Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I've noticed that suicide attempts for people on welfare are ten times higher than they are for the average Canadian. For folks on welfare, one out of ten have considered suicide in the previous 12 months. So there's a definite link between poverty and mental health.
I also notice that the prevalence of depression among people with low income is about 60% higher than it is for ordinary Canadians, and they're more likely to land in hospital because of depression. That's 85% higher than it is for average Canadians.
You're right that the health costs alone, whether because of attempted suicide or hospitalization for depression, are huge. Of course, there's a huge human toll for people with mental illness. It seems to be a downward spiral. You get depressed, you get poor. Then when you get poor, you get more depressed. They just feed each other. Then you have drug dependency because of it and so on. And it just gets worse.
I have seen in the Toronto region a team called the Dream Team, which is a group of people who formerly had psychiatric challenges and mental health issues. They got back on their feet because they got housing, and because they got housing, they were able to take their medicine if they needed to. They have a group feeling. They are supporting each other. They are eating properly. There's stability in their lives that makes it a lot easier to recover from mental illness. This Dream Team then talks to people in Toronto about the need to invest in supportive housing and to invest to make sure that people don't fall into deep poverty and so on. They are educating to a great extent on this issue.
I want to ask Dr. Alexander, from the Canadian Mental Health Association, specifically about disability benefits, tax credits, tax incentives, and income. Right now, it's a hodgepodge approach. If one goes on the Internet to find some of the tax incentives--if I'm an employer who wants to employ someone with a disability, for example--it's chaotic.
Is there in fact one-stop shopping available for employers or people with disabilities? I think you ran out of time earlier, so perhaps you could tell us more about the tax credits, incentives, and benefits that would assist in making sure that people don't get trapped in this downward spiral or in this cycle of poverty.