Status of Women Committee on Sept. 29th, 2022

[Krystal-Jyl Thomas]

I mentioned in my opening as well that peer support is a really underutilized service that we can tap into to fill a lot of these vacant positions. You talk about how some people don't want to go to that clinical piece. That can be a really intimidating space, especially for young people. Peer support can really bridge that gap when you have someone with lived experience who may be closer in age to the person and able to speak to them in a way that clinicians just aren't trained to, able to speak from the perspective of their own resilience and strength to have an opportunity to have a relationship with that person.

I think if we started to open up more peer support programs, going along with what you're saying, rather than putting this on top of teachers' responsibilities, maybe we could bring peer support workers into the schools and to people who are on wait-lists. If we had peer support workers who were connected with them as advocates while they were on wait-lists, this could really start to lift some of the burden off the frontline health care.

Michelle is a big advocate and a peer supporter, in case she would like to say anything to that.

[Michelle Jackson-Brown]

I would just add to that the combination of outreach and peer support and peer support training. Again, I used to do outreach into the youth shelters. Many of those youth were afraid to go and speak with their doctor about their mental health care. They were afraid to speak with their families about their mental health care. Oftentimes I was the first person they had ever spoken to about their mental health care.

It's also about being able to go into the schools. I hear from teachers that they just don't feel equipped to address mental health concerns if a student comes in and speaks with them. If we have social workers going out and doing outreach into the schools to provide education and training, then we can identify within those schools youth ambassadors who can lead peer support initiatives. I think this combination would make great headway toward ensuring that youth feel supported within their schools and among their peers—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's perfect. Thank you so much, Michelle.

You're all offering such good information. I'm sorry for cutting you off, but we're getting tight here.

Andréanne, go ahead for six minutes, please.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have some questions for the witnesses. Once again, your testimony today confirms that some cases are extremely sensitive and that it is obviously not easy to go and get help for many reasons. You personally have to overcome the first hurdle, which is to recognize that you have mental health issues.

Ms. Jackson‑Brown, I would like to go back to what you said just before the end of my last question time. You spoke of health transfer payments. We can't possibly hope to provide better mental healthcare without getting more funding and more support for the system. Organizations are saying the same thing. In my riding, organizations receive funding from the Ministry of Health and Social Services. The ministry has direct links with the organizations that provide mental health services or help women who are victims of violence.

On a more practical note, can you please tell us more about the importance of health transfer payments. I would like to hear you speak about what the impact would be if our healthcare system had more funding. Whether the funding would be used for physical or mental healthcare, workers on the frontline or our institutions, our organizations need money to be able to respond to the increase in cases that you have spoken about today.

[Michelle Jackson-Brown]

When we're talking about transfers, I think the program is available if the funding is available. If we don't have funding that's earmarked, then that program isn't going to be developed.

For example, in Ontario we had funding for women's health research, which was drawn back. Then we lost funding to research those initiatives and programs. This was through the Women's College Hospital. There was $15,000 of funding available. That is no longer available. We need to have the funding earmarked to promote the development of women's mental health programming and mental health care specifically.

The other piece is ensuring that when we're providing education to our primary care providers, the curriculum includes education on mental health and substance use, so that primary care providers are feeling equipped to address these issues as they arise. It's also to provide them with the screening tools. When we're talking about a national strategy for prenatal mental health, we're talking about supporting primary care providers with universal screening and care pathways.

What we need to be doing is providing supports to our primary care providers to address these mental health concerns so they are not necessarily requiring further specialized psychiatric care.

I don't know if anybody else would like to add to that piece.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

As you indicated today when we talked about workers on the frontline, we are referring to community organizations that are working on the frontline with people who are in crisis. We mustn't forget that they are also part of the healthcare system. They have been asking for better long-term funding for quite a while. It's a simple question of mathematics: in order to be able to provide more services, they need more resources, more money. We can see that our healthcare system has been underfunded for far too long. This is obvious not only in hospitals and doctors' offices, but also when we look at community organizations and workers on the frontline, who don't have the resources to increase and improve the services they provide. To my mind, this is a crucial aspect.

