Evidence of meeting #31 for Status of Women in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was young.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Excellent. Thanks so much, Emmanuel. I'm sure we'll be getting back to more of that, so no stress there.
Dominique, I'm now going to pass it to you for five minutes.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dominique Vien Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I thank each and every one of you for being here today.
As I said to my partner a fortnight ago, you really have to be strong to listen to the news these days. Indeed, it can be quite discouraging. We hear about horror stories. You mentioned earlier today the horrific story of Ms. Champagne, who took her own life by jumping from the 16th floor because she could not get the services she needed, including psychiatric services. There are also all these femicides, in Quebec among others, that we hear about, not to mention the news from abroad. Finally, we really need to have a strong heart. This can shake us up in our daily lives.
Ms. Todd, I thank you for your testimony. Several of us have children. We are therefore very affected by what you have told us today.
As Ms. Larouche said, we are looking for solutions here today. We are really trying to find solutions to help more and more people who are living with mental health problems.
It is also encouraging to see, in the world of sport and culture, for example, people talking openly and publicly about their anxiety and the problems they are experiencing, and using the right terminology. I think that there are some fairly positive things happening at the moment.
Mr. Akindele, I'm going to give you the opportunity to clarify a few things. I would like to know how a service such as the one you offer could have prevented what happened to Ms. Todd's daughter.
I should point out here that many of us do not follow the fast-moving technological developments very closely. I don't know if this is the case for you, but I personally find it difficult to keep up. Please explain how your software could have helped Ms. Todd in such a horrendous situation.
12:05 p.m.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Blue Guardian
The first thing our software does is.... We want to get a parent and a child to actually have a conversation that mental health matters, at least having a first step in which the parent is able to download a piece of software on the child's phone and they have a conversation around this. That's kind of the first step.
The second step we want to do.... With our AI model, we're doing something called sentiment analysis. This is under the branch of natural language processing. Above that, there's AI. With that, we have the capacity to take strings of code and strings of text, and we are able to classify it—whether it's happy or sad, or what the context is behind that sentence.
We do that—
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Dominique Vien Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
I find it difficult to understand how this works in practice. Is it done as part of a conversation?
12:10 p.m.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Blue Guardian
Yes. The way it works is.... Let's say you're texting. We're able to take that sentence after you text it. It will go through our AI model. On the back end, it will take that sentence and classify whether or not we see it as a positive sentence. For example, “Today I'm having a really good day” would probably have a high score of positivity, but “Today I'm having a very bad day” would be classified as negative.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Dominique Vien Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
This system then provides the parents with information about the child's condition, if I understand correctly.
Dr. Chimbganda, as a therapist, how do you see technology like this? How would you describe it? Is it promising? Can it work?
First of all, did you know about this technology?
12:10 p.m.
Founder and Executive Director, Future Black Female
I wasn't aware of it, but I've written his name down. I'm thinking I'll find him on LinkedIn. It's the most brilliant thing I've heard. I've worked a lot with children and youth in mental health, and parents are often distressed because they don't know what's going on until it's too late. Sometimes children hide these things because they don't want to disappoint their parents. They're afraid their parents will overreact. Sometimes their parents don't believe them. So having this technology where the parent can care for their child's mental health without being in their child's face I think is really groundbreaking.
Well done, Emmanuel.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Dominique, we will come back to you, but your five minutes are up. I'm sorry.
I'm now going to move to Sonia Sidhu for the next five minutes.
Sonia, you have the floor for five minutes.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for being with us.
Ms. Todd, thank you for your strength. It's nice to see you again. Thank you for the work you are doing for the coming generation.
What should we do so that young kids don't have to face what Amanda faced? We heard about the algorithm, and you talked about how communities need to work together. What kinds of strategies should be in place so that we can all work together so youth do not have to face what Amanda faced?
12:10 p.m.
Founder, Amanda Todd Legacy Society
That's a big question. That's a question that has been floating around for a long time.
I also have to say that October 10 is World Mental Health Day, and that's the day when Amanda took her life, not realizing it was World Mental Health Day, so awareness is really important.
The strategies and tips.... In my opinion, it's all about prevention, because when you talk about online harm and online abuses, those are triggers that lead to mental health distress. Some of the mental health distress, of course, can be organic within a person, or it can be developed with ongoing trauma, with post-traumatic stress, with ongoing victimization. Without the supports needed, it doesn't go away. It just grows and grows until it bursts, unfortunately. We don't want things to burst.
Preventative measures, education resources, funding for adequate health care.... We talk about psychiatrists. We talk about psychologists. We talk about counsellors. No child, no person should have to.... If they are going to a provincially funded health care provider—for example, in B.C. we have children's mental health teams working with youth up to the age of 24—no one should have to wait on a six-month waiting list. If there is a six-month to one-year waiting list, then the next step is private.
My problem with psychiatrists is that they want to give medication, and medication is not always needed. There are other ways to provide supported care—spiritual care, physical care—to a young person. Then you go with the counsellor or the psychologist route, which of course needs money. Even if the parents have the best benefits in the world, they don't provide for ongoing care, and I've heard that from many parents who have contacted me. Something I am dedicated to is supporting that with Amanda's Legacy. Then you see the improvement.
Funding is really important. Provinces need to add psychotherapy, psychologists and counselling to their medical plans so that this is accessible.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you.
