The west coast continues to be marked by unprecedented rates of addiction and overdoses. Violent crime rates have risen in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and other Canadian cities. More Canadians than ever before are contemplating the decision to end their own lives.
Three years ago, Canadians were enjoying the final days of pre-lockdown life. Only the Canadians who frequented the World or Global Affairs sections of their newspapers were aware of the curious epidemiological events unfolding in Italy and China — both comfortably distant from Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. What we did not know was that each of us were enjoying “the last time” — the last time meeting with colleagues, hitting the gym before dinner, sharing a meal with friends and family, or attending a house of worship. Many were enjoying the last time they would make ends meet, have a family or make the decision to avoid destructive substances.
In March of 2020, for the last time, Canadians would be permitted to enjoy the kinds of social, economic and medical structures that had been necessary for the enjoyment of mental health and wellbeing. Three years ago, Canadians began to encounter the installation of some of the most stringent and oppressive non-pharmaceutical interventions in the world.
These interventions were not a weekend’s inconvenience or a temporary intrusion. They were a many-years-long experiment on just how many social, physical, and financial supports could be kicked out from beneath human beings while making them believe that it was in their best interest to live vulnerably and alone.
With more of the pandemic behind us than before us, we have a chance to regard lockdowns, vaccine passports, and travel restrictions as an object of historical analysis and not just as a lived experience. We are, sadly, forgetting that lived experience, or we are being encouraged to forget it.
Canadian governments and their government-funded legacy media organizations are quietly reframing our lived experiences; we are being asked to gloss over the immense human suffering that was caused by a new, radical experiment in government interventions, and the most vulnerable are the ones who stand to lose the most thereby. We are forgetting, or we are being made to forget.
Why remember the study that found, during the fall of 2020, that 58 percent of Canadians aged 18-29 reported having unmet mental health needs, with higher incidence rates being reported by men, those who had lost income due to pandemic restrictions, those living in rural areas and those who had experienced ethno-racial discrimination?
Specific marginalized and vulnerable social groups experienced disproportionate mental health and socio-economic impacts from lockdown restrictions, including those with pre-existing mental health disorders and disabilities, homeless people, those at risk of domestic violence or addiction, low-income families, and minority groups, such as First Nations and immigrant communities, according to another study. Forty percent of those with disabilities or chronic health conditions reported increased anxiety and stress, according to another study.
Why remember the study that showed that different classes of Canadians experienced pandemic restrictions differently?
Some benefited from the disruption to their normal routines, spending more time with family and even gaining financially; other groups suffered disproportionately, especially racial and ethnic minorities, the unemployed, those experiencing family conflict, truckers and other essential workers, and those with pre-existing disabilities and mental health conditions.
Politicians, teachers, social workers and government employees (federal, provincial, municipal) did not face a loss of livelihood, let alone bankruptcy or the loss of life savings that were wrapped up in small businesses. The “laptop class” of lawyers, judges, accountants, and academics were also shielded from financial hardships.
Why remember the study that found that 44 percent of parents with children under 18 reported worse mental health due to pandemic restrictions, with increased alcohol consumption, suicidal thoughts, feelings of vulnerability from physical/emotional domestic violence, and inter-family conflict.
Why recall the study that showed that 65 percent of children in Toronto during the first pandemic wave experienced deterioration in at least one mental health domain. Those suffering from depression rose from 37 percent to 56 percent; anxiety rose from 31 percent to 50 percent; irritability rose from 40 percent to 66 percent; attention problems rose from 40 percent to 56 percent; hyperactivity more than doubled from 23 percent to 56 percent; and obsessions/compulsions increased from 13 percent to 30 percent.
Governments are not in the business of remembering their shortcomings, especially when those shortcomings most impacted the vulnerable and oppressed. Neither are government-funded “mainstream” media organizations. Marsha Lederman and Erin Anderssen write in the Globe and Mail that, according to a new study from the British Medical Journal, government responses to Covid did not have a big impact on the mental health of most people.
Reflecting on her own mental health experiences throughout the pandemic, Lederman writes, “I actually told a friend last week that there were things I missed about that time: Not being overscheduled, not rushing home for work in a panic trying to figure out dinner, spending nearly 24/7 with my kid and cat.”
Of course, neither Anderssen nor Lederman point out that the analysis they cite qualifies findings with the following: “There were few robust studies with vulnerable groups, however, and it is possible that some population groups experience mental health issues that differ from those of the general population or from other groups.” If the study had included an analysis of how government intervention measures had impacted vulnerable Canadians, it might have found that most vulnerable Canadians were under-scheduled, had no work from which to rush home, or had no quiet and peaceful family life to enjoy.
While Canadians are being told by the likes of Anderssen, Lederman, and their governments that mental health was, after all, “no big deal” during the pandemic, Canadian provinces are now spending more on mental health services than ever before, are requesting mental health services for children and youths more than ever before, and are burying more of our young than ever before.
Hindsight doesn’t have to be 20/20. An accurate and informed understanding of our own history is not the prize of “being” or of “turning around one’s neck.” We must choose to really see the suffering in the world, and we must determine to make the future different for them and with them.
