Todayville Edmonton
  • Edmonton
  • Alberta
  • Topics
    • Business
      • Local Business
    • Community
    • Energy
    • News
  • Register
  • Login
  • Our Network
    • Todayville Red Deer
    • Todayville Calgary
Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]
Todayville Edmonton Todayville Edmonton

Todayville Edmonton

Mental Health, MAID, and Governance in Trudeau’s Canada

  • Edmonton
    • Edmonton Police Service
  • Alberta
  • Opinion
  • Energy
  • Business
  • Community
  • Topics
    • Arts & Entertainment
      • Local Entertainment
      • Food and Dining
    • Crime
    • Lifestyle
    • News
    • Podcasts
    • Sports
      • Local Sports
      • Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum
    • Travel
  • Contact
  • Register
  • Login

Mental Health

Mental Health, MAID, and Governance in Trudeau’s Canada

Todayville

Published

2 years ago

6 minute read

DAN KNIGHT

SEP 28

 The Opposition with Dan Knight

A Critical Examination of Governance, Ethical Implications, and the Search for Compassionate Solutions in a Nation in Crisis

The mental health crisis in Canada, deepened and exacerbated under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership, has laid bare the stark realities and the fundamental cracks in our national mental health support structures. The haunting statistics released by the Angus Reid Institute have catapulted this crisis to the forefront of national discourse, but it seems that the ramifications extend far beyond mere numbers. Approximately 80% of Canadians are grappling with the inadequate availability of mental health resources, and the governmental response, or lack thereof, has amplified this concern.

Under Trudeau’s regime, the pervasive decline in mental health has not only been met with superficial commitments but has also seen the advancement of policies that many argue are an affront to the sanctity of life and individual liberty, namely, the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) legislation.

The Trudeau administration, amidst the throes of a profound mental health crisis, had pledged a seemingly substantial $4.5 billion over five years to address mental health care during the 2021 federal election. However, the tangible execution of this commitment remains elusive, with the funds ostensibly being absorbed into broader health care allocations. A dire need, once seemingly acknowledged, now seemingly diluted in priorities.

It’s in this same disconcerting timeframe that the contentious discussions around MAID have intensified. The proposed legislative modifications seek to expand the eligibility criteria to include individuals whose sole medical condition is a mental illness. This proposition has resulted in a fierce national debate and has amplified concerns over the values and the ethical compass guiding our nation’s leadership.

While the inception of MAID in 2016 found support among 64% of Canadians, the broadening of its scope to include mental illnesses has sparked widespread hesitation and reflection on its ethical implications. A mere 28% of Canadians support allowing those with only a mental illness to seek MAID. This shift in public sentiment is indicative of a collective realization of the complex moral, ethical, and societal implications of such a policy in a nation already strained by a lack of mental health support.

There’s an unsettling correlation between the difficulties in accessing mental health care and the support for the expansion of MAID. Two in five Canadians who’ve encountered barriers in accessing mental health care express support for the inclusion of mental illnesses in MAID eligibility. This correlation rings alarm bells about the level of desperation and despair fueled by inadequate mental health resources and support.

The MAID legislation, particularly its proposed expansion, is symptomatic of a deeper, more entrenched disregard for life and liberty. The policies and legislation emanating from Trudeau’s administration seem to foster an environment where the value of life is underplayed, and individual freedoms are undervalued. Rather than addressing the root causes and formulating holistic, compassionate solutions for mental health struggles, the government seems poised to offer an expedited escape route, overlooking the sanctity of life and the intrinsic rights of the individuals.

The urgency to address mental health challenges, especially those disproportionately affecting women, young adults, and lower-income households, is paramount. It requires genuine, sustained commitments and actions, far removed from mere electoral promises and rhetoric. The dialogue surrounding MAID, although crucial, risks overshadowing the fundamental issues at hand – the acute need for enhanced, accessible mental health care resources and a governmental ethos that values and preserves life and liberty.

