Vaughan MPP Michael Tibollo calls new post as Ontario minister for mental health a ‘gift’

Tibollo says Premier Doug Ford was ‘smart’ when he picked him as for this new post

Yorkregion.com
July 4, 2019
Dina Al-Shibeeb

While Premier Doug Ford has previously defended his decision to privatize the sale of beer away from government monopoly to boost profits, he created the first portfolio in Ontario for the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addiction after his June cabinet shuffle.

The shuffle saw former Culture Minister Michael Tibollo, who is behind the initiative to allow doctors to give “social prescription” instead of pills by giving people suffering from depression, loneliness or anxiety a free pass to the Royal Ontario Museum for example, to be the head of the newly minted position in the province.

“It’s like they handed me the best gift they could have given,” said Tibollo who is also the MPP for Vaughan-Woodbridge.

“I am the first person to be named minister of mental health response for mental health and addictions. It’s a huge honour and it’s a huge challenge,” said Tibollo, already a certified addiction counsellor.

The MPP is completing his third year of his doctorate in clinical psychology at the private University of Southern California. He described how he has long “lobbied” from “day one” to “make sure that mental health and addiction is addressed by our government.”

“I came to government not interested in running as a politician, I was very happy practising law. I worked in an addiction centre and worked with kids that suffer from addiction.”

His passion toward the issue has also trickled down in effect in Alberta.

“I don’t talk about this very often, I had the opportunity to speak to Jason Kenny, the now premier of Alberta, and he created a ministry of mental health and addiction.”

In late April, Kenny created new ministries including one dedicated to eliminating “red tape” for businesses, one dedicated to natural gas, and one to mental health and addictions.

Asked if a similar conversation has taken place between him and Ford, who also recently created a ministry to remove “red tape” for businesses, Tibollo said, ““I wanted to have that conversation with Doug Ford but Doug Ford is a lot smarter than I am because he figured it out.”

“He made me the minister because he knows my background,” he said. “So I am not going to disappoint him, I am not going to disappoint my province.”

Before his tenure as tourism portfolio, Tibollo was the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services from June to November last year.

“I remember when I was the minister in charge of policing and correctional services, one of the tenets that I used to always say to the police force is to go the Ministry of Health and talk to them about the needs that you have,” he said.

First responders such as police offers, firefighters and paramedics “have tremendous responsibilities and some suffer from PTSD from you know, just the trauma.”

He added, “I was saying to my agencies at the time you have to go to the Ministry of Health, because they have funding $3.8 billion, they have funding, probably the only ministry that has funding to help in these situations.”

“I went from the guy talking about going to the Ministry of Health Centre being the guy who’s going to write the cheques, monitor ... so it landed right into my life.”

Tibollo said he is still formulating his plan, but he will prioritize police mental health and safety, as well as linking police officers to youth in hopes of “inspiring” these young Canadians.

He said a big percentage of youth suffer from mental health issues, depression, anxiety, anger and there needs to be “preventive” action plan.