THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay health providers and advocates are looking to hold Premier Doug Ford’s feet to the fire on mental health services for children and youth, ahead of this month’s provincial budget announcement.
The Ford government has promised substantial investments in the sector, saying it will invest $1.9 billion in mental health and addictions over the next decade – a figure the federal government says it will match.
But Diane Walker, CEO of Children’s Centre Thunder Bay, says she’s heard that tune before in her 30 years in the sector, while services like hers are still “living on a 1980s budget.” She says she’s begging the Ford government to break that cycle and keep its promises to invest in the area.
“There are so many governments, both Liberal and Conservative, who have failed children over those 30 years,” she said. “I could show you all the policies and strategies that were supposed to compel the government to invest in children’s mental health.”
On Friday, Walker joined parent and educator Tesa Fiddler and Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Judith Monteith-Farrell for a press conference at Confederation College. The three women told a crowd of several dozen, many involved in the mental health sector, that wait times and service shortages are out of control, particularly in rural and remote communities in the North.
A report released earlier this year by Children’s Mental Health Ontario (CMHO), which represents the province’s publicly-funded child and youth mental health centres, found wait times had more than doubled in the past two years, while the number of children and youth on waitlists had also more than doubled since 2017, to 28,000.
The report calls for an investment of $150 million to hire enough front-line workers to reduce wait times to 30 days. Monteith-Farrell echoed that call.
But Fiddler, who sits on the Children’s Centre parent council, says the situation is even worse for those outside of major cities.
“In many of our rural and remote communities there is no waitlist to get on, because the services do not exist,” said Fiddler. “It’s terrifying for those children and their families when they don’t have those services available. If these children are lucky enough to access any form of help, often they’re sent away from their families and communities to southern Ontario.”
Walker said the Children’s Centre has more than 150 children and youth on a waitlist, with an average wait time of about 120 days to access services, while some wait over a year. She estimates she would need eight additional social workers to get wait times down to 30 days, which she said would cost around half a million dollars.
Health Minister Christine Elliott announced the creation of a new, $20 million Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence Tuesday, expected to oversee changes to the province’s mental health system. While Elliott has hinted at major investments in the sector, her government has yet to release spending details beyond the price tag for the centre of excellence.
Advocates like Fiddler are looking to put pressure on the government to match its rhetoric with spending commitments in advance of the provincial budget, expected March 25.
“In listening to the strategy that was announced the other day, I’m a bit skeptical, a bit worried, because there’s no commitment or investment or action,” Fiddler said. “Our kids can’t wait any longer.”
“The government promised equitable access to the far north, and I look forward to seeing how that rolls out. Our children deserve better. Our government needs to do better.”
Monteith-Farrell shares Fiddler’s skepticism, saying the Ford government has promised investments in children and youth mental health since the 2018 election campaign.
‘We want to make sure the investments they say they’re going to make in children’s mental health are actually going to come to fruition,” she said. “We’ve waited two years, and it hasn’t happened.”
