Senator Boisvenu: You know that the pandemic has exacerbated mental health issues. Nine million Canadians will suffer from mental health issues over the course of their lives. In 2017, close to 5.5 million Canadians received mental health services, and, in 2020, this number reached 6 million.

Does the Government of Canada plan to bring back programs such as At Home/Chez Soi, which helped reduce re-incarceration rates among people suffering from mental health issues by 90% and which funded itself through savings resulting from this reduction? Will the government commit to bringing back this program, which delivered very good results?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Senator Gold, on March 15 in Pointe-aux-Trembles, a 10-year-old girl was violently assaulted by a man with mental health issues. The girl was leaving school when the man threw her to the ground and started punching and kicking her. She is still in hospital suffering from severe shock.

Every night in Montreal, two out of three emergency response calls involve people with mental illness. I have spent the last 20 years working to ensure that these people are neither incarcerated nor hospitalized, but cared for in the community thanks to adequate funding.

For example, in 2008, the Conservative government created the At Home/Chez Soi program, which produced very good results. In 2019, the Trudeau government established a similar program solely for the homeless. Since 2015, what programs and funding has Justin Trudeau’s government set up to help people with mental health issues roaming the streets in Canada’s big cities?