Youth mental health crisis fuelling addictions epidemic: Tibollo

Ontario’s associate minister of mental health and addictions says the best way to curb the number of people entering the ground floor of the opioid epidemic is to better treat youth mental health problems.

Michael Tibollo, who is the Ontario PC Candidate for Vaughan—Woodbridge for the upcoming provincial election, said record numbers of young people are suffering from anxiety, depression and trauma.

“When you don’t have a system that’s working for mental health,” Tibollo said in a recent interview, “then you will have an increase in addictions, because in 99.99 per cent of the cases, the addiction is a symptom of an underlying mental health issue that’s gone unaddressed.”

Tibollo, who has held his current portfolio since June 2019, made his comments on the eve of the provincial election, and defended his government’s approach to what he contends are the related crises of youth mental health and addiction.

A lawyer, Tibollo is also a certified addictions counsellor who spent 10 years as a volunteer at a Vaughan residential treatment program, the Caritas School of Life. He recently completed a PhD in clinical psychology with a focus on addictions and concurrent disorders.

In his experience as a counsellor, Tibollo said, the vast majority of people he met suffered addictions because of their attempts to self-medicate pain, depression or anxiety.

Tibollo said he entered government after a 30-year law career because he was convinced of the need to improve mental health services.

The provincial government, he said, is determined to curtail the number of people turning to street drugs by expanding the early treatment of youth mental health.

To that end, he said, the province has expanded the network of youth wellness hubs – there are now 27 – designed to address gaps in youth mental health services and substance abuse treatment. The hubs, for young people aged 12 to 25, work with local organizations to offer mental health care, addiction treatment, primary medical care, housing, employment and other services.

The hubs — there’s one in Rockland, Ont. — have connected more 65,000 youth and their families to needed services.

That success, Tibollo contends, has helped to stabilize the number of emergency department visits by people seeking help with mental health and addictions in Ontario.

Statistics produced by the Canadian Institute for Health Information show the rate has flattened in Ontario during the past four years.

Social media, the COVID-19 pandemic and various kinds of trauma, he said, have added to the mental health burden of young people.

During the first two waves of the pandemic, opioid-related deaths in Ontario surged by 79 per cent, according to Public Health Ontario.

In response, Tibollo said, the province invested $90 million over three years in the Addictions Recovery Fund to expand addiction treatment. It has opened 396 new treatment beds, Tibollo said, and helped build what he calls an “off-ramp” for thousands of people with addictions.

“We want to ensure that we’re not building carousels or merry-go-rounds, that we’re building continuums of care with an off-ramp — that’s what is going to make the difference for addictions and for mental health,” he said.

Tibollo suggested supervised consumption sites were originally sold to the government as an important gateway to addictions treatment. The argument, he said, was that people who came to inject at supervised consumption sites would develop trust with the staff, and ultimately be directed to treatment.

“I don’t think that purpose has ever been successful,” he said.

Rob Boyd, chief executive officer of Ottawa Inner City Health, a non-profit agency that operates Ottawa’s busiest safe consumption site, said The Trailer referred 189 clients to substance abuse treatment programs in 2024.

It’s unfair to judge supervised consumption sites on earlier numbers, he said, because the treatment system had so little capacity in previous years, and often made it difficult for the most marginalized people to access care.

The province has announced it is closing 10 supervised consumption sites in Ontario in 2024 because of their proximity to schools and daycares, including one at Somerset West Community Health Centre.

The Progressive Conservative government has also said it will invest $527 million in 27 Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs across the province, including two in Ottawa.

Tibollo says he believes compassionate care demands that addicts “be met where they are,” but not kept in the same unhappy place.

“I ask anyone who keeps who tells me that consumption and treatment sites are good, I always ask them the same question: ‘If it was your kid and you were you knew that the government was keeping them there, keeping them alive, but just barely, is it really alive?

“Or should that government be doing something to make sure that all the resources, all the stops are unplugged, to give that person access to the care they need? Because I know they will get to the other side if we give them the opportunity.”

Boyd, however, contends it’s wrong to pit harm reduction programs, such as safe consumption, against conventional drug treatment programs. He called it a false dichotomy.

“Clinicians on the ground know that we need both,” he said.

In many cases, Boyd said, conventional drug treatment only works once a client has gained stability through programs such as safer supply and opioid agonist therapy (OAT), and through housing and employment.

“I want our clients to have access to traditional substance use treatment if they want it, but we need to establish the foundations for success first,” he said. “To send them to treatment and return them to a life of homelessness and disconnection is demoralizing, life-threatening and a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Andrew Duffy is a National Newspaper Award-winning reporter and long-form feature writer based in Ottawa. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe