New poll shows Ontarians want funding reform for mental health, addiction services

The province may need to change how it funds mental health and addiction services according to results of a new poll that was commissioned by the City of Cambridge.

The poll was sent to adults 18 or older around Ontario July 30 and 31 to collect opinions about funding for mental health and addiction treatment. About 2,027 people responded to the poll.

According to the data from the Ontario-wide study for mental health and addiction treatment, public opinion showed that most respondents agreed the province should change laws to allow families or physicians to provide mental health and addiction treatment to involuntary patients.

The poll showed that 78 per cent of respondents want the province to allocate special funding for mental health and addiction services.

It also showed that one in three adult respondents living in Ontario say they had personally accessed mental health or addiction services previously. But 50 per cent of respondents say they aren’t willing to pay additional taxes to support those services.

The Mayor of Cambridge, Jan Liggett, said the point of sending out the poll was to give politicians the tools they need to decide what direction they want to go in and how to allocate funding they do have. Liggett added that the opinion poll tells them what the people want them to do.

“We have so many people walking the streets currently where their families couldn’t get them the help and its only going to get worse. So what are we going to do about it? Do we change the laws that we have?”

Liggett said the opinions are from the people who took the poll and not her own.

 “The families, the physicians and psychiatrists have been asking for years for the consent act to be changed. So that was one of the questions in the poll, do you think the consent act should be changed?” said Liggett.

A large number of people who responded think the consent act should be changed. She added that times have changed and laws that worked previously, may not be working now.

“How do you keep somebody alive who doesn’t have the mental capacity to make the decisions for themselves. How do you do that?” said Liggett. “Any minister that I’ve spoken to about this, or other mayors they’re very grateful that our city did this poll because it hasn’t been done before.”

Four out of five respondents say they support the Ontario government creating a dedicated stream of money to specifically fund mental health and addiction services. According to the data, female respondents appeared more supportive of the idea.

The poll cost the City of Cambridge about $20,000 to send out.