Further debate?

In St. Catharines, when I look out my window, when I walk through my streets, when I talk to my neighbours, I hear and see the pain and the weight of the mental health crisis. Homelessness, addictions, anxiety, and all the other forms of mental health strife are fixtures not only in my community but across the Ontario community—it’s shared with all of us.

Speaker, it would be easy for me to point out the funding gaps and missed opportunities that Ontario has seen with mental health. It would be easy to highlight what the cost has meant for my community and all the mental health agencies, patients and their families. This is because the problem of mental health, right now, looms so large.

You may have heard that the Niagara region has declared a mental health and homelessness and addictions crisis—a state of emergency.

Speaker, there is no way around it: The solution to fixing mental health in Ontario is all about funding. It means no more freezing of the base budget increases for mental health.

This is why the NDP has put forward an opposition motion being debated this afternoon for an 8% emergency stabilization investment in community mental health care.

Over the last few months, I’ve made an effort to reach out to as many service providers as I can in Niagara. Let’s make sure we give the service providers the resources they need. We cannot issue funding at the same level as the last decade, given what inflation is at now. That amounts to virtually a cut. This is because all of my non-profits and service providers—who are the real heroes of the mental health battle right now—cannot leave their staff at frozen wages.

It is clear at this point that if we want to make a dent in mental health, it requires an increase in funding, not another freeze.

I hope this government does what is right for Ontarians by supporting our motion for greater investments in mental health supports.

It’s an honour to rise today and speak on behalf of the motion brought forward by the Ontario NDP to increase mental health funding in this province by 8%, as asked for by the Canadian Mental Health Association.

I’m going to take a slightly different tack than my colleagues have taken. I want to talk about how this investment could save lives because of gun violence—gun violence is closely linked with mental health.

I want to thank One By One Movement, Communities for Zero Violence, Zero Gun Violence Movement, Keep6ix, Danforth families, and the many, many other organizations in this city and across this province who have been working to reduce gun violence. But today I want to focus on one other organization: Operation Prefrontal Cortex.

Research shows that poverty is the primary cause of gun violence. An OECD study shows that the greater the gap between rich and poor, the higher the level of gun violence.

If you look at a map of the city of Toronto, at the areas where there’s poverty, and you overlay a map of gun violence, they almost exactly intersect.

Operation Prefrontal Cortex was started by Director X a number of years ago after he was shot at a party that he was hosting. He asked himself, “Why did this person bring out a gun at this party where everyone was having a good time?” He did research, and what he found was that violent people have a smaller prefrontal cortex and an overactive amygdala. There’s a solution, though. He found that if you do mindfulness meditation, you can actually increase the size of your prefrontal cortex and reduce the action of your amygdala. This will allow a person to have better emotional regulation and better decision-making and to be less likely to be violent. They’ve done these programs in schools and correctional centres—he wants to move them into the police and into the community. It’s this kind of program that could increase the mental health in communities and that could reduce gun violence.

So I encourage the Conservatives on the other side of the House to support this call to increase mental health funding by 8%.

Of course, it’s always a pleasure to stand in this House, especially when we’re proposing solutions to the government.

This motion actually has a lot of merit. It does value the experience that we’ve all had in our communities.

Certainly, my seatmate in here and I spent January and February listening to front-line health care workers—particularly in mental health, particularly in community care—and they told us about the humiliation they feel with Bill 124. They talked about the emotional labour that they experience because of this wage-suppression legislation and how demoralizing it is for them. So I want to thank them for showing up day after day. But the fact of the matter is, that’s not sustainable.

The motion that our leader has put forward on behalf of the caucus is a short-term-gap solution which will prevent the further bleeding out of workers from this sector.

I also want to talk about the economic reasons to support this motion. In Canada, 500,000 Canadians each week do not go to work because of mental health issues. The economic burden of mental illness in Canada is estimated to be approximately $51 billion—$6.4 billion resulting from lost productivity alone.

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about Kaitlyn Roth from my community, who called out for help, had the courage to ask for help. That help was never there for her, and we lost her. You can’t quantify the loss of that life. We will never know her potential, because the services were not there. At the end, though, we know that because she was in such distress, she had come into contact with 27 police officers. Four of those police officers were there when she died by suicide, and they are off work.

So there’s a trickle-out effect in our community by not taking action, by not showing leadership.

Speaker, $24 million is literally a drop in the bucket.

I implore this government: Please, do the right thing. Let’s stabilize, let’s support, and let’s work together on this issue.

I rise today in order to speak in favour of the opposition day motion calling on the government to increase the base funding for the Canadian Mental Health Association and community-based mental health providers by 8% as an immediate—and, I would argue, emergency—stabilization fund. This is the least—and I want to emphasize, the least—we can do to address the mental health crisis we’re currently facing. Dramatically increased demand of mental health service providers combined with decades now of flatlined budgets have brought the Canadian Mental Health Association and other community-based mental health providers to the breaking point.

Across Ontario right now, there are 250 CMHA community mental health and addictions jobs that are left unfilled. These are jobs that could be providing the mental health services and support people in our communities need. More than 65% of the resignations over the last two years have been salary-based, as mental health workers feel and are overworked, underpaid and burnt-out.

