The Official Opposition fully supports the interim recommendations made by the Child and Youth Advocate to improve suicide prevention and mental health services for young people in the New Brunswick.

“This is an opportunity for the Higgs government to prove that they truly want to improve mental health services in New Brunswick. We urge the Higgs government to listen to the experts and immediately begin the implementation of the recommendations identified in the Child and Youth Advocate’s interim report,” says Rob McKee, MLA for Moncton-Center and Liberal spokesperson for mental health. “My motion urging the Higgs Government to accelerate the timeline for the implementation of all the measures contained in the action plan from 5 years to 3 years, immediately enhance the funding for mental health services to achieve this objective and establish the position of Mental Health Advocate without delay was unanimously passed in the Legislative Assembly a few weeks ago. We hope to see these changes implemented soon as well.”

In November 2020, the Higgs government cut the funding to The Link program, a province wide school mental health support program to students.

“When the Higgs government made the terrible decision to cancel The Link program, we immediately called on government to reverse it as we knew the pandemic would have a very negative impact on students’ mental health” says Robert Gauvin, Official Opposition critic for Social Development. “It is completely unacceptable to cut mental health services while we are seeing a mental health crisis in the province and we are very pleased to see bringing The Link program back is part of the recommendations announced today.”