Question Period Note: Mental Wellness and Substance Use

N.A.

• The Government of Canada is investing in mental wellness services for First Nations and Inuit so that they can be well and thrive.

• These investments include approximately $768 million in 2025-26 to improve the availability, accessibility, quality and effectiveness of comprehensive mental wellness services for Indigenous communities.

• Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) will continue to work closely with Indigenous partners to support Indigenous-led, distinctions-based, trauma-informed, evidence-based and culturally-safe approaches to improve the delivery of mental wellness services.

Indigenous populations are more likely to experience inequities in mental wellness driven by a variety of factors such as intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonization, racism and discrimination, and inequities in the social determinants of health such as culture, language, self-determination, education, food insecurity, housing among others. Indigenous leaders continue to highlight urgent and growing mental wellness needs and emergencies in communities.
The Government of Canada has responded to mental wellness needs and emergencies in Indigenous communities through investments guided by close collaboration with Indigenous partners and Indigenous-led strategies such as the First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum Framework, Honoring Our Strengths, the National Inuit Suicide Prevention Strategy, and We Matter’s Pathfinding Towards a Flourishing Future: Awareness and Advocacy Guide.

Indigenous Services Canada is improving the availability, accessibility, quality, and effectiveness of First Nations and Inuit-led, culturally-grounded, and community-driven mental wellness services and supports with an approximate annual investment of $768 million (2025-2626). To meet the immediate and unique mental wellness needs of Indigenous communities, Indigenous Services Canada provides flexible funding for culturally-relevant mental wellness promotion, on-the-land initiatives, suicide prevention, life promotion, crisis response, and substance use treatment and prevention.

If pressed on substance use and opioid overdose and toxic drug crisis

• Substance use harms and deaths are having devastating impacts on individuals, families and communities.

• The Government of Canada is investing in a number of Indigenous mental wellness services, including support for Indigenous-led, community-based, and culturally relevant substance use prevention, reduction of harms, treatment, and recovery services.

• Indigenous Services Canada will continue to work closely with Indigenous partners to support their efforts to address the substance use and opioid overdose and toxic drug crisis with evidence-based and culturally relevant approaches. If pressed on the availability of naloxone
• The Government of Canada supports the use of naloxone as a life-saving, fast-acting medication used to temporarily reverse the effects of opioid overdoses.
• Naloxone remains accessible under provincial and territorial health programs, and is an eligible expense under federally funded Mental Wellness Program contribution agreements. If pressed on the disproportionate impact of the overdose crisis on Indigenous People
• The overdose crisis has disproportionately impacted Indigenous communities, with data from some provinces showing that Indigenous people are between five to eight times more likely to die of an overdose.
• We are supporting a holistic approach to respond to Canada’s ongoing opioid overdose and toxic drug crisis.
• We will continue to improve the availability, accessibility, quality and effectiveness of a full spectrum of evidence-based and culturally relevant substance use services in First Nations and Inuit communities. If pressed on suicide prevention

• When someone dies by suicide, the impacts on family, loved ones, friends and community are devastating and long-lasting.

• The Government of Canada is investing in Indigenous-led life promotion and suicide prevention that is culturally-relevant, trauma-informed, and community-based.

• Suicide rates among Indigenous youth are up to 30 times higher than for the non-Indigenous populations. We can and will do better to support and elevate Indigenous youth voices and leadership in promoting life and reducing suicide risks.