I’ve talked to Canadian Mental Health Association leaders who have talked about how hard it is to hang on to staff—when there’s a 33% pay gap between what CMHA nurses are paid and others in the health care system. Many CMHA branches have received the exact same funding envelope they’re currently receiving right now over the last 20 years. Think about the inflationary pressures they’ve experienced over that time. No wonder there are so many positions unfilled.

A recent survey of CMHA branches indicates that without an immediate base funding increase, the Canadian Mental Health Association will not have the staff or resources to continue serving the same number of clients.

We simply cannot experience mental health service cuts in the middle of a mental health crisis. And let’s be clear, these service cuts have real-world implications—28,000 young people on a wait-list to access mental health services, with waits that can last as long as two and a half years.

I ran into a young person in downtown Guelph and asked him how he was doing. He said to me, “I’m doing okay today. But it would have been better if six months ago, when I was on suicide watch, somebody had reached out to me. I feel lucky to be alive today. Somebody finally got back to me yesterday, and I have a little bit of hope.”

These are the real-world consequences of underfunding our mental health services: Some 2,800 Ontarians have died from opioid-related causes since 2021, half of Ontarians are saying they’re having trouble accessing mental health supports—and so many young people on such long wait times.

Homelessness, mental health and addictions—the intersectionality of it—is putting tremendous pressure on our health care system, on people’s lives, on our downtown businesses.

I can’t tell you how many business owners in downtown Guelph are stepping up and saying, “We need help to improve the vitality of our downtown.” One tiny business just donated $28,000 to help deal with the mental health crisis that so many people out on the street in front of their store are facing.

We need government to step up.

This is about improving people’s lives, but it’s also about saving money. Every dollar invested in mental health services returns $10 to our provincial economy. A US study found that every dollar invested in mental health services saved $2.47. We also have seen other studies that calculate that if we could reduce depression in our society, it would increase our GDP across Canada by $32 billion. And every $10 invested in permanent supportive housing, with wraparound mental health and addiction supports, saves us $21.72. So we’re talking about—I don’t know—about $150 million here, in what’s in this motion, to have the kinds of economic returns, but more importantly, the returns to improving people’s lives. That’s what we’re talking about today.

In the spirit of non-partisanship, I just want to say that I’ve appreciated every time the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions has come to Guelph and talked about what we need to do to address the mental health crisis. But the bottom line is, those words have to be backed up by funding investments. We’re simply not going to be able to solve the crisis if we don’t put the investments into it.

That’s what this motion is about. That’s why I’ll be voting for it. And that’s why I’m hoping that everyone in this Legislature votes for this motion today.

Further debate?

Further debate?

I rise with great pride to speak on behalf of the people of Toronto Centre.

Last summer, the Big City Mayors’ Caucus asked the Premier for an emergency meeting. They wanted to meet with him to develop an emergency plan to address homelessness, mental health and addictions. The Premier has denied the mayors of the largest cities in Canada that meeting.

To this very day, the Auditor General of Ontario has specified that there is no credible plan and no coordinated strategy in the government’s plan to address homelessness. Why I talk about homelessness is because the Conservative government has also chronically underfunded mental health and addictions services, which are intricately tied to homelessness.

Many of my colleagues have already spoken so eloquently and passionately about the need to increase funding for mental health. They have spoken about it from a human lens, about the human impact. What I’d like to do is to actually share with you the impact from a financial lens.

Speaker, what I wanted to raise with you is that the economic development concerns from my community, which is the largest cultural corridor in the city and the province, as well as the largest financial district in the province—are saying that they need to see this government invest in mental health and addictions services. They have been very clear that if the funding is not there, they will continue to see a decline of the urban core—not just in Toronto Centre, but right across cities across Ontario.

Take, for example, the Downtown Yonge BIA. They have been meeting with government leaders, and at every single meeting they have said that their number one issue is around safety. They want to make sure that their community and visitors to the area—that their perception is that it’s safe, it is clean, it is viable.

We’re already seeing a worsening mental health crisis in Ontario, and largely because of the lack of mental health and addictions support, as well as funding for supportive housing to end chronic homelessness.

Cadillac Fairview, which is one of the largest real estate companies in Canada, recently announced that Nordstrom is leaving. They are closing 13 locations—including 2,500 people who will be laid off. This is going to have a detrimental impact to our neighbourhood. This is going to impact the vitality of our main streets.

Finally, Madam Speaker, the Downtown Yonge BIA has said that, according to their safe-streets strategy, mental health and drug use are both health concerns, and that they require clinical and social interventions. Police enforcement will only result in a revolving-door approach; it is not going to be enough. It is failing, and people need to have their backs—they need to know that this government is willing to invest in them and the mental health supports that they are desperately needing.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today. I really didn’t expect it to be in this fashion, but after following the member opposite, I have to congratulate her on her openness. Mental health isn’t easy to talk about. Many of our families face it and many people in our communities face it each and every single day. It takes bravery, but it’s that bravery that will allow us to continue the conversations that will break down the stigma people face that we see furthers their suffering, quite frankly.

