Evidence of meeting #38 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 video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you very much, Minister Bennett.
We're now going to move it over to Marc Serré for the last few seconds.
Go ahead. You have four minutes.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister, I thank you for your work, as the first minister of mental health, but also when you were the first minister responsible for the Public Health Agency of Canada several years ago. I also thank you for your visits to northern Ontario, including Sudbury.
You've clearly heard what the witnesses have told the committee about the need for virtual care. Some witnesses were from the Sudbury and Thunder Bay campuses of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, two cities separated by an 11‑hour drive, in a region that includes nearly 110 first nations communities.
Ms. Bennett, can you tell us about the effects of the pandemic on mental health, on the one hand, and about virtual mental health care, on the other?
The question is, what are we doing to support virtual care to implement this more on the self-assessment side when we're looking at youth, at reaching out to youth, and working with the provinces on this?
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
What's exciting about even what we've learned from Wellness Together Canada and that kind of assessment of people just being able to explore their resources online and find out what might be helpful for them, and then, if they need somebody to call, that can happen 24-7.... That, I think, is like the Kids Help Phone, which we know is helping thousands of kids. That's one of the partners in the Wellness Together platform.
This is something that I think has been really accelerated by COVID. Twenty years ago, we wanted to be able to do more things online. Even the teen clinics...hospitals wanted to be able to let the teens have their appointments on the phone. I think this is what's happening now. Some people feel better if they have the original appointment in person and then the follow-up online, but I think it's very exciting, even in the more subspecialized areas of having access to an addictions medicine person who really is the best in the trade.
I also think the idea that we could get that for indigenous people in first nations languages, in Michif, in Inuktitut...but also, I think the push for national licensure is going to be about francophones, wherever they live in Canada, being able to get mental health supports in their own language.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Thank you.
I really want to thank you, as well as Minister Duclos and Minister Ien, for the leadership you're providing to get this plan, because, as you indicated, we have to do things differently. This is not working. We've heard from the opposition about things not working, and we really have to look at things like integrated youth services from ages 12 to 25. That's so important. We hear about eating disorders at 18 and the valley of death afterwards...it's just awful.
I want to thank you for listening to the organizations, because they want to have integrated services. We hear it clearly today. This is a good example: In just this one hour, three opposition parties are talking about provinces. We have B.C.'s safe consumption sites. I hope other provinces will follow the lead of B.C. and then work with us. We've heard other opposition parties here saying that we want to have safe consumption sites, but we have the Province of Ontario, which would not even fund that. As an example, in Sudbury the municipality and the federal government supported the safe consumption site that you visited with me just a while back. We really need to ensure that we have those standards.
Thank you for working with the provinces and the community organizations to ensure we have a sustainable plan moving forward into integrated services for mental health and substance abuse.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio
Thank you very much.
Marc happened to just use all of his time, but I think that was his wrap-up statement after a really good meeting. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much to our witnesses. Thank you to Minister Bennett and to everybody who has come for this, talking about mental health and wellness. This is so important.
I would just like to remind everybody that we have a meeting on Thursday. We're still in the process of trying to figure out Thursday's meeting. We will be having trauma-informed training that will be presented to all of us.
One of my requests has been to Heritage Canada to find out what is safe sport and all of these things. I'm still trying to get a briefing for everybody. I'm still working on that. We'll find out, but if not, I'll make sure we're definitely working hard.
See you all on Thursday.
The meeting is adjourned.