"Decades of research has found that racialized citizens are diagnosed with [schizophrenia] at far higher rates – and the single biggest risk factor is having darker skin than most of their neighbours." Read The Globe and Mail article here.

To mark Pride, Statistics Canada recently posted an article with information about LGBTQ2+ Canadians. It shares a number of interesting pieces of information including:

as of 2018, LGBTQ2+ people made up 4% of Canada's population over 15, or 1 million peoplemore youth and young adults identify as LGBTQ2+.

As the Women’s Health Research Chair in Mental Health for the Faculty of Health at York University, Dr. Nazilla Khanlou says gender-based violence didn’t start with the pandemic, but the pandemic has made it worse.

“The ripple effects are going to continue for a long time to come.” she says.

The Ontario Cannabis Store has released their first-ever three-year social responsibility strategy!

The strategy's key pillars are:

1.      Sustainability: Establishing a Foundation for Sustainability2.      Inclusion: Creating a Diverse & Inclusive Industry 3.      Knowledge: Advancing Cannabis Knowledge & Promoting Responsible Consumption

A new survey is highlighting alarming trends that indicate the pandemic’s strain on the mental health of Ontarians has reached all-time highs.

The latest poll in a series conducted by Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario, shows a troubling pattern of loneliness: More than half of Ontarians (57%) are lonelier since the start of the pandemic, almost half (47%) wish they had someone to talk to, and more than a third (36 per cent) say they are often, very often or almost always lonely.

Today, on National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, the government of Ontario introduced the Combatting Human Trafficking Act, new legislation and amendments to existing legislation that propose to better protect victims, support survivors and crack down on offenders.

Click here to read the press release.

It has been more than two years since Canada became the first G20 country to legalize recreational cannabis and cannabis products. The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) is supporting research on non-therapeutic cannabis and the impacts of its legalization on public health and safety across the country. Through financial support from Health Canada, CCSA is funding 19 projects on subjects ranging from cannabis legalization and mental health to a comparison of legal versus illicit cannabis sales.

CBC GoPublic broadcasted on 2021/01/17 a story about a bipolar man's experience in a Toronto hospital. I link it to here because I believe stigma and discrimination is a huge area that mental health community must put more effort in. Stigma is rooted in discrimination. Only our society truly eliminate discrimination against mental disability, the stigma will not effectively go away.

The link to CBC's story:

Ontario's Auditor General released her 2020 Annual Report and concludes that the Ministry and the Ontario Telemedicine Network "do not have effective systems and procedures in place to meet Ontarian's needs in a cost-effective manner." She comments that since the province responded hastily to the demands of COVID-19, Ontario is without a long-term strategy for virtual care expansion.

This new policy brief explores the potential impact of COVID-19 on mental health and suicide rates, provides insight into which potential risk and protective factors to monitor, and highlights the existing opportunities to influence these trends.