Mental Health Ministry Meeting Summary: Day Two

2024-02-22 12:30 PM

Opinion: Cammie Duyzer

In the complex area of gender-affirming surgery and care in Canada, diverse provincial perspectives intersect with the federal government's considerations. At the governmental level, the recognition that teenage brains are still developing sets the backdrop for proposed changes in the minimum age for gender-affirming treatment.

The proposed ideas include setting the age requirement for gender-affirming surgery at 18, with hormone therapy/puberty blockers accessible from the age of 16. The age of consent for gender-reaffirming treatment is suggested to be 16, with the added requirement of double parental consent.

However, provincial perspectives introduce a tapestry of opinions, reflecting the nuanced dynamics within each region.

Alberta: Lacking gender-affirming surgeons within the province, Alberta emphasizes concerns about the potential regret associated with teens' changing minds. The province rejects parental consent at younger ages, sticking to an age of consent of 18 or older.

Quebec: Aligned with Manitoba on adjusting waitlists and emphasizing parental awareness, Quebec stands firm in its beliefs. The province believes citizens should adhere to the regulations of their respective provinces.

Saskatchewan: Disagreeing with double parental consent, Saskatchewan proposes applying existing policies that allow minors to be assessed as mature.

Manitoba: Advocating for double parental consent to be determined by the province, Manitoba supports informing both parents but requiring consent from only one. They align with Nunavut on the principle that leaving the province means following the laws of the new jurisdiction.

Nunavut: Supporting Manitoba and Yukon, Nunavut sets age thresholds for gender-affirming interventions and emphasizes medical consent. The province rejects double parental consent and believes that citizens should abide by the regulations of the province they travel to.

Nova Scotia: Proposing adjustments to the age of consent based on waitlists, Nova Scotia rejects double-parent consent, citing challenges in finding absent or missing parents.

Newfoundland and Labrador: Aligning with Manitoba and Nunavut, the province agrees with Alberta on doctors adhering to provincial laws but still being able to receive care from out-of-province clinics.

Yukon: In full agreement with Manitoba, Yukon contributes to the consensus on various aspects of the proposed changes.

As discussions culminate in a voting consensus, the decision on double parental consent diverges, with Quebec, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories in favor, while the rest stand against it. Meanwhile, unanimity is achieved in favor of letting the decision on double parental consent be determined by the province. The intricate dance between federal and provincial considerations showcases the intricate tapestry of perspectives shaping the discourse on gender-affirming surgery and care in Canada.

Addiction and Drug Policies:

As Canada contemplates the future of its drug policies, proposed ideas center around state-run control of drug distribution and production, coupled with comprehensive harm-reduction programs. Here's a snapshot of how different provinces are contributing to this evolving conversation:

Nunavut: Advocates for strict monitoring of marijuana production, distribution, and sales, coupled with a focus on addressing past-trauma-related causes for addiction.

Quebec: Expresses a preference for drugs to be sold exclusively by the federal government, with both product and distribution under federal control.

Manitoba: Aligns with the idea of providing harder drugs at safe injection sites for controlled consumption.

Alberta: Prioritizes redistributing funds to areas requiring more financial support and proposes allocating additional resources to address youth mental health rather than state-run drug distribution.

Saskatchewan: Responds to the growing economy by emphasizing the need for more mental health facilities and supporting increased mental health centers.

British Columbia: Proposes additional treatment methods, including the introduction of sober companions, to complement harm-reduction strategies.

As consensus-building unfolds, all provinces express agreement with the idea of state-run production and distribution of cannabis. Similarly, a consensus emerges in favor of implementing harm-reduction programs, including safe injection sites and government-supported initiatives to gradually transition users away from harsh drugs. However, Alberta diverges, expressing reservations.

After further discussion, a unanimous consensus forms in favor of expanding harm-reduction programs to include standardizing drugs and incorporating trauma-informed therapy. This shared commitment signals a collective effort among provinces to approach drug policies holistically, integrating both harm reduction and therapeutic elements into the evolving framework. The dialogue showcases a collaborative push towards comprehensive, evidence-based strategies in shaping Canada's approach to drug distribution, production, and harm reduction.

Mental Health Budget Reforms

In a groundbreaking move, provinces and territories across Canada are collectively reevaluating and reshaping mental health budgets, with a shared commitment to addressing pressing issues and fortifying mental health services. Nunavut spearheads this initiative with a novel proposal to double the mental health budget, a proposal swiftly embraced by all regions as a response to their surplus funds.

The Northwest Territories actively advocates for investing more in mental health training to ensure a well-prepared workforce. Nunavut, while doubling the budget, specifically focuses on tackling past-trauma-related causes for addiction, directing funds towards northern and rural areas to incentivize health workers to remain in these communities.

Nova Scotia and Quebec align with Nunavut's vision, voicing support for the doubled budget and emphasizing the urgent need to address staffing shortages. Quebec introduces an ambitious 12-year plan and endeavors to make immigration more accessible through health centers. Additionally, Quebec aims to boost mental health through increased scholarships in health programs.

Saskatchewan, propelled by its growing economy, rallies for more mental health facilities and centers to meet the rising demand. British Columbia introduces innovative approaches, proposing extra treatment methods like sober companions and personalized harm reduction programs for individuals not benefiting from traditional 12-step programs.

