HALTON HILLS, ON – Mayor Rick Bonnette added his voice to the call from the Ontario Big City Mayors group, advocating to the Premier for more mental health supports. “The pandemic has taken a toll on all of us,” he said. “But layer on to that, those who were already struggling – be it from managing at home childcare and education, to elder care to business ownership or job loss, seeking affordable housing or feelings of isolation and the toll is enormous.”
Statistics from the Halton Region Branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, cite 24% of Ontarians have now sought mental health supports, up from 17% last winter. Almost one third of the people who’ve accessed mental health supports say they were not helpful.
Responsibility for social service supports such as mental health does not lie with the local municipality, however, according to the Mayor it is communities that see the impact first-hand. “I can tell you, that I hear from people all the time, about the challenges they face and the struggles they are enduring. Mental health is not geography specific, it is not wealth or gender specific. This is an across-the-board issue that requires our government to invest and advance the locally available supports for the good of all people.”
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