Three years after the emergence of COVID-19, Canadians continue to feel the impact of the pandemic on their mental health.
They report high levels of mental distress as they endure ongoing challenges like periods of isolation, difficulties with relationships and working remotely or on the front lines.
Despite the high number of people needing support, many cannot find and afford access to mental health services.
The lack of preventative resources and treatment for Canadians adds pressure on hospitals, results in police responding to crises and increases demand for social services like housing and substance use programs, advocates tell CTVNews.ca.
“There’s this huge gap to access mental health services no matter where you live,” Margaret Eaton, the national CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), told CTVNews.ca.
Between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, about half of people seeking counselling in Canada waited 22 days on average for their first mental health appointment, which can be a significant wait when in a crisis. About 10 per cent of people waited almost four months.
Data from Ontario, Quebec, P.E.I. and Nunavut was not available, but Eaton said issues with access to care are experienced across the country.
“It’s impossible to get the kind of services and support that they need,” she said. “Many people tell us that the reason that they’re not getting mental health care is they either can’t find it, or they can’t even afford it.”
“During the height of the pandemic, nearly one-in-four hospitalizations for children and youth were for mental health conditions,” Eaton said.
More than half of children and youth who were able to find resources in Canada prior to the pandemic reported in 2022 they had a hard time finding support, CIHI said.
According to the report, which looked at Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia between April 2019 and March 2021, access to virtual care was granted to some patients over others throughout the pandemic.
This is despite the knowledge that people living in poverty and racialized communities were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, which severely affected their mental well-being, making the need to access mental health services even greater.
Without mental health services outside of hospitals, people turn to the overburdened emergency rooms. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health says the annual economic cost of mental illness in Canada is estimated at over $50 billion, which includes health-care costs, lost productivity and quality of life losses.
WHAT ADVOCATES ARE ASKING FOR
One thing advocates say would make a difference to those who need care is funding.
“Mental health is best treated by talk therapy, a group program, by peer supporters or a substance use program,” Eaton said. “None of that is covered through our Canada Health Act.”
Eaton says if Canada invested in mental-health coverage, the funding would help all Canadians and alleviate pressure on both people accessing care and those providing it.
“Canadians each year spend millions of dollars in private sector services,” Eaton said. “We feel mental health care (should be) universal. We should all have access to the care that we need when we need it.”
“There are huge gaps if the provincial (or territorial) government isn’t funding (mental health programs),” Eaton said.
The United Kingdom has mental health care covered under its health act, Eaton said, an agreement that has been in place for decades.
“They’ve set up a service where there are psychiatrists, but also psychologists, social workers, peer supporters, so that they can triage the person (and) find out what they need,” Eaton said.
She hopes Canada can have a similar system to ensure the path to accessing mental health services is seamless.
On a individual level, Eaton says, supporting friends and family through listening can make a difference, as can signing petitions or lobbying government officials for more funding.
This funding is needed for the creation of mental health programs, but also for new locations of existing supports, Eaton said. Canadians need access to services within their communities.
“We also want to see more investment in the social determinants of mental health,” Eaton said. “We want to see the creation of new housing for people with severe mental illness who have such a hard time finding help and are a large portion of the homeless population.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
