MP Mathyssen Raises Questions About Important Protections Surrounding Mental Health

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest, and a lot of the member's speech was about housing. It is false to ascribe that this housing crisis that we are in now started only a year ago or eight years ago and the length of the current government. I would say and argue that it has been caused over the last 30 years of consecutive governments, both Liberal and Conservative, ignoring the investment that they needed to make into housing. I would like to hear the member's explanation for that.

We are now at this 30-day arbitrary deadline and there are other things that governments were totally in support of, apparently, but they did not do. I think of what my colleague from Timmins—James Bay brought forward in terms of a national palliative care motion: Everybody supported it; nothing was done.

In 2019 in this place, we brought the national suicide prevention strategy: Everybody believed in it; nothing has been done.

Now that we have these 30 days, we are again in a crisis. What does the member have to say about those other protections that we need to bring forward that have been presented in this place?

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spoke about mental health. A lot of us are speaking about that today. It is so important.

One of the major things that stands in the way of people receiving the help that they need is that barrier of the cost. Ultimately it is a barrier to what many people believe, certainly I believe, that mental health is, and needs to be, part of our greater health care system.

I know a lot of people have been working toward the idea of a universal mental health care system. I would like to know what the member thinks about that.