Canadians are giving federal and provincial governments a failing grade when it comes to providing services for mental health and substance abuse, according to the second annual National Report Card Survey from the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health.

Ninety per cent of Canadians say access to these services are important and 83 per cent say more mental health providers should be hired.

Receiving the ‘F’ grade is even worse than last year’s ‘D’.

“This report card tells us that all governments are not moving nearly fast enough nor making the necessary investments to improve timely access to mental health and substance use health services,” said Florence Budden, CAMIMH Co-Chair and a registered nurse. “Canadians are even more dissatisfied that our governments are woefully out of touch when it comes to meeting their mental health and substance use health needs and clearly, much more needs to be done.”

In the release from CAMIMH they say compared to other countries like France and the UK, Canada has the lowest proportionate spending on mental health, leaving a lot of room to increase investments and expand coverage.

“It also needs to introduce new federal legislation – a Mental Health and Substance Use Health Care Parity Act – that places the importance and value of mental health and substance use health services on an equal footing with physical health care.”

Ellen Cohen, CAMIMH Co-Chair added that “Our governments need to do more and act faster – failure cannot be an option.”