Mental health has definitely hit my family. As you know, my son-in-law died by suicide in October. I have had two family deaths since that time, one being just last night. We never know from one day to the next what’s happening and who is feeling what.

Making sure that there is a safe space to talk about mental health, regardless of where you are in this province, should be a thing that we all strive to do better.

In saying that, we know that our organizations are struggling. They are underfunded. This isn’t something that is made up on the back of a napkin. This isn’t a political ploy—this is people just like the member opposite, just like my family, just like many of our families who are begging for help. The people are on the streets. They’re on the corners. They’re homeless. There is drug addiction. There are children in our emergency rooms with self-harm—overdose, suicide. This is a true human crisis that we’re seeing in our communities.

A measly 8%—$24 million—to change the lives of families in our province is something that we all should be able to benefit from. It’s something that we all need to be able to have access to.

I’m grateful to my leader for bringing forward this motion today. I know there are lots of comments still coming from this side of the House. Many comments are based on actual facts, they’re based on real-life families—and they’re based on the institutions in our communities that provide them.

I appreciate the opportunity. I’m out of time.

Further debate?

Before I start my speech, I would like to thank the member from Windsor West; I’d like to thank the member from Nepean for her sharing—very emotional. It is an emotional topic we’re talking about today. Thank you to the member from Hamilton Mountain, as well.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to this motion this afternoon. As the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health and to the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, I’m proud to highlight the work we’ve been doing to improve mental health and addiction services across the province.

Ontario is making record investments to improve health care delivery and to connect you faster and more easily and closer to home.

This motion speaks to the Canadian Mental Health Association’s pre-budget submission.

I look forward to our government’s release of Ontario budget 2023, a plan to build a strong future for Ontario, on March 23.

In my riding, the Canadian Mental Health Association York and South Simcoe is an award-winning team that provides excellent services to local residents. These services are funded through Ontario Health; the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services; and the Ministry of Long-Term Care, as well as the Ontario Trillium Foundation. I’d like to thank the entire team for their selfless commitment to the people in our community.

Over the past two months, our government crossed the province to hear from Ontarians through pre-budget consultations. We went to many communities, including Kenora, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Kingston, and the GTA—Mississauga, Brampton, Durham—London, to seek pre-budget advice on what matters most for the people of Ontario and what Ontarians think are the best ways to move forward.

I was happy to attend the pre-budget session at Old Town Hall in Newmarket, hosted by the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Finance.

Across the province, we heard about the need for more access to health care, and you cannot talk about health care without talking about mental health care.

Every year, more than one million people in Ontario experience a mental health or addictions challenge, which can have serious impact on their quality of life, including the ability to go to school or make a living. The system to support individuals with these challenges has been broken and fragmented for many years. People who badly needed support were waiting far too long to connect to care or having difficulty figuring out how to even begin navigating a complicated, disjointed system to get the help they need. Too often, they were left to struggle on their own.

We are determined to fix long-standing issues in the mental health and addictions care sector once and for all, but we know that doing so will take time. That’s why, three years ago, we launched our comprehensive strategy, Roadmap to Wellness: A Plan to Build Ontario’s Mental Health and Addictions System, to improve mental health services for communities across Ontario and support patients and families living with mental health and addictions challenges. The plan is built on four central pillars: improving quality, expanding existing services, implementing innovative solutions, and improving access. These are designed to work together to support the delivery of the services people need where and when they need them. We launched the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence within Ontario Health to guide our work. To ensure the plan’s success, we are investing $3.8 billion over 10 years to develop and implement a comprehensive and connected mental health and addictions system for Ontario. Since launching the plan, we have already invested more than $500 million annually to help mental health and addiction services expand access to care and reduce wait times.

We have also launched innovative new programs, including the Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program, to provide more Ontarians support for anxiety and depression with cognitive behaviour therapy, new eating disorders prevention, and early intervention programming.

Madame la Présidente, chaque année, plus d’un million de personnes en Ontario présentent un problème de santé mentale ou de dépendances, ce qui peut avoir de graves répercussions sur leur qualité de vie, y compris leur capacité d’aller à l’école ou de gagner leur vie.

Le système pour soutenir les particuliers présentant de tels enjeux ne fonctionnait plus et était fragmenté depuis plusieurs années. Les personnes qui avaient grandement besoin d’aide attendaient beaucoup trop longtemps pour être aiguillées vers des soins ou avaient de la difficulté à comprendre comment commencer à s’orienter dans un système compliqué et décentralisé pour obtenir de l’aide. Elles étaient trop souvent laissées à elles-mêmes pour lutter contre leurs problèmes.

Nous sommes déterminés à régler une fois pour toutes les problèmes de longue date du secteur des soins en matière de santé mentale et de lutte contre les dépendances. Parvenir à cela prendra du temps.

Il y a trois ans, nous avons lancé notre stratégie exhaustive—Vers le mieux-être : un plan pour bâtir le système ontarien de santé mentale et de lutte contre les dépendances—pour améliorer les services de santé mentale pour les collectivités ontariennes et pour appuyer les patients et les familles qui vivent avec des problèmes de santé mentale ou de dépendance.