Furthermore, perhaps because we have just finished a study on intimate partner violence, we spoke a lot about the connection between being subjected to violence and mental health issues. That connection is real. You've mentioned the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. As you said, tomorrow, September 30, will be the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, a day of reflection. Solutions and measures have been proposed. When we look at delays, we also have to remember that funding is sometimes lacking.

Finally, there is also the issue of housing. We cannot hope to break women free of the cycle of violence if they don't have a place to live. We have seen delays in transfer payments for housing in Quebec. We need to invest massively in housing, because having a safe place to live will allow a woman to get out of a volatile situation and possibly rebuild her life. She can't do so if she is in direct contact with her aggressor 24 hours a day. We have to inject more funds and build social and community housing. We need to offer a safe place to live at a reasonable price. This will allow us to relieve the pressure on emergency women’s shelters, where women are staying longer because they don't have a place to go afterwards, which means that the shelters for women are always full. It is a vicious cycle created by the lack of spaces and social and community housing for women.

I see you all nodding. If you feel like commenting on the link between health and housing, please do so.

[Krystal-Jyl Thomas]

I would agree with you. There isn't enough space, and women are not likely to leave or to be prepared to leave if they know they're not going to have a place to go.

I'm not sure if there was a specific question in there, but I would agree completely that we need to be looking at our housing crisis, because the housing crisis goes beyond just women.

Also, on the front line in mental health care we've seen our wait-lists skyrocket, and the domestic violence situation has gotten much worse since the pandemic. I don't see that this is going to settle down now that we've reopened, because women are still being greatly impacted by the fallout of the pandemic, so—

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Perfect.

The mean chair got back up here.

I'm now going to pass it over to Leah for six minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

I have another question for Royal Ottawa Health.

In your testimony, you spoke about police in mental health involvement. In the city of Winnipeg, we currently have a pilot project. It's called the ARCC program. It's an alternative response. It's in partnership with the Winnipeg Police Service and Shared Health's crisis response centre.

Here's the thing, though. In the city of Winnipeg, we have very fractured relationships between the indigenous community and the police services. Although I think it's well meaning, one of the issues I see—and I brought it up with one of the community police officers—is the fact that the initial response is still a police officer who assesses whether it's safe for the mental health worker to go along with the police officer. I feel like it's the same response. If they don't behave properly, they're in a mental health crisis and they get arrested. The problem is that people will be hesitant to reach out when there's a mental health crisis if it goes to the police rather than getting people who are actually qualified to deal with it.

I know you mentioned it. I don't know if you agree with me. It just seems like we can't police our way out of a mental health crisis. We need to invest in real mental health services with mental health specialists, action therapists and the like. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Why or why not?

[Krystal-Jyl Thomas]

I agree completely.

I'm not overly familiar with the ARCC program, but I used to work on a crisis team in Simcoe County. In the crisis house I worked in, I would be deployed to situations usually without, but sometimes with, police. I can say with certainty that when police were deployed with me, almost always a situation that did not need to be escalated was escalated. We can train specialists to attend frontline situations in a crisis emergency. If it's deemed unsafe, then perhaps police could be in a nearby vicinity.

Again, Michelle and I have worked on the front line for 15 years. I recall maybe three times when I had to have police come in with me to a situation. I remember this one time being in an apartment building and the officer saying to me, “I can't believe you go into these houses alone. We wouldn't even go in alone as officers. We would go in in twos.” Yet, in 15 years—not to say it doesn't happen—I've never been harmed. I've never been in a situation that I couldn't de-escalate myself.

I did mention police. I think the primary first response would be if we could train people to go into frontline situations in which there's a mental health crisis. If there were safety issues, then police would be somewhere in the background. I also think that if we're going to continue to send police in, then we need much better mental health training for police.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

My other observation—and then I want to move on quickly—is that often the response, as you've indicated, exacerbates the situation because the people who are being confronted have historically had very negative relationships with people in positions of authority. It's like a fight-or-flight response. Would you agree with that?

[Krystal-Jyl Thomas]

I would agree.

[Michelle Jackson-Brown]

Absolutely. In some cases, it can be retraumatizing for an individual.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

In Winnipeg, we have something that has been named the “drunk tank”. It's slang. People who are intoxicated are put in these cells with a hole in the ground. It's still there in Winnipeg, in my riding. Often, the people who are put in there are residential school survivors, kids aging out of care and sixties scoop adoptees. It's just exacerbating it. I want to put that on the record. I'm glad the new director of Main Street Project is a trailblazer and is changing that abusive, vile practice in our city as rapidly as he can.

