Even if the Girard budget contains little new money for mental health, the new sums are sufficient, estimates Minister Lionel Carmant.
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Upon entering the Blue Room on Wednesday morning, the Minister for Social Services expressed that the $27 million that will be invested this year to add mental health services is appropriate in the current context, despite the multiplication of incidents that demonstrate the need to invest in mental health.
“That’s enough,” he slipped. It allows us to continue our deployment. What we want to aim for is really access to services.”
Mr. Carmant recalled that the amounts provided for in the budget are in addition to the $40 million already available for prevention and the implementation of alternatives to psychiatric hospitalizations.
What’s more, the Minister of Finance, Éric Girard, recalled on Tuesday that $ 1.3 billion has been announced for mental health since 2020.
Emergency
Earlier in the morning, the spokesperson for Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, deplored that Tuesday’s budget did not contain “the historic reinvestment that Quebecers expected in terms of mental health”.
Affirming that he understands that the budget was “undoubtedly completed before the events of the last few weeks”, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois asked the government to open the door to possible additional investments in mental health.
On the Liberal side, interim leader Marc Tanguay limited himself to stressing that we must “do more” and “do better” in this file, given the fact that “the waiting lists keep growing” .