Le plan est construit sur quatre piliers centraux—amélioration de la qualité, développement des services existants, mise en oeuvre de solutions innovantes et amélioration de l’accessibilité—qui sont conçus pour travailler ensemble afin de soutenir la prestation des services dont la population a besoin, où et quand ce besoin se fait sentir. Nous avons inauguré le Centre d’excellence pour la santé mentale et la lutte contre les dépendances qui relève de Santé Ontario pour guider notre travail.

Afin d’assurer la réussite du plan, nous investissons 3,8 milliards de dollars sur 10 ans afin de développer et de déployer un système exhaustif et interconnecté en matière de santé mentale et de lutte contre les dépendances pour la population ontarienne. Depuis le lancement de ce plan, nous avons déjà investi plus de 500 millions de dollars annuellement pour aider les services de santé mentale et de lutte contre les dépendances à élargir l’accès aux soins et réduire les temps d’attente.

Nous avons par ailleurs lancé de nouveaux programmes innovateurs, notamment le Programme ontarien de psychothérapie structurée pour offrir à la population ontarienne du soutien pour l’anxiété et la dépression avec la thérapie cognitivo-comportementale, ainsi qu’un nouveau programme de prévention et d’intervention précoce en matière de troubles de l’alimentation.

Speaker, our government knows that when someone reaches out for help, they shouldn’t have to wait. That’s why we are opening new beds to care for children and youth with complex mental health needs.

We are investing $10.5 million to address gaps in care and improve access while decreasing existing wait-lists and extensive wait times. Through this investment, we are expanding the child and youth mental health Secure Treatment Program and adding up to 24 new beds to serve vulnerable children and youth. This program provides intensive care for children and youth experiencing acute and complex mental health challenges that may put them at risk of self-harm or harm to others.

Additionally, an investment of $3.5 million for two new Step Up Step Down live-in treatment programs will connect more youth to care in communities in western and northern regions of the province. We will add up to 16 new beds to meet the needs of youth who don’t require the highly intensive care provided at a hospital or secure treatment setting but who need more support than a community-based, live-in treatment program is designed for. Expanding this program will connect more youth to less intensive services in their communities and eventually help them return to their homes.

I am so thankful to the entire team at Southlake Regional Health Centre for the extraordinary care they provide to my constituents of Newmarket–Aurora, for the patients and the families in northern York region, southern Simcoe county, and surrounding communities. Our local health care workers make a significant difference in people’s lives each and every day. I thank them for all they do to protect our health and our well-being.

On February 13, I had the honour of welcoming the Minister of Health to my riding to celebrate the grand opening of the new adult in-patient mental health unit at Southlake. This is a prime example of how our government is expanding health care services closer to home. The Ministry of Health is a tremendous supporter of our hospitals and the important role of local health care. We are focused on providing patients and families with more connected and convenient care, and this new adult in-patient unit provides exactly that to my region of northern York. With our investment of more than $6.5 million, 12 new mental health beds and support spaces have been added, for a total capacity of 28 beds. With this expansion, Southlake will be able to provide care for more than 400 additional patients each year. The newly renovated space includes private rooms, more windows with natural light, and common areas to support patient recovery. These improvements will ensure that individuals who need emergency mental health support receive the care they need in a safe, modern and comfortable environment. From the time we announced the funding for these additional in-patient adult beds, Southlake completed the renovations within two years.

Thank you to the Southlake team for everything you do to support our communities and for helping some of our most vulnerable residents on their journey to wellness.

Another organization in my riding, CMHA York and South Simcoe—in early January, I had the opportunity to visit their Aurora office, alongside the Associate Minister of Housing, to announce that CMHA York and South Simcoe was the recipient of an Ontario Trillium Foundation Resilient Communities Fund grant. A total of $104,000 was granted over a 12-month period that started on March 24, 2022. Since receiving this grant, it has assisted CMHA to rebuild and recover from the impacts of COVID-19 by hiring a mental health educator last year to expand the CMHA college course curriculum and also to train staff on virtual and in-person mental health education programming. The grant was also instrumental to the translation of materials to support outreach and inclusivity, development of a learning management system enabling clients to create individual learning portals, and technology enhancements to better facilitate synchronized and asynchronized learning. All courses at the CMHA College of Health and Well-Being are designed to inspire hope, support learning and provide new opportunities for growth and connection. It was wonderful to listen to a very young lady—my words, “a very young lady”—speak about the program, as she found herself in crisis. Through the guidance of the staff and this course, she was able to learn at a pace convenient to her schedule, while allowing her to speak with a counsellor. This is the successful outcome we are all striving for—for our young people to have convenient and connected care where and when they need it.

It is not-for-profit community-based organizations like CMHA of York region that strengthen our community by providing support to young adults with the resources required to improve one’s mental health and strengthen one’s emotional resilience. To quote the CEO of CMHA-YRSS, “We are incredibly grateful for the government’s generous grant that is enabling our CMHA college to bolster mental health and recovery support to marginalized clients in our community.”

Ensuring that individuals in our community have access to the support and resources they require has been and always will be a top priority for me. As the MPP for Newmarket–Aurora and the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health, I am committed to supporting the mental health and well-being of all our community members.