You spoke about the social safety net. I put forward a bill in support of a guaranteed livable basic income. It's Bill C-223. We're talking about a financial crisis. My bill is being put forward in addition to current and future government programs in support. We've heard about financial stress, yet I find that nobody is really committed, and the political will is not there to deal with things at the front end. We know there's a direct correlation between violence and poverty.

Have you heard about a guaranteed livable basic income? Do you think that would assist families you serve in terms of supporting good mental health in the home?

[Owen Charters]

We know that there were pilots that ended early. They were interesting to watch. We were very curious about the outcomes of those in terms of the changes they might make in the lives of those families—especially how they impacted youth. I think we would still be interested in seeing how those go.

I think it's not a substitute for some of the social services that are still needed for those families. I think if the programs work well, that may remove some stresses, but just because you have the essentials on the table or in the fridge, that doesn't mean mental health supports are there on a day-to-day basis. While you take away those stresses, I think the other things.... We talk about the fact that “underprivileged” doesn't necessarily mean just in financial capacity. It refers to a wide breadth of challenges. A very well-to-do kid can be very underprivileged in terms of their access to the supports they need.

We're very curious. We'd like to see the outcomes of those. The pilots had started, and we'd love to see them continue, to understand what they could do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

That's perfect. Thank you so much.

We're now going to head back to our five-minute rounds.

I'm going to pass the floor over. I believe Dominique and Michelle are going to share their time.

Dominique, I'm passing it over to you.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you.

I have many questions, but Ms. Ferreri also has a great one for you, Mr. Charters. My question will be of interest to you, too, given that you are the director of a 120‑year‑old organization.

Do you think that people are experiencing more mental health issues nowadays? Does this impression stem from the fact that we are better at recognizing mental health issues and voicing them and less embarrassed about talking about them? It is because these issues are more and more prominent in the media? Is it because the problem is becoming more democratic, so to speak?

[Owen Charters]

It's absolutely beneficial that we're speaking about it. Earlier we were talking about Stuart Shanker and the regulation capacity. We're having this conversation with youth from the day they enter the clubs, because we need them to understand how to emotionally regulate. If they can understand and have those conversations and be comfortable with that language early on, they will do better in their outcomes with social interactions, academia and everything else.

I think their ability to have comfort with the terminology—not just the idea that there is this issue around mental health but specifically what it is, what it looks like, how you address it and what supports are there for you—makes an enormous difference. The fact that society is having these conversations—that there's the Bell Let's Talk Day and all kinds of conversations like these—really does help because it brings it to the fore and reduces some of the stigma. I say “some” because it's not entirely removed. We need to do a lot more work on this, but it really does help.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

There are even great athletes, some female, who have decided to withdraw from a competition because they are faced with situations that have an impact on their mental health.

I will share my time with Ms. Ferreri.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

You have three minutes and five seconds—actually, two minutes and 55 seconds.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Okay.

I am going to give up the rest of time to my friend, Ms. Ferreri.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

Michelle, I will just let you know that you have two minutes and 45 seconds. I started the clock wrong.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to summarize, because I think this is the last time I get to chat, that we've established the economic stress and inflation and those kinds of things. What's interesting is that many of the services that are here today are also impacted by financial stress and a lack of financial security, of funding, which in turn creates a downflow and a downward spout to the clients they're serving, including young girls.

I'm curious as to whether you've met with the mental health minister. There has been $4.5 billion set aside for mental health. Are you getting any of that? Is there any talk about that?

Owen, I'll start with you.

[Owen Charters]

Yes. In fact, we met with the minister early in her mandate and had this conversation, including the push for mental health first aid, because we saw the need early on. I think we've seen some positive responses, some openness to this structure. Ultimately, we would like to see the funds flow faster. We could probably say that about all of government in general. In this case, we are dealing with a crisis. We need to see some of these responses. I know the consultation has been ongoing.

We need to see some supports in the community grow from the crisis they are in, as well. These mental health supports are struggling. We're struggling enormously with all kinds of capacity issues, including on this side.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Just to build on that, is it applying for the funding that is time-consuming? What is stopping it from being faster?