures of the early 1990s actually cost more in loss of recovery, productivity, dignity, and hope. Full-cost accounting principles--of financial, environmental, and human costs--should be a guiding principle.
People living with mental illness die as a result of suicide at a rate 40 times greater than people with HIV/AIDS. This does not include the deaths that result from other health problems associated with mental illness, such as heart disease, addiction, and diabetes, all of which have poor prognosis for people living with mental illness. This number does not address the effects of poverty and homelessness on the under-serviced mentally ill who are consigned to a life on the street.
Immediate and swift action must be taken in order to address the pandemic of mental illness in this country. We do know from the HIV/AIDS experience that a concerted effort at disease reduction by all levels of the community results in reduced illness and death. We need to have mental health included, for all our citizens, as an issue as important as heart health, diabetes prevention, or HIV/AIDS prevention.
As pointed out in many of the documents on population health, access to the social determinants of health, as stated in Health Canada, are essential to positive mental health. Cooperation between ministries, at all levels of government, and the support of the wider citizenry will be the only way we can achieve full access to the determinants of health.
Where this cooperation cannot be achieved, we believe governments at all levels must take back their power. Legislate the actions needed to resolve problems. Rely on best evidence and consultation with stakeholder groups. Ensure there's access to justice in the pursuit of human rights for all citizens that do not pose onerous administrative burdens on the person.
Reference has been made to system navigators. We also need legal help programs for the many situations in which people find themselves. Reinstatement of the court challenges program would be a start, but we must go deeper. Legal aid programs do not help people with social assistance problems, Workmen's Compensation Board issues or labour issues, and such things as landlord-tenant issues.
Many mental health consumers who have incomes over the tax ceiling are unable to access the volunteer programs for filling out their income tax forms due to either the complexity of the returns or their levels of income. While they legitimately need assistance because of their disabilities, they're left to cope by themselves. Disabled people are not allowed to e-file.
Some of these preventative measures will help reduce poverty. There are some excellent funding initiatives across Canada for affordable housing. It's important to remember that people with mental illness can also be physically disabled and may be parents. Many of the housing options are not for disabled parents, and this can place families at risk of having children come into care.
Mentally ill people who own their homes also struggle with poverty, distress, and anxiety about maintaining these homes. So programs that help people who own their homes with repairs and that sort of thing are vitally important.
Canada needs a reliable poverty measure. Research suggests that the measure that supports quality of life with dignity is the pre-tax LICO, or low-income cutoff. Public opinion also supports that research. Use of the pre-tax LICO is our organization's official recommendation to our government as a poverty measure. Statistics Canada could easily monitor and report on an established income measure. Other population economic indicators are the homelessness count, mental health care wait-list report cards, depth of poverty, and income gaps.
In an ideal world, the perception of an individual's quality of life may also be useful. One wonders if there's a way to account for the time lag between available data and when an increase is issued for the cost of living. Government should report quarterly on the economy with other financial indicators, such as rates of unemployment and the gross national product.
We believe federal-provincial-territorial cooperation is becoming enhanced by the need to take action on serious issues faced by people living with mental illness, poverty, and other disabilities. Quick wins include agreement that one level of government benefit will not be used to deduct from another, tax incentives to employers with benefits plans for workers, national pharmacare programs, national home care, and home support acts.
There should be recognition that people living with mental illness also need to be entitled to some of the same disability supports as people with other disabilities. Dollars for disability support should follow the person. CPP disability should not be allowed to be deducted from people's long-term disability benefits when people have benefits through group or private benefits for long-term disability. Unless a person's income is at the level of LICO, they need to be exempt from any deductions regardless of income source. The disability tax credit should be refundable.
All income support programs should be indexed to inflation. The federal government could dovetail with existing provincial programs to fill in gaps. For example, the national pharmacare strategy would fill in gaps where provincial benefits do not exist. If money is provided from the federal government to the provinces, ensure it is designated funding so it is not absorbed for other purposes.
The federal government should reinstate a federal minimum wage and set it at $10 an hour, indexed to inflation. Provincial and territorial governments should freeze their minimum wages to where someone working full time could escape poverty.
Universities and other employers hiring contract workers should also adopt living-wage policies that would require procurement-of-service contractors to pay at least $10 an hour. It's poignant to note a particular study on child poverty on the CCSD website. It's by David Ross and it's called Child Poverty in Canada: Recasting the Issue. There is a series of effects of child poverty, and seven of the listed indicators--although there are 35--are mental health issues in children and youth that impact all of their successes in later life.
Many severe and persistent mental illnesses commonly have their onset in adolescence. Using access to employment insurance for youth, providing supported employment opportunities, and ensuring some form of episodic disability income that people with mental illness can access quickly in an episode would be very important steps in easing their poverty.
Capping and reducing post-secondary education tuition is also necessary for educational access. When illness calls for change in the educational path, that should be facilitated.
The mentally ill also need to be considered as economic drivers. One hundred per cent of the income of poor people is turned back to the economy. Most of this goes to the local economy, as they do not have the ability to travel far. Hiring workers and providing supports will create jobs and stimulate the economy in and of itself, while increasing the tax base. The government must be proactive and cautious about tax reduction for the sake of tax reduction and plan responsibly for the needs of all its citizens. Ideals are nice, but at the end of the day even the most strenuous cost reduction measures cannot escape the reality: things will cost what they cost. Revenue must keep pace with the needs of service.
Finally, I would like to share that the mental health consumer movement in this country has given a great deal of leadership with respect to activities and programs that help the mentally ill and reduce poverty. Through the Opportunities Fund, National Network for Mental Health has developed supported entrepreneurship programs, three of which still exist today in Calgary, St. Catharines, and Nova Scotia. People in this program are assisted in developing small businesses that range from supplementing income support programs to achieving full-fledged financial independence.
The newest program, BUILT Network, is a supported employment program that was started by Dave Gallson and National Network for Mental Health. Its objective is to provide customer service skills and computer skills to enable persons in the community to gain employment in customer service, administration, order desks, or call centres. The primary mandate is to empower the mental health consumer through skill development and employment. This entails identifying and removing perceived and real barriers to the workplace. This is achieved by bringing in local employers and having them participate through guest presentations in the classroom, submissions in course content, and the hiring of graduates of the program.
National Network for Mental Health is proud to announce that the BUILT Network project has been recognized nationally for excellence in learning by the Canadian Council of Learning, June 12, 2007. To date, BUILT has served about a thousand people. Of these, 750 have returned to work, and a further hundred have gone back to school.
One barrier to this program is the difficulty posed when we have to reject an applicant who has EI eligibility, even though this program would enhance employability and might even shorten recovery time.
In addition to these achievements, National Network for Mental Health provides leadership to national mental health consumer movement organizations through a board of directors acting on behalf of the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health. One of its programs is the Canadian Coalition of Alternative Mental Health Resources, a body made up of 24 leaders of the mental health consumer movement from across Canada. They advise NNMH on policy issues and explore best practices within the mental health movement.
In spite of these achievements, funding levels for these programs have not kept pace with the cost of living, service demand, or expansion requirements. This poses a significant risk as we struggle to meet operational demands brought about by economic fluctuations. NGOs have to provide a great deal of leadership in these challenging times, and must therefore be assisted in every possible way to do their vital work. It is our hope to work with the committee in an ongoing way to achieve positive mental health for all Canadians.
I thank you for your interest and look forward to your questions.