I am proud of our government’s investment in the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Resilient Communities Fund grant as it supports agencies in our community to focus on their work and strengthen their programs for all our residents.

At the end of April 2022, the government announced an investment of over $1 million in Newmarket–Aurora non-profits to help them offset the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic—the goal being to ensure that they can deliver the critical services needed by their local clients and to create stronger communities.

I was thrilled to hear that one of these grants through the Resilient Communities Fund grant program from the Ontario Trillium Foundation would be supporting NACCA, the Newmarket African Caribbean Canadian Association. NACCA was granted $49,600 over six months. These funds helped build an online virtual mental wellness support platform program for Black marginalized and under-represented youth ages 12 to 25. The seamless entry program helps to support strategies for those experiencing ongoing anti-Black racism that has had a tremendous impact on their well-being. Delivered with an Afrocentric focus, the program enables Black youth to experience a greater awareness of themselves, their mental wellness and community of peers. It is intended to be delivered in a partial virtual environment at the NACCA Black-led community centre in Newmarket and at various on-site community-based projects.

To quote the chair of NACCA, Jerisha Grant-Hall, “Youth are a foundational part and important beneficiaries of our programs and services and will continue to be a big focus for NACCA. This grant sets in motion the start of a mental health literacy, advocacy and healing support network for Black youth that is so needed.”

Speaker, we’re also expanding access to primary care to make it easier and faster for individuals of all ages to connect to mental health and addictions through community health centres, family health teams and walk-in clinics.

Ontario health teams also bring together health care providers from across health and community sectors, including primary care, hospitals, home and community care, mental health and addictions services, and long-term care, as one collaborative team to better coordinate care and share resources. Working together, they ensure that you can move between health care providers more easily with one patient record and one care plan that follows you wherever you go for help.

Ontario health teams are responsible for delivering care for their patients, understanding their health care history, easing their transition from one provider to another, directly connecting them to different types of care, and providing 24/7 help in navigating the health care system.

Across the province, 54 Ontario health teams are working to improve transitions between health care providers and are ensuring a patient’s medical record follows them wherever they go for care.

Applications for four additional Ontario health teams are currently being reviewed. Once approved, these remaining teams will result in the province achieving its goal of full provincial coverage, ensuring everyone has the support of an Ontario health team.

With an investment of more than $106 million, Ontario health teams are also investing in digital and virtual care options so you can easily connect with a mental health care worker when you need to from the comfort of your home.

To support health human resources to provide these services, last fall we began our work to develop an Integrated Capacity and Health Human Resources Plan for Ontario. We are analyzing current gaps in our system, anticipating needs over the next 10 years, and determining solutions to address growing health care demands. The plan will focus on how to meet this demand through investments, health human resources and innovative solutions. This year, we are building on this work and shifting our focus to working directly with leaders in our health care system on a workforce plan that includes where to prioritize current and future resources, addressing and minimizing system gaps, and building a strong health system for the long term. We will also look at specific strategies for increasing the number of health care professionals, starting with physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, registered practical nurses and medical laboratory technologists. We’ll also look at the retention of our health workforce through incentives, leveraging programs like the Learn and Stay program. We will ensure we have a greater understanding of each community and their needs, and that we have a plan to recruit and retain the health care workers needed, including family doctors, nurses, specialists and other health providers. We will prioritize areas most in need, like rural and remote communities, where gaps already exist. This plan will incorporate our lessons learned from COVID-19 and ensure we are prepared and equipped to meet the health care needs of Ontarians for years to come.

Finally, I’d like to remind this House that our government is making historic investments of more than $75 billion annually in health and long-term care this year.

I look forward to budget day 2023, my first budget day as the MPP for Newmarket–Aurora, on March 23, to share more details on how we will continue to build a strong province and invest in the things that matter most to Ontarians, like health care and mental health and addictions services, for years to come.

Thank you. Don’t you guys go ruining it on me, okay?

I’m sorry to have been so emotional; I was really only just here to say a few words. But we’re in an unprecedented crisis. Never before in the history of the province, the country and probably the world have we been dealing with such high levels of mental illness, and I think the pandemic made it much more difficult. I think that the polarization of society, not just on the floor or in the House of Commons or in the United States—we see it. For some reason, we’ve forgotten to be a bit more kind and compassionate to one another.

I think we look at buckets of money and think it’s going to fix things, when it won’t. I think that when someone has lost their resilience—too many times I’ve had to count in the last little while, I’ve watched people break them down even further instead of saying, “Okay, maybe it’s time to give them a breather.”

I just want to thank all of you and find a graceful way to conclude this speech. It has been a journey—and whether you guys like it or not, you’re part of mine. I’m grateful that you’re part of it with me, and I’m grateful that you’re all having this conversation. Hopefully, for the remainder of this debate, just take a second and break from your notes—whatever your staff wrote you, or the leader’s office—and just sit there and just think that the people that we’re talking about are real. It’s not uncommon, and it’s absolutely okay to be open about your health and not apologize for it.

With that, I’m going to wrap it up before I start crying again, and I’m going to get my daily Toronto update from Minister Ford.

