Ontario premier Doug Ford as well as several cabinet ministers and MPPs chose to celebrate this year’s Bell Let’s Talk campaign by visiting Canadian Mental Health Association branches and affiliates.
- On Bell Let’s Talk Day, Ford shared a video of a visit to CMHA Toronto’s Routes Community Centre on his social media channels, highlighting the work of the branch.
- Seniors and accessibility minister Raymond Cho visited the Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities, which shared information about CMHA Ontario’s Living Life to the Full and Mood Walks programs that support seniors’ mental health.
- Long-term care minister Merrilee Fullerton and MPP Goldie Ghamari held a roundtable discussion on mental health with staff and service users at CMHA Ottawa.
- Education minister Stephen Lecce and MPP Gila Martow visited CMHA York and South Simcoe and toured the branch’s mobile youth walk-in clinic.
- MPPs Rudy Cuzzetto and Kaleed Rasheed met with CMHA Peel Dufferin staff to discuss the branch’s mental health services.
CMHA Ontario welcomes every opportunity to provide expertise and insight to provincial government on local and provincial matters related to mental health and addictions. CMHA Ontario recently provided its 2020 pre-budget submission to the province, which emphasizes the importance of community-based care as a way to relieve pressures currently facing hospital emergency departments and the criminal justice system.