Question Period Note: Mental Health of Black Canadians

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• Black Canadians experience multiple vulnerabilities related to their mental and physical health, largely due to underlying socio-economic conditions, including experiences of anti-Black racism.
• 27.9% of Black Canadians reported fair or poor mental health in the early months of the pandemic, compared to 22.9% of White Canadians.
• 32% of Black Canadians reported symptoms consistent with moderate/severe generalized anxiety disorder, compared to 24.2% of White Canadians, also during the early months of the pandemic.
• 37.5% of Black Canadians reported a moderate or severe impact of COVID-19 on their ability to meet financial obligations or essential needs, compared to 22.1% of White Canadians.

Experiences of racial discrimination throughout a lifetime can lead to chronic stress and trauma. Increased anxiety and social exclusion resulting from the health, economic and social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted people’s health and wellbeing, including the worsening of mental health outcomes, especially among racialized populations.

Findings from a 2020 Statistics Canada survey on the impacts of the pandemic on mental health indicated that 27.9% of Black Canadians (vs. 22.9% of White Canadians) reported fair or poor mental health in the early months of the pandemic. In addition, 32% of Black Canadians (vs. 24.2% of White Canadians) reported symptoms consistent with moderate or severe generalized anxiety disorder, also during the early months of the pandemic. As well, 37.5% of Black Canadians (vs. 22.1% of White Canadians) reported that COVID-19 had a moderate or severe impact on their ability to meet their financial obligations or basic needs.

Furthermore, when examining the underlying social determinants, data from 2016 indicate that 21% of Black Canadians reported living in housing below standards, compared to 8% of White Canadians. Moreover, 33% of Black children aged 0-14 and 27% of Black youth aged 15-24 lived in low-income households, compared to 13% and 12% of White children and youth, respectively.

Promoting Health Equity: Mental Health of Black Canadians Fund
Budget 2018 earmarked $42 million to strengthen multiculturalism and address the challenges faced by Black Canadians, including $10 million over five years for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), and $9 million over three years for Canadian Heritage. These funds are targeted to enhancing local community supports for youth at risk, and to developing research in support of more culturally-focused mental health programs in the Black Canadian community.

In September 2018, PHAC launched the Promoting Health Equity: Mental Health of Black Canadians Fund to deliver on the Budget 2018 funding for eight short-term capacity-building projects and fourteen longer-term implementation projects all led by Black Canadian experts or organizations. These projects are expected to be completed by the end of next fiscal year (2023-24).

We understand that is it critical to share the funding and best practices generated from these projects. As a result, PHAC is supporting a knowledge mobilization network to help disseminate the learnings generated from these projects more broadly. An example of this work is a project led by TAIBU (pronounced “Tie-boo”), a community health centre in the Greater Toronto Area that aims to deliver programs in a culturally affirming environment. TAIBU will also develop a central space for knowledge sharing in order to build capacity among Black communities and improve broader social awareness of an Afrocentric perspective. The aim from all of this work is to inform policies and practices that impact the mental health and well-being of Black Canadians.

PHAC has also established the Mental Health of Black Canadians Working Group, comprised of 11 multi-disciplinary experts in research, practice and policy from diverse Black communities across Canada. This Working Group played an integral role in the selection of projects for funding and will continue to provide essential guidance on capacity-building and strengthening evidence going forward. PHAC provides secretariat support to this Working Group.

Other Federal Commitments Supporting Black Canadians
Budget 2019 committed $45 million to Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy and an Anti-Racism Secretariat. The Strategy’s key purpose is to find ways to counter racism in its various forms, with a strong focus on community-based projects. Budget 2019 also provided $25 million over five years to Employment and Social Development Canada for projects and capital assistance to celebrate, share knowledge and build capacity in Canada’s vibrant Black Canadian communities. This investment will help stakeholders create the first national institute for Black Canadians. The Canadian Institute for Persons of African Descent will work to advance initiatives that impact Black Canadians at a systemic level.

In September 2020, the Government of Canada announced nearly $221 million in funding in partnership with Canadian financial institutions, including up to nearly $93 million from the Government of Canada over the next four years to launch Canada’s first-ever Black Entrepreneurship Program. This program will help Black business owners and entrepreneurs across the country recover from COVID-19 and grow their businesses.

