City of Cambridge Mental Health and Addictions Study

Ontarians believe a dedicated stream of provincial revenue will improve mental health and addition services

Cambridge, Ontario. (August 16, 2024)— Ontarians believe a dedicated stream of provincial revenue will improve mental health and addictions services and overwhelmingly support its creation, according to a new study commissioned by the City of Cambridge. The study, which was conducted by Campaign Research, found that four out of five respondents support the Government of Ontario creating a dedicated stream of revenue that would be set aside to fund mental health and addiction services in the province. Two to one of the same respondents believe the dedicated revenue stream would be effective in improving mental health and addiction services.

“When I became mayor, one of the goals I set out to accomplish was to make a difference where it counted, to change the ever-increasing numbers of people in the throes of addiction and mental health crises; or at the very least stabilize the numbers,” said City of Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett. “We have been spinning in circles, not achieving anything while we continue to talk at people. I felt I knew what needed to be done but I wanted to hear from the people who live with this every day. As the leader of my community, I realized I needed to take it to the people and then listen carefully, so I decided to do a poll. I believe this poll captures what every government needs to know when allocating funds, which is how do we help in the best way possible. If we as leaders do this, we can change the catastrophic future of our current path.”

The study found that awareness of existing mental health and addiction services was high with 67% saying they were aware of services in their community. Respondents who resided outside the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) were more aware of existing mental health and addiction services compared to those in the GTHA.  However, only one-third of respondents said they had personally accessed these services while two-thirds said they knew someone who had.

The availability of services (54%) and cost (45%) were cited as the two primary barriers respondents believed people face when trying to access mental health and addiction services.

When asked how government should sustain the funding for mental health and addiction services, the top selections included reallocating existing funds (59%), public-private partnerships (48%) and private donations and grants (44%). Youth and adult mental health services (57%) and mental health crisis intervention services (51%) were selected as the services that should be most prioritized with the new funding.

Other key findings in the study include:

• Ontarians are split on the quality of mental health and addiction services available with 33% saying services were “excellent” or “good” and 44% saying they were “fair” or “poor.”
• Almost half of respondents (45%) believe the government needs to spend more on mental health and addiction services to address the ever-growing problems while 33% believe the overall problem was not necessarily a lack of government funding.
• Respondents were split on whether the government should create a new tax to fund mental health and addiction services with 40% supporting a new tax and 48% opposed. Respondents over 54 years of age were more likely to be opposed than younger respondents.
• Nearly half of respondents said they would support a political candidate who was willing to raise taxes to increase mental health and addiction services while 36% were opposed.
• Two to one, respondents believe that building new facilities for mental health and addiction services was necessary.
• Three out of four respondents agreed the Government of Ontario should explore partnerships with private organizations to fund mental health and addiction services.
• Seven out of ten respondents agreed that larger corporations should contribute a portion of their profits to fund mental health and addiction services.
• Two-thirds of respondents agreed that Ontario’s laws needed to change to allow families and physicians to provide mental health and addiction treatment to involuntary patients.
• Sixty-eight percent of respondents agreed that Drug Treatment Courts should be offered more widely in Ontario.

About the study

This study was conducted by Campaign Research from July 30^th 2024 to July 31^st 2024, among a sample of 2027 respondents who are residents of Ontario and are members of Maru Blue’s online panel. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of a similar size would have a margin of error of +/- 2%, 19 times out of 20.

Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

The full study can be viewed here: https://www.campaignresearch.com/single-post/mental-health-and-addictions-public-opinion-research