NDP calls for stand-alone mental health ministry

For Ontarians in need, responsibility is currently spread out over 11 ministries

The NDP is proposing a stand-alone ministry to oversee services and supports for Ontarians in need of mental-health help, saying the current system is failing them.

Aprivate member’s bill, to be debated Thursday, would create a “ministry of mental health and addictions” to better focus efforts to the crisis, said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, noting that currently, responsibility is spread among 11 ministries.

“It has become clear that the mental-health care needs and the addiction needs of people in the province have not been taken care of,” Horwath said at Queen’s Park.

“Too many people are falling through the cracks, too many people are in crisis, too many kids are waiting 18 months for treatment. There are 12,000 kids on waiting lists for long-term help with mental-health issues. It’s not acceptable, and the best way to put that focus in place” is to have a separate ministry.

The scattered system now in place “has abjectly failed the people of Ontario,” she added.

Seven years ago, an all-party committee studying the issue made a number of recommendations, including a separate oversight body, but nothing has happened, NDP health critic France Gélinas said, who is putting forward Bill 149.

Earlier this year, Gélinas was contacted by Guelph, Ont., teen Noah Irvine, whose mother and father died as a result of their mentalhealth issues. She said that “rekindled the fire in my belly that I know that we don’t talk about mental health and addictions in this house.”

Health Minister Eric Hoskins said he needs time to consider the bill and hear from those on the front-lines.