New Brunswick rallies against understaffing issues and unequivocally supports the proposal to double the mental health budget. Indigenous perspectives emphasize increased funding for Indigenous friendship centers, particularly after natural disasters and government mistreatment.

Yukon takes a holistic view, correlating mental health investment with broader infrastructure development, anticipating benefits across various ministries. Newfoundland and Labrador carve out a special focus on investing in Indigenous mental health.

After a thorough and lengthy discussion, a unanimous vote emerges in favor of doubling the mental health budget, reflecting a shared commitment among provinces and territories. The subsequent vote to increase the mental health budget from 5 billion to 7 billion receives unanimous support, underlining a collective determination to usher in a new era of comprehensive mental health support and services across Canada.

Bullying Is(n't) Dead

2024-02-22 12:30 PM

Opinion: Jason Cheng

As much as people, especially the government, would like to pretend otherwise, bullying isn't dead and gone. It's just gone underground.

When you think of bullying, what do you think of? A crowd of 'mean girls' bullying a 'nerd'? A big hunkhead grabbing a kid's lunch money? A kid sitting alone at a lunch table? This demonstrates exactly the problem with the societal belief of what bullying is, and what bullying has molded itself into to fit the modern age.

Bullying is no longer blunt, unignorable, physical. It's subversive, creeping like mist through the wires criss-crossing the West Coast, connecting millions of people. Bullying has gone digital.

Now, this seems obvious. But, you'd be surprised at how few recognize it, and how few recognize its true danger and breadth. If you've spent any time on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, negative comments are anywhere. What's more sickening is that negativity, hate, saying terrible things, seems to be rewarded. Twitter accounts catalog screenshots of people being mean to each other for no other reason than doing so, each receiving raucous applause upwards of 20 thousand likes on each, and everyone applauds it as brilliantly made humour.

If people are willing to do all this in public, without safety, on accounts proudly showing their faces and email addresses for all to see, imagine what they do in private.

With the equally subversive evils of racism, misogyny, and homophobia creeping in the digital underbrush, bullying has gotten deadlier. Teenagers online reportedly feel unsafe showing their pride or race, for fear of hate attacks. Children, some of whom are under the age of 12 and may not grasp race relations or sexual identities yet, are being manipulated by online personalities like Andrew Tate into spreading this hate.

As such, what can legislators do? According to a 2021 census by Common State Media, 38% of tweens between the age of 8 and 12 use social media. Disbarring the fact that children shouldn't be on social media at all, judging by the recently prevalent studies on how early-life screen exposure can affect mental performance and attention space, and the high amount of inappropriate content readily available, if the government wants to do something about the bullying of young people, they should start with banning children from social media.

This cannot be a simple checkbox or dropdown, those can be obviously bypassed by, well, lying. In my opinion, children should have a much more stringent process in being able to use social media, but how this would be done is up for debate. It's hard to make a system that allows this without being ripe for the potential of abuse, and even harder to make one that works with little loopholes.

However it is done, it's quite clear to me that a step that needs to be taken to stop the rampant bullying of minority teens is to ban children from social media, to stop the ongoing radicalization of children in our nation.

The First Proposal: A Recap of the Mental Health Ministry

2024-02-22 11:40 AM

Fresh Reporting: Keenjal Kamble, Aaron Shyam Sai

During the meeting for the Mental Health ministry, a proposal of 1-billion dollars was discussed to provide for the issue towards mobile teams, as well as creating impatient care. Ontario requested for a slight reduction for the money towards housing and general mental health measures.

Instead, they want the money to be put into jobs that help with mental health concerns, as their beliefs are that the issues will be better resolved and more beneficial for those who struggle with mental health. The Yukon mentioned that they are “screwed,” and that therapists, who are in the forefront of providing aid for mental health, are not providing adequate advice and that they require more resources for helping out with the mental health crisis. They requested to do an online system to better aid mental health resources, making it easily accessible to people.

A common occurrence between provinces such Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan is that they want to implement this proposal in rural areas to better spread the resources for those who can not reach it as easily. As a final note, the Assembly of First Nations requested that there be more doctors provided. Nunavut has concerns that the one billion may not be enough as they have no clinics specialized for mental health and the closest one is in Quebec which is only accessible by an airlift, the minister says each airlift costs around 100,000 one way and it is expensive for them. A main issue that the federal government was combating is the correlation between the opioid crisis and mental health. The minister of Indigenous Affairs mentioned that “substance usage is causing the suicide of many Inuit youth”, and she said she supported the government’s decision to take action and deal with the opioid crisis.

The federal minister of health plans on having Narcan more accessible in public places with evident signs and instructions of its usage. From this came the idea of drug withdrawal clinics. The purpose of them is to gradually release the drug into a patients system so that they can gradually lose their addiction. All the provinces agreed with this plan but the Territories had concerns with funding, one clinic would cost approximately 50 million dollars to make and then sustaining them would cost even more, the rest of the provinces agreed that a measly 1 billion would not suffice and proposed the budget be doubled. After taking a vote, the federal minister of health agreed to talk with the prime minister about budget increases.

Another topic that was discussed is how to combat mental health disorders, to this online therapy sessions were recommended which would be personalized for patients, the only concern is that Yukon residents have issues with internet due to solar activities. Another recommendation was to have mental health aids in schools, teachers would be specially trained to help students with their mental health but certain ministries pointed out that students may be wary of going to certain teachers as they may be uncomfortable. All in all, the Mental Health ministry got quite a few things done over the day.