Health committee  Sure. I think it's to make it extremely concrete and simple. Early intervention is key. We can access children through schools early. That's really important. It's evidence-based. We need to make sure we're putting programs in schools. There are many out there, the good behaviour game, for example, where you can implement evidence-based practices in schools to improve the mental health of kids.

Health committee  It's a problem that we have in Canada that we haven't repealed section 43 of the Criminal Code. The only people that we're allowed to hit in our country by law is our children. They're the most vulnerable and the ones that we need to protect the most, arguably, but we're still allowed to hit them.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  We do know from the data that's been collected so far that the pandemic is definitely having an impact on children. Currently, it's shown mostly in mental health but there can be physical health problems as well. We have children who were born during the pandemic who haven't been adequately socialized and have delays in speech.

Health committee  In terms of whether there will there be long-term impact, I would anticipate absolutely that there is going to be long-term impact, but again, what we need to understand and know how to respond to that is data. We need to be able to be doing research. We need to be able to be provide evidence-based treatments for individuals, because if we don't intervene now when they are young, it has the potential for mental health problems to continue across the lifespan and become worse.

Health committee  A concrete example is that because we don't have good data before the pandemic, it's hard to ask and answer questions whether or not the mental health of children has changed due to or after the pandemic. If we had long-term data collection in place, we could simply ask the questions of whether or not depression and anxiety increased and we could measure it precisely with data, if we had baseline data to compare it to.

Health committee  The evidence is 100% certain that if you hit a child, you're increasing the likelihood that they will have poor outcomes. That includes mental health and physical health. It also includes across the other domains of development—education, justice, etc. Does that mean every child who is hit will have these outcomes?

Health committee  Thank you. The most recent UNICEF data on child well-being in high-income countries indicates that Canada ranks 30th out of 38 countries. This, along with our need to support children and youth to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizes that now is when we need to fully invest in children and youth to foster healthy development and resilience.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. Yes, I agree with you. It's easier to prevent a problem than it is to solve the many issues that happen after people experience adversity such as trauma and racism. If we can try to prevent those things from happening in the first place, then we won't be having as many mental health problems to deal with.

Status of Women committee  I can jump in really quickly. Again, prevention of violence and adversity is key. If we could have prevented those early life experiences from happening, then this person may not have ended up trying to escape the foster care system. Child welfare also requires huge reform in our country.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. We have a great opportunity to collect data in Canada through Statistics Canada, and we don't take advantage of that. We have a lot of health surveys that are in place. Some are focused on children and children's health. We could very easily be putting indicators of violence and adverse experiences that children could have into those surveys.

Status of Women committee  Yes. I heard more of a statement than a question. Are you asking if these funds are helpful in reducing violence?

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I agree with being able to focus on prevention, as was mentioned here already. We want to make sure that when children are having difficulties, the sooner they have access to care, the better. Again, repeating what other people have said, we don't want to wait for anyone—children or adults—to be in crisis before they get care, so it's about education in terms of how they can talk about their mental health and also giving them resources, both to the parent and to the child.

Status of Women committee  My name is Dr. Tracie Afifi. I'm a professor at the University of Manitoba in community health sciences and also in psychiatry. I'm a tier 1 Canada research chair. We know that mental health disorders among women and girls are prevalent in Canada. When someone begins to have mental health problems, it can significantly reduce one's well-being and quality of life.