I think that when you study, as I have—although not as a professional scientist—the issues of poverty and others, you realize fairly quickly that the earlier one intervenes in terms of people with vulnerability.... As soon as we have signs of vulnerability and fragility, and as soon as there are signs of problems, we know that those risks are getting bigger. If we can equip ourselves to intervene earlier, a couple of really great things happen.
First of all, individuals and families are better off. This is based on research in areas that go everywhere from poverty reduction to homelessness to early intervention in child care, school violence, and autism. The topic of health is probably the best example overall of intervening early for the benefit of individuals and families morally, clinically, spiritually, and physically, but so often we find that early intervention also is good for the state. Because we are actually intervening early and paying early, we're not paying later on.
I know that's notional. Everyone says that intervening early saves us money, but this is a compendium of some examples of that.
I think the best evidence is ahead of us in terms of how we actually use health economics to predict those savings going forward, because there really are savings, but in terms of a federal perspective on this, it's always been my view that in negotiating with the provinces in particular, because that's what the federal government is really good at.... We get our transfers to individuals and transfers to provinces. Historically it's not necessarily the best in terms of service delivery, but negotiating with provinces based on an early intervention lens actually can bring significant benefits to both federal and provincial governments in terms of savings over time periods that sometimes exceed political mandates and budgets, but that often are the best investments overall.