Further debate?

I want to thank the official opposition for bringing forward this motion.

I want to also acknowledge the members from Nepean and Hamilton Mountain. It takes courage to share your personal experiences.

I want to acknowledge the government’s work on the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence, but the experts, the front-line workers, are asking now for funding. The government needs to spend some of the money they’ve been squirrelling away on more services that the people of Ontario need. We know that that money is there, and we know that the need is there.

I hope this government acknowledges that we are in an opioid and mental health crisis. Walk down any downtown in a large city or small town across our province, and you’ll see the evidence. I hope the government will listen to great organizations like the CMHA and help them retain the incredible workers who are passionate about the work they do and the people whom they help. The government needs to think about what they can do now, not just in the budget, to help those workers stay in the jobs they love, instead of driving them to better-paying jobs, which is what we heard is happening throughout our pre-budget consultations. The CMHA talked about, I think it was, 250 open positions they have—positions for people who would be helping those who are in need on the streets and across our province to get the help that they need.

During those pre-budget consultations, we heard from numerous experts who stressed the need to expand mental health services and innovate our current approach to ensure that Ontarians get the support they need in a timely manner. For example, we heard from a psychiatrist at the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences who is doing incredible work in finding innovative pathways in the mental health space—to assess, treat and provide a plan for patients immediately, within 24 hours, after they need to access emergency mental health services.

We heard from people about the need to expand mental health services for youth, in small communities in particular, and make it simple and accessible for them to access the services they need wherever they live.

We heard about the impact on businesses and community members who want to see those who are suffering get the help they need and not have to resort to living, and seeking unsafe drugs, on the streets.

Innovations and solutions are out there. We’ve heard from the experts in the mental health space on what they need not only to ensure better and timely care for those who seek their services, but also to ensure they can attract and retain the workers who deliver those services to those in need.

We heard during those pre-budget consultations about the effects of Bill 124 on workers, including those in the mental health sector—that it has been devastating and humiliating for them. We’ve heard that those health care workers do not feel supported by this government, and this bill was an example of that.

I’ve spoken to CMHA Toronto, and I know the great work they do and how committed they and their employees are to providing services to residents in my riding of Don Valley West and across Toronto, but they can’t do it without the money to pay their workers who provide those services.

According to CMHA, one in four people in Ontario access mental health services, and 43% are finding it difficult to access the services they need.

CMHA has asked for a base funding increase of 8%. This is a small amount of the government’s $6.4 billion of money that they said they would spend in this fiscal year. This small increase would help to increase care across the province of Ontario; reduce wait times, especially for those accessing and needing emergency mental health services; and allow for early interventions, where needed, to prevent the loss of life that we heard talked about today by the members.

We know that there’s money available—money that should and can still be spent on the people of Ontario. Increasing funding to CMHA to help increase their support and services, to help fill the gaps they’ve been experiencing in providing for the record level of demand that they see for their services—that will help individuals, that will help families, that will help alleviate this crisis. They need those workers to save people’s lives, and they need money to retain those workers.

The request by the CMHA is well thought out. It is modest. It is reasonable. And it would directly help the people who need their support.

I add my voice to those calling for this government to listen to the experts at CMHA and provide them with the resources they need now.

Further debate?

I am also pleased to join the debate today about this motion regarding the Canadian Mental Health Association’s pre-budget submission.

Mental health is an important issue and one which affects people from every walk of life in our province. It is one that our government takes very seriously.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, I was pleased to travel across the province to hear from Ontarians about their priorities for the upcoming budget. We had the opportunity to hear directly from the Canadian Mental Health Association at the pre-budget consultations in Windsor, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and Timmins.

During our hearings, we heard from representatives about numerous mental health issues. The city of Kingston told us that they have declared a mental health and addictions crisis in their city. The Ontario Association of Social Workers and the Ontario Society of Occupational Therapists suggested expansion of services and a greater use of all mental health professionals to decrease the waiting lists. The Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences and the Rural Ottawa Youth Mental Health Collective both spoke about mental health needs in their respective communities.

I know that the Minister of Finance will be taking all of these presentations into account when he prepares his budget.

The world continues to face the risk of high inflation and other economic challenges, but our government is continuing to work to navigate Ontario through this uncertainty. That’s why it’s important that we hear first-hand from many communities right across our province, including Kenora, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins, Kingston, London, Barrie, and in the GTA, in Mississauga, Brampton and Durham—all over Ontario—to seek advice from the people of Ontario on the best way forward.

We listened to people in their home communities, gathering their input on what the government’s priorities needed to be in the upcoming budget. Everyone we heard from is crucial to our consultations and part of building an Ontario we can all be proud of, now and in the future.

Over the last couple of years, Ontario, along with the rest of the world, has faced challenges unlike any other that we have seen in our lifetimes. During this time, people across the province stood together and supported one another. The Ontario spirit was on full display. But due to the enduring impact from COVID-19, we also saw people’s needs for health care, and particularly for mental health supports, increase. We know that health care workers went above and beyond in their front-line work during the pandemic. Our government made sure that the funds were available—some $194 million in pandemic-related emergency funding enabled 98% of mental health and addictions services providers to remain open during the pandemic. We listened and acted then, and we are doing the same now.

