Kevin, Christine and the Way Forward in Ontario

 

 

The next 18 months were unlike anything he had every experienced.  The committee members - six Liberals, two Conservatives and a New Democrat - set aside their party loyalties and worked single-mindedly toward the same goal.  The let down their guard.  They talked late into the night.  They shared run-down hotel rooms in isolated communities.  As their sense of common cause grew, so did their determination to submit a report the government could not ignore or study to death.

 

 

That report called for a comprehensive mental health and addictions strategy.  Phase I of this strategy was targeted towards children and youth - it made sense that, to start addressing the problem in a sustainable way, you begin by providing youth the best support and education available.  That way, you could hopefully inoculate them against future mental health challenges, or at least help them identify and find the supports they needed not to fall through the cracks.

 

Phase II was to look at occupational mental health; this got stalled during the last term for many reasons, not the least of which was the reality of competitive politics in a minority parliament.

 

I would like to think that Kevin Flynn's appointment as Minister of Labour is an indication that Team Wynne is serious about addressing all things mental health in the workplace, including reducing the stigma, preventing accrued psychological injury and maybe rejigging notions of labour to positively impact customer service, productivity and even innovation.

 

It's all possible.  It's also something Flynn is very much familiar with.  I remember sitting down with him and Christine Pelletier, currently working comms with Children's Mental Health Ontario to talk about what a comprehensive "cognitive labour" strategy would look like.  It was one of many conversations I've had over the years with countless stakeholders in mental health, health, labour, justice, so on and so forth about how that common thread that weaves between sectors - people, behaviour, the minds that shape our activity - must be at the root of any structural solutions.

 

This conversation dove-tails nicely with that of Open Government - the process by which we can fix our structural governance problems and re-engage the electorate in our democratic process in meaningful, dynamic ways.

 

You simply can't have one without the other - what we need is a culture change, and the only way that can happen is by a majority of people inside and outside the system changing their view.  It's where mental fitness and behavioural insights overlap.

 

There's a good chance that a colleague and friend of Kevin's - Progressive Conservative MPP Christine Elliott - will be the next Leader of the Opposition.   There are few people in the Legislature as committed to fixing Ontario's mental health challenges as these two.  There are strong voices in the NDP Party, too - including France Gelinas and Cheri DiNovo.

 

I'm hopeful about what can be done - that collaborative change that starts on the common ground of mental health - can be achieved.

 

Time will tell, I suppose, but I'll say this - who'd have thought we'd be where we are now even three years ago?

 

Good On Lisa Raitt: Addressing Occupational Mental Health and Safety

"Too often people just suffer in silence. As Minister of Labour, I'm looking at a range of policy and program options to better address mental health challenges in the workplace."

  - Lisa Raitt, Canada's Minister of Labour

It's happening.  Slowly, agonizingly so, but as the idea of cognitive labour and mental fitness starts to gain hold, it's gaining momentum.

I have predicted elsewhere that a broad-based move towards mental fitness promotion, particularly as it relates to work and work performance, is on its way.  It has to be; the nature of labour (not to mention society) is shifting from repetitive, physical and quantity-based to creative, cognitive and innovation-based.  Just as work design at the end of the 19th Century impeded production by fostering sickness and injury, today's work design and motivational tools actually impede the type of production the market is looking for.  We need a proactive mental fitness strategy if we're to keep moving forward.

The Industrial Revolution fostered the labour movement, which in turn sparked the introduction of workplace health and safety and benefits like health care and sick leave.  It was good business, but it also had the advantage of improving productivity and employee satisfaction.  The Knowledge Economy similarly relies on cognitive function in new, demanding ways - to help people realize their full potential (providing greater returns for their employers), we have to start accommodating mental health.  There's a reason why we have a recognized mental health crisis now, when cognitive labour is in demand.

There's only one way forward and that's to break down the stigmatic silos around mental health, which in turn means re-evaluating the way we understand what the mind is and how our biology, environments and accommodations impact mental health/cognitive function.  It will be a challenging process that will make many feel uncomfortable, but it's the right thing to do from a policy, performance and moral perspective.

This goes beyond personal interest, beyond partisan interest, beyond mandate and even the limitations of ability we set for ourselves to this notion of something called the public good.

Lisa Raitt sums it up nicely: "Let's think beyond duty. Each and every one of us has a role to play in creating workplaces where diversity and special needs are accommodated and respected."

Kudos to people like Lisa Raitt, but also Don Drummond, Michael Kirby, Kevin Flynn, Christine Elliot, Gerrard Kennedy and the countless people who work and live with mental health challenges every day. 

Let's move forward together; more importantly, let's make sure we leave no one behind.

Am I hopeful?  Certainly - but that's because I understand the way cognition produces hope.

We're finally connecting the dots between stigma, mental health, health care, social growth, diversity, education, service delivery and innovation.  It's a good time to be alive.

UPDATE:  It should come as no surprise that Lisa Raitt has personal experience with mental illness.  This isn't an ooh-ahh, we must look at her differently thing; if she had diabetes, or developed cancer, or caught a cold, we wouldn't stigmatize her.  Nor should we now.

Sidebar - there's a funny thing where people advocate for causes that they know - I sit on the Board of Directors for an organization that helps children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and the vast majority of my co-Board Members have deaf family members.  As mental health/mental fitness becomes more normalized, I think we're going to see an increase in proactive advocacy, which is how it should be.