A national mental health strategy was just unveiled, but currently requires financial support. (http://bit.ly/mental-health-strategy)
We need more support for non-institutionalized mental health patients including children and youth, to provide adequate community-based support and outpatient and inpatient care by mental health practitioners, including in rural Canada where lack of facilities and trained professionals is acute. At the same time, we need adequate institutionalized spaces for people with mental health issues that constitute a danger to themselves or to others.
We need to identify drug addiction as a health problem and focus efforts on harm reduction, treatment and prevention.