In light of these pivotal concerns, this beckons a grave question to us all: Is this truly the Canada we desire? A Canada where, when faced with life’s vicissitudes, the solution provided by the government is simply to opt for MAID? Or do we yearn for a Canada that embodies hope, a belief that circumstances can, and will, improve? When 2025 arrives, the bell will indeed toll for Justin Trudeau and his Liberal compatriots, and we, as staunch Canadians, will need to rise to the occasion and answer this question. It’s a query not merely about policies or governance but about the very soul and essence of our great nation.

Subscribe to The Opposition with Dan Knight

Launched 4 months ago

I’m an independent Canadian journalist exposing corruption, delivering unfiltered truths and untold stories. Join me on Substack for fearless reporting that goes beyond headlines

 

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Print
Related Topics:
Up Next

1 Million March 4 Children announces second event Saturday, Oct 21 – How should we feel about this?

Don't Miss

Standing Ovation for a Nazi – Federal government creates international outrage by honouring WWII Nazi SS soldier

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
Business / 5 hours ago

Most Canadians say retaliatory tariffs on American goods contribute to raising the price of essential goods at home

Alberta / 6 hours ago

Cross-Canada NGL corridor will stretch from B.C. to Ontario

Business / 6 hours ago

B.C. premier wants a private pipeline—here’s how you make that happen

Addictions

More young men want to restrict pornography: survey

Published on July 11, 2025

By

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Andreas Wailzer

Nearly 64% of American men now believe online pornography should be more difficult to access, with even higher numbers of women saying the same thing.

A new survey has shown that an increasing number of young men want more restrictions on online pornography.

According to a survey by the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life, nearly 7 in 10 (69 percent) of Americans support the idea of making online pornography less accessible. In 2013, 65 percent expressed support for policies restricting internet pornography.

The most substantial increase in the support for restrictive measures on pornography could be observed in young men (age 18-24). In 2013, about half of young men favored restrictions, while 40 percent actively opposed such policies. In 2025, 64 percent of men believe accessing online pornography should be made more difficult.

The largest support for restriction on internet pornography overall could be measured among older men (65+), where 73 percent favored restrictions. An even larger percentage of women in each age group supported making online pornography less accessible. Seventy-two percent of young women (age 18-24) favored restriction, while 87 percent of women 55 years or older expressed support for less accessibility of internet pornography.

Viewing pornography is highly addictive and can lead to serious health problems. Studies have shown that children often have their first encounter with pornography at around 12 years old, with boys having a lower average age of about 10-11, and some encountering online pornography as young as 8. Studies have also shown that viewing pornography regularly rewires humans brains and that children, adolescents, and younger men are especially at risk for becoming addicted to online pornography.

According to Gary Wilson’s landmark book on the matter, “Your Brain on Porn,” pornography addiction frequently leads to problems like destruction of genuine intimate relationships, difficulty forming and maintaining real bonds in relationship, depression, social anxiety, as well as reduction of gray matter, leading to desensitization and diminished pleasure from everyday activities among many others.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Print
Continue Reading

Addictions

Can addiction be predicted—and prevented?

Published on July 11, 2025

By

Todayville

By Alexandra Keeler

These four personality traits are predictive of addiction. A new program is using this knowledge to prevent addiction from ever developing

In classrooms across Canada, addiction prevention is getting personal.

Instead of warning students about the dangers of drugs, a program called PreVenture teaches students about themselves — and it’s working.

Developed by Canadian clinical psychologist Patricia Conrod, PreVenture helps young people recognize how traits like risk-taking or negative thinking shape their reactions to stress.

“When you intervene around these traits and help people learn new cognitive behavioural strategies to manage these traits, you are able to reduce their substance use,” said Conrod, who is also a professor at the Université de Montréal.

By tailoring addiction prevention strategies to individual personality profiles, the program is changing how we think about addiction — from something we react to, to something we might stop before it starts.

And now, scientists say the potential for early intervention is going even deeper — down to our genes.

Personality and addiction

PreVenture is a personality-targeted prevention program that helps young people understand and manage traits linked to a higher propensity for future substance use.

The program focuses on four core traits — anxiety sensitivity, sensation seeking, impulsivity and hopelessness — that shape how individuals experience the world and respond to stress, social situations and emotional challenges.

