My mental-health journey: from sister to social worker to minister

My path to social work began at age 13, when my brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The stigma was powerful. Now, as health minister, I’m heartened to know that today my brother’s diagnosis would be seen very differently. Progress is possible.

In the past 30 years, Canada has gone from the federal health minister thinking mental health wasn’t his problem to the health minister being a former mental health counsellor, writes Ginette Petitpas Taylor, the latter.The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY HEALTH MINISTER GINETTE PETITPAS TAYLOR

October 3, 2018

More than two decades ago, a concerned citizen contacted Canada’s minister of health. Worried about the scant resources dedicated to mental health, he petitioned the minister for action. The minister declined—not because he disagreed, but because as health minister, mental health was “not his ...

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