People in Waterloo-Wellington are stressed about COVID-19, convoys and now Ukraine: CMHA
CBC
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — and the feeling that it may never end — continues to cause stress and anxiety for people in Waterloo-Wellington, a new survey shows.
But that's not the only issue worrying people, says Helen Fishburn, CEO of Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo-Wellington.
"Our [call] volumes tend to follow COVID numbers, so if our COVID numbers are higher, our call volumes are higher," Fishburn told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo, adding that a spike was seen over the holidays when the Omicron wave forced many Ontarians to once again cancel holiday plans.
But on top of that, now, are feelings of stress and anxiety linked to public health protests and the impact that the war on Ukraine has on human lives.
Frishburn said last month, as the convoy protests were underway in Ottawa and across the country, they saw call volumes swell.
"We saw a lot of dark feelings emerge. We saw the division in our community and we saw people really suffering and struggling with the way many protesters were expressing their frustration and their anger," she said.
Now, the COVID-19 calls are mixed with calls about Russia invading Ukraine.
"We're also seeing a peak in our call volumes relating to the stress, worry and overall trauma relating from the war in Ukraine. We're getting a lot of people calling from our community who are really distressed about the war and the pain that that's generating across our world," she said.
A CMHA survey sampled 3,030 people aged 18 and older living in Canada between Nov. 29 and Dec. 7. The survey was representative of the adult Canadian population by age, gender, province/territory, and household income. It has a margin of error of 1.79 per cent.
The fourth report from that survey was released this week.
It found in Ontario, 64 per cent of people were worried about new variants and 56 per cent were worried about COVID-19 circulating in the population for years to come.
More than a third, 39 per cent, said their mental health has declined since the start of the pandemic.
The lead researcher for the study was Emily Jenkins, a professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia. She said the numbers also showed inequities in how different groups of people have been impacted by the pandemic.
For example, 57 per cent of people who were unemployed due to COVID-19 said their mental health had declined.
Members of CUPE Local 456, which represents city workers in Melville, Sask., have voted in favour of job action due to wage disputes and high employee turnover.
Some schools in Queens and Prince counties are starting one hour later Wednesday due to road conditions following yesterday's storm.
Edmonton's city auditor has made eight recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the city's paratransit service, saying clients who rely on the service will benefit from the changes.
Electric bus manufacturers hit hard by pandemic-era supply chain chaos could soon find themselves pummelled by a trade war.
A workshop will be held Wednesday evening to help give Windsor residents the necessary tools on how to interact with people experiencing homelessness.
Buy Canadian — that's the message being pushed across the country. But on the other end of the movement, some small business owners in Calgary who feel the pressure to pivot to Canadian products say that isn't as easy as it sounds.
Inside a community centre in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, poster board collages display photos of a young woman with a big smile on her face. She's shown with her arms wrapped around family members, being silly in selfies with friends, standing proud in a high school graduation gown.
As an outreach worker helping people with life-limiting illnesses in Thunder Bay, Ont., Julie Diner says she doesn't spend much time in the office.
A swift response by flight attendants, crews and emergency workers was among the key reasons why no one died in Monday's plane crash at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, an expert and officials say.
Health care, homelessness and the threat of U.S. tariffs were among the top issues addressed by Cambridge candidates as part of a panel discussion on CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition on Tuesday.
U.S. president Donald Trump's tariff threats and digs at Canadian sovereignty are forcing Canadian politicians of all stripes to adapt, and in Quebec, the opposition Parti Québécois is facing a particularly tough challenge.
Rough weather on Tuesday forced salvage specialists to abandon their inspection of a cargo ship that ran aground in a rocky cove along Newfoundland's west coast over the weekend.
Premier Tim Houston's government is using its supermajority in the legislature to give itself the power to fire the auditor general without cause and make reports from the office private.