“They don’t only predict who’s at risk,” said Conrod in an interview with Canadian Affairs. “They predict what you’re at risk for with quite a lot of specificity.”

Anxiety sensitivity shows up in people who feel overwhelmed by physical symptoms like a racing heart or dizziness. People with this trait may ultimately turn to alcohol, benzodiazepines such as Xanax, or opioids to calm their bodies.

Sensation seeking is characterized by a desire for excitement and novel experiences. This trait is associated with a higher likelihood of being drawn to substances like cannabis, MDMA, psilocybin or other hallucinogens.

“[Cannabis] alters their perceptual experiences, and so makes things feel more novel,” said Conrod.

Sensation seeking is also associated with binge drinking or use of stimulants such as cocaine.

The trait of impulsivity involves difficulty controlling urges and delaying gratification. This trait is associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in risky behaviours and an increased risk of addiction to a broad range of substances.

“Young people with attentional problems and a core difficulty with response inhibition have a hard time putting a stop on a behaviour once they’ve initiated it,” said Conrod.

Finally, the trait of hopelessness is tied to a pessimistic, self-critical mindset. People with this trait often expect rejection or assume others are hostile, so they may use alcohol or opioids to dull emotional pain.

“We call it negative attributional style,” said Conrod. “They have come to believe that the world is against them, and they need to protect themselves.”

These traits also cluster into two broader categories — internalizing and externalizing.

Anxiety sensitivity and hopelessness direct distress inward, while sensation seeking and impulsivity are characterized by outward disinhibition.

“These traits change your perception,” said Conrod. “You see the world differently through these traits.”

Conrod also notes that these traits appear across cultures, making targeted addiction prevention broadly applicable.

Personality-based prevention

Unlike most one-size-fits-all drug prevention programs, PreVenture tailors its prevention strategies for each individual trait category to reduce substance use risk.

The program uses a brief personality assessment tool to identify students’ dominant traits. It then delivers cognitive-behavioural strategies to help users manage stress, emotions and risky behaviours associated with them.

Recreation of the personality assessment tool based on the substance use risk profile scale — a scale measuring traits linked to reinforcement-specific substance use profiles. | Alexandra Keeler

Students learn to recognize how their dominant trait influences their thoughts and reactions — and how to shift those patterns in healthier directions.

“We’re trying to raise awareness to young people about how these traits are influencing their automatic thinking,” said Conrod. “You’re having them be a little more critical of their thoughts.”

Hopelessness is addressed by teaching strategies to challenge depressive thoughts; those high in sensation seeking explore safer ways to satisfy their need for stimulation; anxiety sensitivity is managed through calming techniques; and impulsivity is reduced by practicing pausing before acting.

Crucially, the program emphasizes the strengths of each trait as well.

“We try to present [traits] in a more positive way, not just a negative way,” said Sherry Stewart, a clinical psychologist at Dalhousie University who collaborates with Conrod.

“Your personality gets you into trouble — certainly, we discuss that — but also, what are the strengths of your personality?”

While a main goal of the program is preventing substance use disorders, the program barely discusses substances.

“You don’t really have to talk about substances very much,” said Conrod. “You talk more about how you’re managing the trait, and it has this direct impact on someone’s motivation to use, as well as how severely they experience mental health symptoms.”

The workshops make it clear, however, that while substances may offer temporary relief, they often worsen the very symptoms participants are trying to manage.

Subscribe for free to get BTN’s latest news and analysis – or donate to our investigative journalism fund.

Break The Needle provides news and analysis on addiction and crime in Canada.

Subscribe to Break The Needle

The genetic angle

Catherine Brownstein, a Harvard Medical School professor and geneticist at Boston Children’s Hospital, says genetic factors also help explain why some people are more vulnerable to addiction.

“A lot of personality is genetic,” she said in an interview with Canadian Affairs.

Her research has identified 47 locations in human DNA that affect brain development and shape personality traits.

While substance use risk cannot yet be detected genetically, certain gene variants — like SHANK3, NRXN1 and CRY1 — are linked to psychiatric disorders that often co-occur with substance use, including ADHD and schizophrenia.

