Election and Mental Health

As we near the election on Monday, April 28th I wanted to take a closer at the platforms and what their position is on healthcare, specifically mental health.

Below is a summary of each party:

The Green Party

• Make medicines free for everyone through universal pharmacare
• They will cover mental healthcare for everyone
• Acknowledge that it must be available everywhere, including communities, schools and prison
• They support prevention early when it comes to mental health support

The NDP

• Ensure that all Canadians can access services psychotherapy and counselling by launching a new plan to cover these services for those who are currently not covered by work plans
• They will expand funding for crisis and addictions care to help people access the care they need

The Liberal Party of Canada

• Provide 100,000 young people a year with mental health care by establishing a permanent Youth Mental Health Fund. This fund will enhance community-based mental health services and give access to mental health care to people who otherwise would not, improving the lives of young people, and the friends and families that love them
• Provide urgent and immediate support to address the overdose crisis by adding $500 million to the Emergency Treatment Fund to support municipalities, Indigenous Peoples, and community health care organizations to confront the toxic drug and overdose crisis and connect more people to treatment and vital services, faster
• Invest in deeply affordable housing, supportive housing, and shelters in recognition of the link between housing and mental health outcomes. We will do this through $6 billion invested in the new Build Canada Homes (BCH) which will build and acquire housing. This investment builds on the Rapid Housing Initiative which supported 15,000 homes for our most vulnerable, including projects like Dunn House in Toronto, Canada’s first-ever social 24 Canada Strong – Unite. Secure. Protect. Build. medicine supportive housing initiative. We will continue to work with partners to deliver projects that recognize the link between housing and health outcomes
• Continue to fund the 9-8-8 suicide crisis helpline which responded to over 300,000 calls and texts in its first year. People need help but it can be hard to ask, especially when you are struggling. Every call this line takes, every message they respond to, is there to support people in crisis and offer help without judgement

The Conservative Party of Canada

Nothing specific was listed for mental health, but they did address the addiction, overdose crisis with the following:

• They will fund life saving drug treatment and recovery for 50,000 people to help them get off drugs for good
• They will fund recovery by cutting taxpayer-funded unsafe drug supply programs and suing opioid manufacturers that caused the crisis in the first place
• They will allow judges to sentence offenders to mandatory treatment for addiction, giving courts the power to order treatment as an alternative to prison when people are too sick to choose it themselves and the offender’s only crimes involve small quantities of drugs for their own use and other minor non-violent infractions, where provincial legislation allows it
• They will require recovery-oriented rehabilitation in prisons, ensuring that more serious offenders struggling with addiction participate in evidence-based therapeutic living programs in prison, where such treatment is available
• They will impose life sentences on fentanyl traffickers

Election Day is Monday, April 28th

Not sure where to vote or how?