This year’s provincial budget, which drops March 25th, will be watched particularly closely by the mental health and addictions community as it comes three weeks after the government released its new strategy to improve mental health and addictions services in Ontario.
CMHA is hopeful for significant investment in community-based programming as a way to relieve pressures facing hospital emergency departments and the criminal justice system.
In its 2020 prebudget submission, CMHA Ontario calls for:
- Investments that enable Ontario’s new Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence to focus on establishing core mental health and addictions services, a comprehensive data and performance measurement strategy, and quality improvement measures
- New investments to add 30,000 supportive mental health and addictions housing units over the next 10 years
- New investments in community-based, 24-hour, mental health and addictions crisis programs to help divert people in crisis from emergency departments
- A base budget increase of three per cent to help the community-based mental health and addictions sector sustain current service delivery capacity and meet growing demands
This year’s budget comes after the province announced Roadmap to Wellness: A Plan to Build Ontario’s Mental Health and Addictions System on March 3rd.
A coalition of Ontario’s leading mental health and addictions organizations including CMHA Ontario, says the success of this new strategy to tackle wait times and expand services relies on annual investments of $380 million in front-line delivery. Read the coalition’s statement.