Canadian National Strategy for Men’s Mental Health

Canadian National Strategy for Men’s Mental Health

Recommendations from the Canadian Centre for Men and Families (CCMF)

Note: This document is currently still in draft mode and is made available to assist others who are preparing their own submissions to the Federal Strategy. 

Executive Summary

The Canadian Centre for Men and Families (CCMF) is a national mental health and social services charity established in 2014, operating branches across Canada and serving over 2,000 new clients annually. CCMF serves men and boys of all backgrounds and identities, including Indigenous, racialized, newcomer, 2SLGBTQ+, rural and low-income men and boys.

We specialize in addressing the gender disparity in service access for boys and men across diverse communities and identities experiencing relationship breakdown, domestic and family abuse, social isolation, and other intersecting stressors (economic, cultural, and occupational).

Given that men account for approximately 75% of all suicide deaths in Canada, our mission is to provide gender-responsive support that mitigates this crisis. Scholarly research indicates that men in the acute phase of family separation are up to 8 times more likely to die by suicide than their female counterparts. Some groups of males, including young, Indigenous and minority males, are particularly at risk.

Our aim is to strengthen the effectiveness of the Men’s Mental Health Strategy. We will do this by referencing social determinants which account for the men’s health crisis, including the most tragic outcome of suicide. Our recommendations may introduce difficult subjects or politically challenging areas, but we do so because we believe that only by taking both a comprehensive and a deep approach can we develop an effective Strategy.

Key Recommendations

• Expansive scope: An effective men’s health strategy needs to incorporate a wide variety of areas (job sector, family courts, educational system, male identity, etc). The strategy must address interconnected systems affecting men and boys – workplaces (including high-risk and low-wage sectors), family law, education, justice, and community life, as well as evolving concepts of masculinity.
• A Men’s Health Strategy needs to be interdisciplinary, recognizing the interconnection of many issues: legal, financial and other stresses on families, family break up, parenting, domestic abuse in all its forms, and youth violence, often interact to shape men’s mental health outcomes.
• A Men’s Health strategy needs to address the intersection of many government Ministries including Health, Public Safety, WAGE, Housing, Indigenous Services, Employment and Social Development, Veterans Affairs and Justice, etc, and as such needs to engage all levels of government.
• Open inquiry approach: The Strategy must address core causes of suicide and mental health challenges without excluding politically complex or underdiscussed topics, as long as analysis is evidence-based and trauma-informed.
  Eg. Men commit suicide at 6-8 times that of women when going through family separation

• Move beyond a pure research-only focus to adequately funded and sustained evidence-informed interventions and service delivery
• Tailored programs and services for boys and men that address root causes of mental health and suicide
• Finance and support existing network of Men’s Health Centres to support the delivery of  programs and services. Scaling up the existing infrastructure with a priority for those agencies with a long history of effective services for men and boys.
• Appointment of an Associate Minister for Men’s Health (within Health Canada) 
• Move away from deficit-based loaded terms like “toxic masculinity” toward language that encourages all members of society to appreciate the reality of masculinity as positive, healthy, caring, responsible and resilient.
• GBA+ analysis should be used for all gender related funding decisions and avoid presupposing outcomes 
• CMHC funding/financing for father-led families to support emergency shelters and transitional housing
• Improve community safety by addressing the epidemic of male youth violence, in which young males are disproportionately represented as both perpetrators and victims, through prevention and early intervention programs
• Responding to the recommendations from the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime, move towards gender equality in policy and funding in the areas of domestic abuse, family violence, and human trafficking, consistent with the statistics on the gender break-down of victimization in these areas.
• Public policies that encourage active and involved fathers 

1. Specific Funding for Men’s Mental Health Services

• The Need: There is a systemic gap in services targeted at boys’ and men’ s mental health.
• Recommendation: Provide dedicated federal funding for gender-responsive psychotherapy, peer led group trauma recovery and peer support, evidence-based parenting courses for fathers, and a national 24/7 crisis hotline specifically trained in male-centric de-escalation and resource referral.
• Recommendation: Re-assess current social and health programs to ensure that they are not based on a biased understanding of gender roles.

