At the OITP Symposium, The Honourable Sharon Burey, Pediatrician and Canadian senator, spoke about the urgency of Canada's child health crisis, noting that Canada ranks 19th out of 36 high-income countries on UNICEF’s measure for child well-being. Senator Burey emphasized that fragmented systems, long wait times, and difficulty accessing services affect real lives daily and recounted some of her experiences of seeing children struggling with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation over 30 years of pediatric practice and the systemic failure to treat these issues as immediately as physical ailments. She noted the financial toll of inaction, referencing a Conference Board of Canada report that estimates treating just one cohort of 10 year olds for anxiety and depression could save $1 trillion over their lifetimes.
From Clinician to Advocate
The systemic gaps Senator Burey witnessed throughout her pediatric career propelled her beyond hospital practice. What began with the founding of ADHD Windsor grew into provincial and national leadership roles and ultimately led to her appointment to the Senate. In June 2023, she launched a Senate inquiry into mental health parity and convened a national roundtable that produced a forward‑looking reform plan emphasizing prevention, early intervention, community‑based care, strengthened federal–provincial–Indigenous collaboration, and the need to formally enshrine mental health parity in legislation. She urged Symposium attendees to embed pediatric expertise in advisory roles, deepen partnerships with schools to advance early intervention, and continue building the community‑rooted work at the heart of the OITP.
We followed up with the Senator to gain more of her perspective.
Q: What is your experience of the gaps or disconnects in the CYMH system?
Eager to unpack this multifaceted question, Senator Burey explained that many of the gaps families face stem from decades of siloed systems—health, education, and community services all operating independently rather than collaboratively. Drawing from her long clinical experience, she noted that clinicians had seen the deterioration in child and youth mental health years before the pandemic, with increasing social‑media pressure, internet addiction, and the erosion of community supports contributing to growing distress. As she put it in interview, “we got distracted… everything was siloed care,” a mindset that allowed gaps to widen and left families navigating disconnected pathways.
She emphasized that true reform requires a whole‑of‑government and whole‑of‑society approach that sees each child within the context of their family. A major concern being the lack of integrated data. Ontario has hospital‑based data, but, as she said, “we have hospital data but nothing about what happens before,” particularly in marginalized communities where stress levels are higher and access to supports is uneven. Without community‑level and intersectional data, she argued, it is impossible to intervene early or understand how children move through the system.
Q: How did ADHD Windsor respond and what lessons can be applied to OITP?
To describe how ADHD Windsor came to life, Senator Burey began by recalling a case that fundamentally shifted her approach. It involved a particularly alarming situation: a child who tried to jump out of a moving car to avoid going to school. “That shook me,” she recalled. When it later emerged that the child had a severe, undiagnosed learning disability, she saw clearly how urgently the system needed earlier identification and stronger school‑based supports. This experience ultimately pushed her beyond hospital practice and into community advocacy.
She founded ADHD Windsor as a collaborative model that brought together pediatricians, educators, psychologists, and community agencies. Families became true partners, often, as she described, “answering the questions themselves”, creating a community of learning that expanded local capacity. A pivotal shift occurred when she helped implement TeachADHD, a professional development program created at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto) that equips teachers with practical tools, early‑identification skills, evidence‑based classroom strategies, and accommodations. The program has been used across Ontario and played a key role in shifting Windsor schools away from punitive responses and toward supportive, informed approaches that improved outcomes for many students.
She reflected that the most important lesson for OITP is the power of diverse partnerships. Sustained collaboration among families, educators, clinicians, and community leaders, she explained, creates systems that grow wiser together and stay responsive to children’s evolving needs.
Q: You spoke of the need for clear legislation to achieve mental health parity in Canada. What does that look like and how are you working towards it?
Senator Burey’s vision for mental‑health parity is significantly shaped by the 2006 Kirby Report, Out of the Shadows at Last, Transforming Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction Services in Canada, one of the most influential Senate studies on mental health in Canada. Led by Senator Michael Kirby, the report called for early intervention, school‑based mental‑health clinics, community‑centered care, and stronger national coordination, recommendations that laid the groundwork for the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Many of its child and youth‑focused recommendations were never fully implemented, and addressing these longstanding gaps forms a core part of her work.
In the Senate, she convened a national roundtable of experts and individuals with lived experience including pediatric, public‑health, policy, and Indigenous leaders, to advance a modern framework for parity. The resulting recommendations emphasized prevention, early intervention, community‑based supports, and the principle that “there’s no health without mental health.” She argued that parity means ensuring every provider considers physical and mental health together and incorporating mental‑health screening, such as universal screening for maternal depression, into routine care.
Throughout the discussion, she consistently returned to one idea: children represent “100 percent of our future,” and building a system worthy of them is not optional but is the measure of a society’s priorities. While acknowledging the work is long‑term and complex, she believes progress is underway. Expanding school and community‑based clinics, addressing inequitable access, improving data systems, and strengthening federal‑provincial‑Indigenous collaboration are all essential steps in building a sustainable, equitable mental‑health system for Canadian families.