We want to know what priorities people would like to see captured in the 2023 budget that will help us build Ontario together. Every idea has the potential to help us navigate the uncertainty that lies ahead, and our government looks forward to sharing that vision with all Ontarians on March 23. We are committed to the highest-quality health care for every patient, for every family, and in every community. We heard from Ontarians that they wanted to be able to get care where and when they need it. This means more hospital and long-term-care beds in each community, more diagnostic testing like MRIs closer to home, and more skilled health care workers available to provide care.

We are well on our way to delivering on this. We have added more than 3,500 hospital beds across the province in the last three years to ensure everyone has access to hospital care when they need it. This year, we’ve added 24 more pediatric critical care beds. With 50 new major hospital development projects, we will be adding another 3,000 new hospital beds over the next 10 years. Hospital funding is up an additional $3.3 billion in 2022-23. We funded 49 new MRI machines in hospitals across Ontario, including two machines at Halton Healthcare in my community, so people can be diagnosed faster and, if needed, begin treatment and follow-up care even sooner.

By building on our Roadmap to Wellness with additional investments and innovative new programs, we will make it easier and faster for individuals of all ages to connect to mental health and addictions supports. By the end of this year, funding from the Roadmap to Wellness and Addictions Recovery Fund will have supported the creation of almost 500 new addiction treatment beds in the province. To date, our government has invested $525 million as part of the Roadmap to Wellness. This includes opening eight new youth wellness hubs, launching the Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program, and adding more than 150 new addiction treatment beds across the province.

We know that people need mental health care that is comprehensive and connected and that offers high-quality, evidence-based services and supports where and when they need them.

A key achievement has been the creation of the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence within Ontario Health. Inspired by the success Ontario had in transforming cancer services in the early 2000s, the centre of excellence has a mandate to create provincial service standards, performance metrics and reporting.

Speaker, we have also invested in growing our health care workforce. Since 2018, over 60,000 new nurses and nearly 8,000 new physicians have registered to work in Ontario, with thousands more personal support workers now providing care in Ontario. Last year, we promised to expand medical school education by adding 160 undergraduate and 295 postgraduate positions in the province over the next five years. Of the 295 new postgraduate positions, 60% will be dedicated to family medicine and 40% will be dedicated to specialty programs. This expansion—the largest of its kind in more than a decade—includes supporting all six medical schools across Ontario and allotting seats to the new Toronto Metropolitan University school of medicine, which recently found its new home in Brampton.

This year, we will launch the Physician Practice Ready Assessment Program, which will help internationally educated physicians with previous medical practice experience abroad undergo screening and assessment to determine if they are ready to enter practice in Ontario immediately, without having to complete lengthy re-education programs. This will add at least 50 new physicians by 2024.

We will continue to make record investments in health care now and into the future.

In my own community, we value the mental health care provided by Joseph Brant Hospital and Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital.

In my community, we have many great organizations such as Acclaim Health providing mental health supports for seniors; the local branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association; Bridging the Gap Halton; and ROCK, the Reach Out Centre for Kids.

I am proud of what our government has done to support mental health in Ontario, and I recognize there is still so much more to be done. We inherited a mental health system without enough funding or resources, and from day one we have been making the vital investments people in Ontario need and expect from us. Mental health is a priority for our government, as it is for every member of the Legislature. We will continue to deliver the funding and services Ontario deserves.

Right now, my community is facing a crisis of mental health, addictions and homelessness. My office works with unsheltered and underserved constituents, and I recognize just how impossible it is for many in the community to navigate health care and support systems while struggling with addictions and mental health issues. For some people, it’s nearly impossible to survive.

I’ve been glad to work alongside the Back Door Mission, which is a centre of care and service without equal in the province. Please understand, many of the vulnerable clients they work with, who are served at the Back Door Mission, can’t access appropriate care elsewhere. More than 50% of them don’t have health cards. They can’t be served by a private clinic. They need the help and the care of a place like the Back Door Mission, which sees people who have little or no income, with no place to stay, who require treatment and medicinal support for their mental health and their medical needs. They also need a place to stay. They need nurses who have the time to show them that they matter and are cared for, case managers who provide empathy and understanding, and volunteers and peers who make them feel protected as part of the community. They get that at the Back Door Mission. At the Mission United hub in Oshawa, this model of care happens every day; it’s practised every day. It does so because of the commitments of CMHA.

At the beginning of the pandemic, other people shut their doors, but CMHA Durham found a way. They partnered with the Back Door Mission, which at that time was a local charity providing food and respite. Now, almost three years later, they’re operating a high-functioning clinic for homeless individuals, literally keeping people alive on a daily basis. I appreciate the work of everybody connected to this project and across communities.

I talked to Nathan Gardner, the executive director at the Back Door Mission, and he wanted me to share this when I told him that we were asking for funding for CMHA to do the work that is so required across our communities: “It is clear that what is needed to support programs like Mission United and organizations like CMHA Durham is more. More funds to make sure employees have consistent access to training, respite and resources to support them. And more people, more workers with specialization in mental health and addictions to ensure” that they do not have to handle this on their own. “The people we serve who suffer from mental illness are some of the most complex and misunderstood we see today, and they require a commitment of our respect and dignity. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial that we support those who work with them every day, and show them the same respect.”