In December 2020, the Government of Canada announced a new investment of $40 million to create 200 home ownership opportunities across the country for Black Canadians. This is in addition to the $32.4 million partnership between the Government of Canada and Habitat for Humanity Canada to create up to 414 new homes across Canada.

In January 2021, the Clerk of the Privy Council issued a Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service. This Call to Action calls on Public Service leaders to advance employment opportunities for Indigenous, Black and other racialized employees, particularly with respect to executive positions, and to better foster a safe and positive workplace, free of racism, discrimination and other barriers.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) are supporting researchers across the country to develop and implement measures to rapidly detect, manage, and reduce the transmission of COVID-19. This includes projects that examine social determinants of health – such as social isolation, stigma, and racism – and that provide evidence-based interventions to inform social and public health responses.

Race-Based Data and COVID-related Health Inequities
Anti-Black racism underlies a broad range of socioeconomic inequities facing Black Canadians that contribute to differences in health outcomes. In the context of COVID-19, for example, Black Canadians and other racialized people are overrepresented in jobs deemed essential and are more likely to rely on public transit to get to these jobs. Experiences of racial discrimination throughout a lifetime can also directly increase the risk for chronic disease, which in turn increases the risk of serious complications from COVID-19. There is a need for race-based data to understand and address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black Canadians and other racialized communities.

In Canada, race-based health data has not generally been collected due to privacy and confidentiality concerns. Collection of race-based data is largely a provincial/territorial (P/T) matter, implemented by local public health agencies. Some P/Ts, including Manitoba and Ontario, are moving forward on efforts to collect race-based data. Federally, the Survey on COVID-19 and Mental Health includes a question about ethnicity/race. Several analyses are planned that will include this variable to further understand the impact of the pandemic.

PHAC and partners are undertaking a number of activities to improve Canada’s knowledge of the impact of COVID-19 on racialized communities, including:
• Review published literature on race and COVID-19;
• Coordinate with federal and P/T governments to include race/ethnicity as a key variable within the national data set for COVID-19;
• Engage with various partners to undertake specialized surveys to enhance surveillance activities in order to gain insight into the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19, and the pandemic response on key populations of interest, including racialized populations; and
• Coordinate with CIHR on efforts to facilitate research activities related to the burden and impact of COVID-19 among racialized and marginalized communities, to further enhance and expand the knowledge base.

Throughout this work, we will continue to prioritize consultation and engagement with Black Canadians and other racialized communities to inform appropriate data collection, analysis and dissemination approaches that respect privacy and avoid stigmatization and other potential harms of race-based data collection.

PHAC, Health Canada, and Statistics Canada are exploring opportunities to increase understanding of the intersection of health and social determinants in the context of the pandemic. In September 2020, PHAC released a new resource entitled “Social determinants and inequities in health for Black Canadians: A Snapshot”. The Snapshot reports national data on inequalities in health outcomes and determinants of health for Black Canadians, and highlights how anti-Black racism and systemic discrimination are key drivers of health and social inequities faced by diverse Black Canadian communities.

• Our Government recognizes the significant and unique challenges faced by Black Canadians, including anti-Black racism and its significant impacts on mental health.
• In 2018, the Public Health Agency of Canada launched the Promoting Health Equity: Mental Health of Black Canadians Fund. With a budget of $10 million, the fund supports 23 community-based projects across Canada to generate culturally focused knowledge and evidence.
• Budget 2021 committed further investments in mental health promotion and mental illness prevention for those most affected by COVID-19. With these investments, the Public Health Agency of Canada launched a targeted Call for Proposals in August 2021 to previous applicants who did not receive funding from the over-subscribed Mental Health of Black Canadians Fund.
• The results of this process will support new community-based projects that will continue to take into account the unique and diverse needs of Black Canadians throughout the pandemic and as part of Canada’s recovery.
• Budget 2022 provided $3.7 million over four years to support Black-led engagement, design, and implementation of a Mental Health Fund for Black federal public servants.