Federal Liberals face criticism about $875M in missing mental health spending – National | Globalnews.ca

Dianne Young says she sometimes walks the halls of addiction mental health recovery home he runs in PEI, wishing his son Lennon had had a chance to heal there.

Lennon Waterman was 29 years old when he lost his battle with drug addiction and mental illness in 2013. His body was found along the banks of Charlottetown’s North River five months after he took his own life by diving into the water on a cold November night.

Since his death, Young has become a fierce advocate for better access to mental health and addiction treatment for people in crisis. That work culminated in the opening two years ago of a nonprofit treatment home she named for her son, Lennon House.

It took years for him to finally open the facility, in part due to funding.

That’s why she says she’s bummed to hear that the federal government’s election promise to quickly start distributing new funding for mental health care has stalled.

“It’s frustrating, for sure,” Young said.

“There are so many different areas that money could come into.”

It was a main promise of the Trudeau Liberals’ last election platform: $4.5 billion over five years for a new transfer of mental health to the provinces and territories.

During the August 2021 election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this new transfer was necessary “because mental health should be a priority.”

But despite the sense of urgency in Trudeau’s comments last year, money for this new mental health transfer from Canada has yet to materialize, including an initial $875 million that was supposed to have already been spent or budgeted, according to the electoral platform of the liberal party 2021. .

The Liberal platform document included a line-by-line cost of all its election promises, and outlined a promise to spend $250 million in 2021-22 on the new mental health transfer, and then $625 million in the current 2022-23 fiscal year. . , with additional amounts over the next three years totaling $4.5 billion.

None of the expenditures promised in the last two fiscal years have yet to be allocated or spent.

Sarah Kennell, national director of public policy for the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), says those across Canada who have been urging governments to get more resources to treat patients who need care mental health are discouraged because the federal government’s April budget did not contain money. destined for this new transfer.

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“Let’s be clear, for it not to be in the 2022 Budget, at least with a timeline of increasing it to the $4.5 (billion), you know, it was really worrying for us,” he said.

Mental health and addiction issues have become an issue of great concern across the country, with provinces, territories, municipalities and small communities grappling with a growing number of residents in need of services.

Lockdowns and pandemic anxieties have only exacerbated a system already in crisis, Kennell said. For example, CMHA centers across the country have seen an increase in parents seeking help for their children and teens who have been out of school for extended periods and are now experiencing disordered eating, increased anxiety and social disengagement, she said. .

“The needs are significant and really cut across population groups, age groups, communities. No community is intact. No family is intact,” Kennell said.

“The mental health system was not equipped to deal with the strain it was under before the pandemic, and now it has only gotten worse as a result, so we need to see this investment now more than ever.”

Last week, federal Mental Health and Addiction Minister Carolyn Bennett faced tough questions about the Liberals’ promised mental health transfer, particularly the $875 million that would be spent by the end of this year.

“The platform promised that this money would be spent right now. So that was a mistake? Having made that promise at election time? Conservative MP Mike Lake asked Bennett at a federal standing committee meeting on June 15.

He pointed to the $5 billion over five years committed to provinces and territories in 2017 for mental health through bilateral agreements, saying consultations are now underway on how to implement the new transfer money after questions were raised from some. stakeholders about where those previous mental health funds were. the dollars are gone.

“I have been from coast to coast in this country. There was a concern that the $5 billion in bilateral agreements were not transparent or accountable for the money that was being spent,” Bennett told the committee.

That’s why in March, Ottawa announced a plan to begin developing national standards for mental health and substance use treatment in Canada, he said.

“They (stakeholders) were concerned that if the money was going… without the kind of rigor that is in child care agreements, we wouldn’t be able to test what works and what doesn’t work and how do we find what works.”

In a statement to Global News on June 20, Bennett’s office said the government remains committed to establishing a permanent mental health transfer in Canada to make “free, accessible, high-quality mental health services available in Canada.” Canada and address critical backlogs in mental health care.”

The statement reiterated that the government’s early engagement with community partners and organizations “demonstrated that this new permanent transfer must be based on transparency and accountability.”

“The minister will continue to work with the provinces and territories to inform the design of Canada’s new mental health transfer, as well as a comprehensive evidence-based plan with shared data on indicators and outcomes,” the statement said.

Kennell calls this a “delay tactic.”

“Let’s put the money where it needs to be, where it’s promised to be, and get those conversations going as we develop standards, as we build strategy. In our opinion, there should not be a holdup.”

Leanne Minichillo, a mother and Toronto resident who suffered for years from undiagnosed attention deficit disorder and borderline personality disorder, says she finds the lack of action on this key election promise “infuriating.”

Her life came to a halt when, at age 40, she realized she needed help but feared her four-year-old daughter would be taken from her.

“It finally got to a point where I went to a local hospital emergency room because I felt terrible. I mean, I had suicidal thoughts and everything,” she said.

Tinychillo was finally able to access psychiatric talk therapy covered by Ontario’s provincial health plan thanks to a neighborhood connection, a free treatment option that many Canadians might not be able to access so easily.

That is why she has become a strong advocate for the mental well-being of parents and children, to prevent others like her from suffering for so long in silence.

And that’s why she’s frustrated by the Trudeau Liberals’ promise that more support for mental health resources across Canada hasn’t been a more urgent priority.

“I am not the norm. I am very lucky to have what I have,” Minichillo said.

“But I think about the children, I think about the parents and the people who can’t get this help. It will only lead to increased tax money as we go forward, because those issues that children are experiencing now will manifest in adults, look what happened to me.”

A few days ago, she was riding the Toronto GO train with her daughter and was delayed because a person had attempted suicide on the tracks, she said.

“It’s so unfortunate that this person had to go to this length instead of being able to access the proper care to help them,” Minichillow thought to herself at the time.

“When we talk about campaign promises, people need to start being held accountable and accountable for the things they say, instead of worrying about their own image, once they make the promise, they need to keep it.”

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