The Psychiatric Care Coalition of Canada
Equal
psychiatric care.
Every ER.
Every province.
The standard of care shouldn’t drop because the illness is psychiatric. We’re fixing it where it fails first: the emergency room.
Anonymous. About 10 minutes.
For patients, families and frontline staff.
The gap
6.3%*
*Provincial budget
Psychiatric care is underfunded across Canada.
That’s the average share of provincial and territorial health budgets that goes to psychiatric care. No other branch of medicine would be asked to run on this.
Source: Canadian Mental Health Association, The State of Mental Health in Canada 2024
Our mission
To make psychiatric care in Canada as equitable, well-funded and humane as the rest of medicine.
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1 in 10
01 / 03
ER reform
Equal care in every emergency department. One in ten people who visit the ER for mental health or substance use care are back four or more times in a year. Whether you walk into a general ER or a psychiatric one, in a city or a small town, the standard of care should be the same.
Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information (2024)
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3%
02 / 03
Research funding
Research on mental illness receives about 3% of federal health research investment. We’re pushing for dedicated, sustained funding for psychiatric research, on par with the rest of medicine.
Source: Canadian Journal of Psychiatry (2023), CIHR data 2016–2021
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40%
03 / 03
Humane care at the front line
Four in ten people living with a psychiatric or substance use disorder report stigma when getting healthcare. Everyone should leave an ER or psychiatric service feeling they were treated with dignity.
Source: MHCC / Léger poll (2022)
Been to a Canadian ER for psychiatric care? Take the survey.
Your ER visit is a number in a government report. We want the rest of the story. We’re asking patients, families and frontline staff, and bringing what you tell us to the people who fund psychiatric care. We’ll publish what we find in [SEASON 2027].
- Takes about 10 minutes
- Any ER visit, anywhere in Canada
- Completely anonymous
Survey FAQ
Before you start.
Everything you need to know about the survey, and what happens to your answers.
Anyone who has been in a Canadian ER for a psychiatric emergency: patients, family members and frontline staff.
Yes. We don’t collect names, email addresses or IP addresses.
They’re combined into anonymized findings and shared with the decision-makers who fund psychiatric care. No one’s individual answers are ever published.
No. Skip anything you don’t want to answer.
Because psychiatric illness is medical illness. “Mental health” has come to mean wellness. Psychiatric care is the medical treatment of serious illness, and it should be funded like the rest of medicine.
Yes. We’re bringing together psychiatrists, physicians, clinicians, researchers, hospitals and policymakers. Get in touch through the join section below.
The question we ask of every policy
Would we accept this anywhere else in medicine?
Every budget. Every wait time. Every standard of care. If the answer is no, it’s not good enough for psychiatry either.
Who we are
Built by people who know how the system works.
Meghan White has spent 17 years inside Canadian healthcare and has changed policy at every level of government, from city hall to Parliament. A four-time women’s health founder, national board executive and communications leader, she helped secure Canada’s $25 million Menstrual Equity Fund and championed the national strategy for rare disease drugs.
She is also a psychiatric patient.
She knows this system from the boardroom and from the waiting room. PCCC is built on both.
“Nobody should have to acquire an expertise in institutional failure while waiting for care. A healthcare system is a public promise. We all have a responsibility to insist that it is kept.”
Meghan White, Founder
Join the coalition
The people who know the system best should be the ones changing it.
We’re recruiting founding members now: the people inside psychiatric care and the people who fund it.
For organizations
Endorse our three priorities →Add your organization’s name in support. No membership required.