Brownstein also says genetic variations influence pain perception.

Some variants increase pain sensitivity, while others eliminate it altogether. One such gene, SCN9A, may make individuals more likely to seek opioids for relief.

“If you’re in pain all the time, you want it to stop, and opioids are effective,” said Brownstein.

While we cannot yet predict addiction risk from genetics alone, Brownstein says she thinks genetic screening combined with psychological profiling could one day personalize prevention even further.

Expansion and challenges

Conrod’s personality-targeted intervention program, PreVenture, has proven highly effective.

A five-year study published in January found that students who participated in PreVenture workshops were 23 to 80 per cent less likely to develop substance use disorders by Grade 11.

Stewart says that the concept of PreVenture began with adults with substance use disorders, but research suggests earlier intervention can alter life trajectories. That insight has driven PreVenture’s expansion to younger age groups.

Conrod’s team delivers PreVenture to middle and high school students, UniVenture to university students and OpiVenture to adults in treatment for opioid dependence.

PreVenture has been implemented in schools across the U.S. and Canada, including in B.C., Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Five Canadian universities are participating in the UniVenture study.

However, currently, Canada’s flagship youth prevention strategy is based on the Icelandic Prevention Model — a 1990s framework that aims to reduce youth substance use by focusing on environmental factors such as family, school and peer influence.

While the Icelandic Prevention Model has shown success in Iceland, it has serious limitations. It lacks a mental health component, does not specifically address opioid use and has demonstrated mixed results by gender.

Despite strong evidence for personality-targeted prevention, programs like PreVenture remain underused.

Conrod says education systems often default to less effective, generic methods like one-off guest speakers. She also cites staffing shortages and burnout in schools, along with insufficient mental health services, as major barriers to implementing a new program.

Still, momentum is building.

B.C. has aligned their prevention services with the PreVenture model. And organizations such as the youth wellness networks Foundry B.C. and Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario are offering the program and expanding its reach.

Conrod believes the power of the program lies in helping young people feel seen and understood.

“It’s really important that a young person is provided with the space and focus to recognize what’s unique about [their] particular trait,” she said.

“Recognize that there are other people in the world that also think this way [and tell them] you’re not going crazy.”


This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.


Launched a year ago
Break The Needle provides news and analysis on addiction and crime in Canada.

Subscribe to Break The Needle

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Print
Continue Reading
  • Most Popular This Week!
Carbon Tax7 days ago

Canada’s Carbon Tax Is A Disaster For Our Economy And Oil Industry

Daily Caller7 days ago

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Resets The Energy Policy Playing Field

Business6 days ago

The Digital Services Tax Q&A: “It was going to be complicated and messy”

Disaster7 days ago

Texas flood kills 43 including children at Christian camp

Alberta6 days ago

Alberta Next: Immigration

International6 days ago

Elon Musk forms America Party after split with Trump

Business5 days ago

Carney’s new agenda faces old Canadian problems

Trending

  • Alberta2 days ago

    Alberta school boards required to meet new standards for school library materials with regard to sexual content

  • Environment2 days ago

    EPA releases report on chemtrails, climate manipulation

  • Alberta2 days ago

    Fourteen regional advisory councils will shape health care planning and delivery in Alberta

  • Crime2 days ago

    Sweeping Boston Indictment Points to Vast Chinese Narco-Smuggling and Illegal Alien Labor Plot via Mexican Border

  • Business1 day ago

    CBC six-figure salaries soar

  • Business2 days ago

    UN’s ‘Plastics Treaty’ Sports A Junk Science Wrapper

  • Addictions1 day ago

    Can addiction be predicted—and prevented?

  • Addictions1 day ago

    More young men want to restrict pornography: survey

Todayville Edmonton
  • Edmonton
  • Alberta
  • Topics
    • Business
      • Local Business
    • Community
    • Energy
    • News
  • Register
  • Login
  • Our Network
    • Todayville Red Deer
    • Todayville Calgary

Copyright © 2025. Created by Todayville Edmonton Inc.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
X