2. Legal Navigation & Support for Male Victims of IPV

• The Need: Many men face procedural misuse of legal and bureaucratic systems in the context of relationship breakdown—the use of legal and bureaucratic systems as a tool of harassment and domestic abuse—and struggle with the high costs of supervised access or legal representation. Children’s mental health and financial welfare are directly affected by these outcomes.
• Recommendation: Fund legal clinics (modeled after the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic) dedicated to male and gender-diverse victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). This should include funding for family/criminal law navigators and subsidies for court-mandated supervised visits to ensure financial hardship does not sever the father-child bond.

3. Expansion of Dedicated Male Domestic Violence Shelters

• The Need: While Statistics Canada (2024) indicates that about 40% victims of intimate partner violence are men, DV shelter capacity is severely skewed. Although roughly 600 government funded shelters exist for women and their children, there are currently no equivalent government-funded shelters specifically for men and their children. This is about creating complementary capacity, not taking away from women’s services.
• Recommendation: Implement the recommendation of the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime by directing federal investment toward the creation of domestic violence shelters specifically for men and their children.

4. Addressing the “Educational Disconnect” for Boys

• The Need: Boys generally perform lower in the school system than girls. Some of this is  due to fewer alternatives to the academic stream for boys. This gap in performance often translates to young men who have difficulty finding well paying jobs and forming stable relationships. As a result, they are at an elevated risk of long-term social and economic marginalization. This affects boys from all backgrounds including racialised, Indigenous, rural and newcomer communities, in distinct ways. These young men are at risk of social isolation and anti-social behaviour.
• The Need: Boys are being medicated at 8 times that of girls for ADD and ADHD suggesting that schools and the medical system are treating behavior and specific male stresses created by a school system that is not designed to support their learning styles and can leave young men behind.
• The Need: Recognize that boys learn differently from girls and have a greater need to physical movement. The school system needs to adapt to evidence that male brain development proceeds on a schedule that does not duplicate that of young females.
• Recommendation: Partner with provinces and territories to revitalize technical and vocational education. We recommend a pilot program based on the German “Dual System,” creating industry-school partnerships that offer high-paying, skill-based career paths for young men.
• Recommendation: Focus on Supporting boys in languages arts and social supports where boys have traditionally underperformed girls similar to programs that support girls in STEM programs systems.
• Recommendation: Work to promote growing sectors such as health, education and social services as viable career paths for men with appropriate supports and incentives to reduce the lack of males in these professions.

5. Restorative Justice in Family Court Allegations

• The Need: Unsubstantiated or malicious allegations of abuse during custody battles create immense psychological trauma and drain court resources. When an investigation results in exoneration, the “stigma of the charge” often persists.
• Recommendation: Develop effective alternatives to the adversarial family court system that supports healthy outcomes for children that actually operate in the childrens best interest to minimize trauma. Help partners navigate relationship breakdown in ways that minimize their trauma and help them to heal.
• Recommendation: Explore restorative justice frameworks for low-risk IPV allegations within family court to prevent unnecessary criminalization. Additionally, implement a “Fast-Track Expungement” process for individuals cleared of domestic allegations to ensure their reputation and mental health are not permanently damaged.

6. Review of Mandatory Charging Policies

• The Need: Current “primary aggressor” and mandatory arrest police policies often rely purely on physical size differences in determining whom to arrest. This leads police to more likely arrest a male victim even when he is the one who called for help. This serious form of revictimization by the institution tasked with protecting all victims is penalizing and disincentivizing help-seeking by men, leading to dangerous outcomes for fathers and their children.
• Recommendation: Transition from “mandatory charging” to “evidence-based charging,” granting police the discretion to assess the full context of a domestic call rather than being forced to make an arrest when no clear threat is present.
• Recommendation: Mandating police to ensure officer training includes a better understanding of male IPV victimization to ensure established stereotypes will not be a barrier to support the male victims.