Government, support this motion. Increase CMHA funding today to support our neighbours in need.

It’s an honour to stand today on behalf of the folks in St. Paul’s.

I want to thank the John Howard Society for the outstanding work that they do for our community every single day.

I’m really hoping that the government will support our motion calling for this government to increase the base funding for each branch of the CMHA by 8% as an immediate emergency stabilization investment into our local community mental health supports.

Approximately one in five—and counting—children and youth in Ontario have a mental health challenge. I’ve heard 91% of Ontario schools report they need mental health supports. That’s over 90% of Ontario schools in desperate need of mental health supports from psychologists, social workers and other mental health specialists to help support the crisis in our schools that I have to say is also a crisis in our communities—a crisis that, frankly, was created under this government because of Bill 124, because of underfunding, and because of understaffing in these essential, crucial parts of our community.

Last month, the Ontario Principals’ Council conducted a survey among public school principals and VPs, and 1,868 of them responded, indicating their desperate need for supports due to chronic and worsening staff shortages, increased behavioural issues in classes, safety concerns, and the overall mental health of their students and caregiver adults.

We’re seeing an increase in eating disorders here in Ontario. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate, second only to the opioid addiction crisis. I have to share that there are only 20 publicly funded beds in Ontario. If you can’t get one of those beds—and really, people can’t these days—you’re on a wait-list for at least a year, if not more.

All of these challenges that I’ve outlined above are disproportionately impacting our most vulnerable children, whether Black, Indigenous or rural students, students with disabilities, newcomer and immigrant students, and certainly those within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

The government has billions of dollars at its disposal—$6.4 billion, to be exact. We’re asking for $24 million to help our schools, to help our communities so they can survive and thrive.

Please, government, say yes.

I was actually fully intending this afternoon to start this speech and kind of read the notes in front of me and talk about the $3.8-billion Roadmap to Wellness, the historic investment that our government has made. I was going to talk about $77.35 million in supportive housing since 2019-20. I was going to talk about 60,000 nurses that have been trained under this government, and health care workers. I was probably going to make a few partisan points about how the members of the opposition voted against all of those investments. I was going to talk about education and how we’ve made a 420% increase in mental health supports for kids in our school system.

But after hearing a lot of speeches and hearing about the importance of this issue, I’m not going to do any of that today. In the spirit of non-partisanship, I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for bringing this forward. Any day that we talk about mental health in this House is a good day for Ontario.

I want to talk a little bit about just some personal experience. I was inspired by some of the stories that we heard from other members in this House. I’ve recently been going to therapy myself. I try to go every two weeks. I don’t always make it every two weeks, but I do it. I do it to deal with my anxiety and some past traumas in my own life. And I really believe that that therapy that I go through makes me a better brother, a better son, a better partner, probably a better legislator—the opposition might disagree sometimes, but I think I’m doing an okay job sometimes.

I just want to say to anybody that’s watching at home that thinks that their brain is broken and wakes up every day trapped in their own head—I know what that feels like. Members of our caucus know what that feels like. Members of this Legislature on all sides of the House know what it feels like. We all have family members; we all have friends. We all have experiences, lived or supported, of our family members where mental health has really kicked us in the butt or kicked our family members in the butt. I just want to say you’re not alone. Go get help. It is a very strong thing to seek help for your mental health, and I encourage everybody to take care of that.

Experience in my own life about—I’ve got a friend of mine that I grew up with—I’ve known him for over 20 years and I’m not very old, so you can talk about what kind of friend that is—who lost his sister a few years ago to suicide. I remember being over there that evening and seeing the pain on his and his father’s faces as they went through that. It was a problem that we never saw coming.

Now, this friend of mine also dealt with different drug addictions—ketamine and some others—as well as alcohol abuse, and that same friend of mine tried to take his own life a few years ago. I’m so thankful that the attempt was unsuccessful and that he’s here with us. But I remember speaking to not only my friend but speaking to his father, who I also consider a friend—I won’t name you—and just seeing the fear in his eyes that not only was he going to lose one kid but lose his second kid a few years later.

So I think it’s important that—I’m new to being a legislator. I’m new to being an MPP. I just want to make sure that these real stories get put on the Hansard because these are issues that we deal with. So if anybody is sitting at home thinking that mental health is a bubble issue that only you deal with, you’ve heard stories from other legislators, you’ve heard some of the stories I’m sharing now. You’re not alone. There is help, and things will get better.

I’ll wrap up the remarks that, look, regardless of the results of this particular vote and regardless of partisanship, I think we can all agree that mental health is in a much better place today than it was a few years ago. As I said, I just want to thank the opposition for bringing it forward. Any time that we talk about mental health in this House is probably a good day for certainly my constituents but certainly for Ontario as well.

I know what it feels like to not want to wake up in the morning, to not want to get out of bed, but I encourage all my constituents and anybody watching: Get out of bed, drink some water and go get the help you need. Tomorrow will be better.