How can parents best support their children, Dr. Williams?
12:15 p.m.
Professor and Interim Dean, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Thank you for that question.
I appreciate the opportunity to say that.... I think the technology that Blue Guardian has is very exciting. It's essentially an alert system, which we didn't have, and a window into young people's experience that we didn't have before and that would be very exciting to have, but we still need parents, teachers and other community members who are prepared and ready to respond. There is a part of this that is about public education, mental health literacy and mental health promotion within communities that is tailored to specific communities, and it also has to be backed up by services that are accessible and acceptable to these different groups.
I think the federal government has the opportunity to be innovative in a way that provincial governments can't be, or haven't been, because it can think outside the existing silos of community services, family services and health services to create something that could be different. I think there could be something exciting. We could think about this in terms of what we have available to individuals: What do we have available to peers of these young women and girls? What do we have available to family members and trusted adults who are around these women and girls? What are the services that are available?
A few people have talked about psychiatrists and the limitations of the tools they use. We need to think more expansively about the type of service providers who are available in the system. I return to my point: not just funding a project here and a project there, but thinking about a health care system that includes healers, psychotherapists and other types of practitioners who might really help with mental health promotion.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Perfect. Thank you so much, Ms. Williams.
I'll now turn the floor over to Andréanne for two and a half minutes.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'll continue to talk to you, Ms. Assayag.
As Ms. Vien mentioned, we have seen cases like Amélie Champagne's in Quebec recently. Like my colleague, I offer my condolences to Amélie Champagne's family. You also mentioned this case, Ms. Assayag. Of course, her story has revived the debate on mental health care.
However, as Ms. Vien said, we are very happy to see public figures talking more about their mental health problems, such as Carey Price, Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Geneviève Jeanson, who recently came forward. We also see public figures talking about the impact of being a caregiver to someone with mental health issues.
On your website, there is a reference to invisible work, which includes the issue of caregivers. It says that women still do at least two thirds of the housework and that they take on twice as much childcare responsibility as their spouse. I would add that the role of caregiver falls largely to women.
Can you suggest a solution to better recognize this invisible work? For example, could we introduce a day of recognition or other similar measures?
These people provide direct assistance to their loved ones and often suffer a great deal from this mental load themselves.
12:15 p.m.
Director, Réseau québécois d'action pour la santé des femmes
Thank you for the question.
Indeed, the role of caregiver is central in the lives of women. Naturally, as mothers, we take care of our children, but this tendency to take care of people in need is widespread. Studies show that some caregivers die before the person they help, because they are so worn out from the work. This is to tell you what this can lead to.
Unfortunately, the health system does not consider the family caregiver to be part of the care plan or file. Many suggest that when a person is taken into care, their caregiver should also receive support.
Another popular suggestion is to officially recognize this work in law. In Quebec, there is a law on caregivers, but it has not yet been applied in the system.
In addition, it is important to offer respite services. Often, it's not a financial issue, even if it has financial consequences; it's that these people never get respite. They are there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and they wear out, just like any other human being. Because they often do it for love, they don't realize the impact on them. There is a real need to offer respite services to caregivers and to conduct a gender analysis.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you so much.
We'll be able to get back around to you for sure.
I'll now pass it over for the next two and a half minutes to Leah Gazan.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you so much.
I have more questions for you, Emmanuel, as I'm very interested in this.
There are a couple of things. Is this particular application just for the parent and child or the caregiver and child?
12:20 p.m.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Blue Guardian
It's for the parent and the child. If you download the same app, you would be able to see the same emotional insights.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Okay.
One thing I know from texts, being a mother of a 23-year-old son, is that sometimes he texts me things and I can't read his tone, so I ask him if he's okay. I can't do that as a human being, so how does the application decipher tone, whether you are okay or not okay?
12:20 p.m.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Blue Guardian
The way it works is.... First and foremost, you need data annotators. You need people who can actually physically and manually give context to sentences, and then train the AI model to detect tone. You would take sample text. I gave the example “Today I'm having a bad day.” If you had a sentence like that, a person would need to give context. Ideally, you would want a young person who has more context, because kids have different language patterns and lingo. From there, that's how you would be able to train a model to detect tone.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
12:20 p.m.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Blue Guardian
I'm from London, Ontario, so we started a pilot with some parents in London. Our next step is to start a pilot with schools as well, to see how it works at an academic level.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
That's good, too.
I was a teacher at one time in my life. I ended up teaching in the faculty of education. With kids who are experiencing significant difficulties, often the parent needs to work with the school and sometimes, if necessary, with outside agencies.
Has any thought been given to trying to get all the service providers working with the child and collaborating together, particularly around mental health? Is your application part of that?
12:20 p.m.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Blue Guardian
That's definitely something we'd like to do down the line.
One thing I've noticed, talking with schools, is that a lot of the services they have available for students.... They feel very overwhelmed. It's beyond the capacity of the school. So that's another thing. There's an issue beyond just directing parents to services. There need to be more services. One of the issues is that some of the schools say, “We love the idea, but we're already so overwhelmed.” We're going to be directing a lot more people to an already overwhelmed system.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you so much. I know we'll be coming back to you for sure.
We're back to six-minute rounds, and I'll pass it back to Michelle Ferreri.
Michelle, you have six minutes.