7. Presumption of Equal Shared Co-Parenting

• The Need: Lack of a stable, involved father or father-figure is a leading indicator for youth suicide, incarceration, and substance abuse. International studies (e.g., Spain, 2022) show that jurisdictions with equal shared parenting saw a ~50% drop in IPV and a significant reduction in intimate partner homicides. This is not a critique of single mothers, but a recognition that children do best when they have safe, meaningful relationships with multiple caring parents and caregivers.
• Recommendation: Reform the Divorce Act to establish a rebuttable presumption of equal shared co-parenting as being in the “best interests of the child,” except in cases where there is evidence of abuse or neglect. 
• Recommendation: Amend the Income Tax Act to remove the “female primary parent presumption” of the Canada Child Benefit, which discriminates against children on the basis of the gender of their primary parent and results in many low income families failing to access an essential subsidy. 

8. Investigating the Gender Sentencing Gap

• The Need: Data suggests that for identical offenses, all else being equal, men are more likely to be charged, convicted, and/or given longer custodial sentences than women. 
• Recommendation: Commission a federal audit of the Canadian criminal justice system to identify and rectify gender bias in sentencing and conviction rates.

9. Workplace Mental Health & Occupational Safety

• The Need: Men represent the vast majority of workplace fatalities and injuries, particularly in high-risk sectors like construction, mining, forestry, transportation, and agriculture. Men are also disproportionately represented in professions like police, firefighters, first responders and the armed forces, which are associated with high stress and burnout. These industries often lack integrated mental health support for trauma and chronic pain.
• Recommendation: Incentivize “Mental Health Safety Standards” in male-dominated trades, providing tax credits to companies that implement peer-support programs and on-site counseling tailored to blue-collar workers.

10. Support for Indigenous and Marginalized Men

• The Need: Indigenous men experience the highest rates of both suicide and incarceration in Canada. Any national strategy must address the intersection of colonial trauma and gender-specific needs.
• Recommendation: Provide “culturally specific” funding for land-based healing programs and elder-led mentorship specifically for Indigenous men and boys, ensuring these programs are designed, led and governed by Indigenous communities. run by and for their communities.

11. Longitudinal Research on Male Life Outcomes

• The Need: Much of our current policy is based on data that does not differentiate between the specific trajectories of male and female mental health.
• Recommendation: Establish a federal research fund for longitudinal studies focusing on male life outcomes, particularly the impact of father-absence, educational disengagement, and social isolation on long-term health.

12. Promoting Positive Masculinity & Media Literacy

• The Need: Currently, there is a pervasive “image gap” in Canadian media and public discourse. Men and boys are frequently portrayed through a lens of “toxicity” or incompetence (the “bumbling father” trope), while their positive contributions to families, caregiving, and community building are underrepresented. This constant negative reinforcement creates a “deficit-based” identity for young boys, leading to a sense of alienation and a reluctance to engage in social systems that they perceive as viewing them as inherently problematic. A lack of positive, diverse male role models in federally funded media contributes to a decline in male self-worth and purpose
• Recommendation: Launch a multi-departmental “Positive Masculinity Initiative” focused on shifting the cultural narrative.
• Recommendation: Incentivized Media Grants: Create a specific stream within the Canada Media Fund (CMF) for content that portrays men in diverse, positive, and non-traditional roles—specifically focusing on nurturing fatherhood, male mentorship, and emotional resilience.
• National Awareness Campaign: A federally funded “Value of Men” public service campaign to generate greater public awareness and discourse about the challenges faced by boys and men, and that celebrates the vital role men play as caregivers, educators, and community pillars, moving beyond the “provider-only” or “aggressor” archetypes. The goal is to highlight the value of men as part of healthy families and communities, complementing existing efforts to uplift women and gender-diverse people.
• Recommendation: Modernizing Media Literacy: Collaborate with provinces and territories to update school curricula on media literacy. This should include teaching students how to identify and deconstruct negative gender stereotypes directed at both men and women, ensuring boys are not taught to view their identity through a lens of inherent guilt or deficiency.
• Recommendation: Celebrating Male Excellence: Establish national awards or recognition programs for male-led grassroots initiatives that focus on mentorship, youth development, and healthy relationship building.