Ontario’s associate minister of mental health and addictions @MichaelTibollo mentions CBT and psychotherapy as one of the best ways to treat mental illness, which is interesting because many Ontarians cannot access it.

Ontario Associate Deputy Minister Karen Glass mentions increasing the number of mobile crisis teams, which are supposed to be first responders but in Toronto are only available certain hours and actually show up after conventional cops.

Glass talks about the access to high-quality mental health care that Ontario gov employees get and says she encourages other employers to do the same. So is this something we’re leaving to employers?

“Suicides are occurring on our campuses and they are leading to constructive action,” says @UofT’s psychiatrist in chief. The school’s come under fire for inadequately supporting students struggling with mental illness.

What we interpret as a problem with capacity in mental health care could be a problem with navigation, says @Sunnybrook’s Anthony Levitt. (Or could be both?)

One thing that’s coming across is corporate and nonprofit actors have stepped forward to provide mental health care programs because Canada’s governments have ceded the field.

Until mental health care is seen as a right, it’ll be subject to the vagaries of programmatic whimsy.

“There are many individuals with severe mental illness and they’re not going to be served by apps,” says @Sunnybrook’s Ari Zaretsky.

Everyone needs to implement measurement-based care, says @CAMHnews’ David Goldbloom. And then make it accessible via ATIP kthxbye

You knew this already but the monetary costs of mental illness are massive, cascading and go well beyond direct (public) health and (private) disability costs.

“About 20 years ago the World Health Organization said that by 2020 depression would be the leading cause of disability. We knew that, and we did nothing,” says @SunLife’s Sam Mikhail.

“We have a perverse system in Canada” where the people who need mental health care most can least afford it (and often go without), says @mary_mbartram.

I am watching a fascinating policy solutions panel with zero policy-makers on it.