The Ministries of Health: Health Canada

The Ministries and Departments of Health in the Federal Government are responsible for shaping mental health policy, allocating resources, and overseeing the delivery of mental health services.

Health Canada is the federal health ministry primarily responsible for regulating food and drug safety, reviewing medical devices and technologies, and ensuring the maintenance of national standards for universal healthcare coverage, including mental health.

The essential aim of Health Canada is to make Canada’s population the ‘healthiest people in the world’, as stated on the governmental website.

Health Canada improves and supports health in Canada by:

• Relying on scientific research
• Engaging with the public to come up with the best solutions to long-term healthcare needs
• Spreading awareness of disease prevention
• Motivating Canadians to keep up with a healthy lifestyle to support their mental and physical health

Whilst it focuses more on physical health by focusing on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the department is also in charge of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which largely focuses on mental health concerns.

Minister of Health: Mark Holland

The Health Canada department is responsible to the current minister of health in Canada, Mark Holland, who has consecutively supported initiatives regarding health, including mental health.

Mark Holland’s department recently made efforts to ensure high-quality and accessible health care for all Canadians.

Minister Holland’s department is working closely with the associate minister of health and minister of mental health and addictions.

Minister of Mental Health: Ya’ara Saks

The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health is Ya’ara Saks, who has previously been engaged in mental health concerns by being a director of Trauma Practice for Healthy Communities, a charity aiming at better access to mental health services based in Toronto. The introduction of this minister position is relatively new as the first ever minister of mental health was appointed in 2021.

Ya’ara Saks was appointed on July 26, 2023.

The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health commitments were listed in the letter by Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau which include:

• Collaboratively working with the Minister of Health to the advancement of a long-term Mental Health Transfer to achieve universal and free mental health services
• Introducing new investments to support the mental health of Canadians: focusing on health equity, sustaining virtual mental health services, implementing a suicide prevention hotline, introducing a new fund for student mental health, and lastly access to perinatal mental health services.
• Focusing on supporting the First Nations, Inuit, and the Métis Nation’s mental health for addiction and trauma by providing treatment care.
• Supporting those groups who were affected by the Covid-19.
• Working closely with ministers relating to families and children to improve youth and children's mental health support.
• Strategy to improve public education on substance use.

This is an exhaustive list of responsibilities of a minister of mental health, which shows how crucial the Minister plays a role in impacting the state and the advancement of the mental health crisis in Canada.

Minister Saks has recently been focused on addressing substance use and addiction and their effect on the mental health of the Canadian public.