- Paul Ouellet

Bowie said the province already has an ombud and a child and youth advocate to hear concerns about mental health issues and hold government to account when it comes to "its promise to bolster and enhance mental health services."

"And it also has Psychiatric Patient Advocate Services, which ensures that New Brunswick's Mental Health Act is appropriately applied and that each section of the Act is respected," he wrote.

Psychiatric patient advocate services is a Department of Health office that offers advice and assistance to people detained in a psychiatric facility, and those who are involuntary patients in psychiatric facilities.

The Department of Health declined CBC's request for an interview with Health Minister Bruce Fitch and said in an email the department is "still considering" whether a mental health advocate is necessary. (CBC)

That response from the Department of Health was the first time Ouellet had heard that a mental health advocate may not be appointed.

"It is a disgrace and a lack of respect — a great lack of respect to every person in New Brunswick suffering from mental illness," Ouellet said, adding politicians have told him for years that the position is "going to happen," and "we just need to put things in place."

Ouellet said the ombud and the child and youth advocate are already busy, and the challenges for people suffering with mental illness and addiction are so great, a dedicated advocate is needed.

"Mental illness does not go away — will not go away. It's only getting worse. You have addiction, you have homelessness and you have mental illness. The problem is just getting much worse, much worse."     

Tragedy leads to addiction

Nikki Kennedy, 31, is one of many New Brunswickers Ouellet has helped to find the care they need to get better.

After struggling for eight years with an addiction to the drug known as "speed," she is convinced a permanent mental health advocate is long overdue.

Nikki Kennedy, seen here with her baby boy, Riley, didn't know how to cope when he accidentally drowned at a family barbeque. She believes all addiction is rooted in trauma, and that people deserve dedicated, one-on-one-support to recover. (Submitted by Nikki Kennedy)

The Moncton woman was a new mother when the unimaginable happened to her 17-month-old son.

"I wanted to be the best mom I could be for him, even though I was young," she said. "I really tried hard but unfortunately during a family barbecue he passed away accidentally. He drowned in my parents' pool."

Kennedy said the loss of her baby boy broke her.

"I stayed in my room for a very long time until everybody was telling me, 'You need to get up, you need to get out of the house.' But I didn't want to. I couldn't understand or comprehend how my son could be here one minute and then gone the next."

Kennedy said after the death of her son she would wake up and hear his cries, only to realize he was gone. She said it was the hardest thing she has ever been through and drugs helped her to get out of bed after the tragedy. (Submitted by Nikki Kennedy)

Kennedy turned to the powerful stimulant to cope. She said the amphetamine pills allowed her to get up and get through the day without crying. Soon, she was buying them by the hundreds and taking two or three every day.

During those years, she completed two college programs and worked, but Kennedy said her world "was caving in" and her health was deteriorating to the point that her hair was falling out "in chunks."

Advocate would be a life changer for many

Over eight years Kennedy went to detox three separate times, but without the help she needed after the seven-day stints, she always relapsed.

"Detox isn't actually a treatment centre. You don't learn how to cope with recovery or your everyday life," Kennedy explained. "Each time I would beg the nurses to allow me to stay longer, but unfortunately because of the wait list, they weren't able to let me stay."

Kennedy was offered weekly group counselling sessions, and the meeting times for Narcotics Anonymous, but said at that time she wasn't ready to share her story with a group. She asked for a long-term rehab program, but was told there were none available to her.

Nikki Kennedy believes a mental health advocate could work to eliminate the stigma around mental illness and addiction, and could have helped her to find the help she needed to cope with the loss of her son much sooner. (Vanessa Blanch/CBC)

Eventually, Kennedy's family paid nearly $10,000 for a private, 28-day residential treatment program in Nova Scotia, which was the beginning of her recovery.

When she graduated, Paul Ouellet was there. When she relapsed, he advocated for her and she finally got a weekly, one-on-one appointment with a mental health counsellor.

Kennedy went to that first appointment after an overdose scare. She said the two events combined to finally change her life.

"That made me realize, wow, I would have literally let this addiction take my life," she said. "And that's kind of where things shifted. It was the day that I had my first meeting with the counsellor."

Kennedy believes New Brunswickers need as many mental health resources as possible, and said having someone who can advocate for individuals and navigate the system "would be a life changer for a lot of people."

"For me personally, it would have changed my life. It would have. Eight years of trying and and failing and trying and failing — it's so, so discouraging. And after awhile I really thought, am I going to be an addict — like in active addiction forever? Maybe this is all I can be."

'It's desperate out there'

Myra Leger, 75, calls Paul Ouellet "an angel in man's clothes."

The Moncton grandmother and retired nurse has adult children who suffer with mental illness.

She said they grew up in an abusive home. Eventually she packed them up and went to an emergency shelter, but decades later, two of her children still struggle.

"It's desperate out there," she said of trying to find a psychiatrist after she persuaded her son to stop sleeping in his car and move to a shelter.

"I tried to get my son [a psychiatrist] a year ago, and I was informed that it's going to be six years to see him."

Leger is trying to "hang in there," and said it is Ouellet who helped her son get in to see a counsellor. He is now stable enough to live with her, rather than in a shelter, while he searches for an apartment of his own.

Myra Leger calls Paul Ouellet 'an angel in man's clothes' and says his support has helped her to find care for her adult children who suffer with mental illness. (Vanessa Blanch/CBC)

"He was too lonesome … he was just hurting and he didn't have any money."

Leger said she prays for her kids to "be OK," and that she will be able to "make everything good for them" before she is gone.

"I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for God and Paul."

Leger said a mental health advocate is badly needed to fight for services for families like hers.

Government urged to 'look out for the people'

Ouellet said seeing people get the help they need, and get better, is what keeps him going.

He continues to work seven days a week from his dining room table, working to expand the mental health courts in the province, establish a long-term residential treatment program for women and of course, appoint a mental health advocate. 

 Paul Ouellet considers himself New Brunswick's "unofficial mental health advocate." The retired accountant works every day to improve care in the province and to support people who need help. (Pierre Fournier/CBC)

Kennedy said she is now strong enough to join that fight.

"There's not enough being done — please do what we elected you to do," she said when asked what message she would send to members of the Blaine Higgs government. "Look out for the people. We still have so many people that are struggling."

Paul Ouellet lobbied for years for New Brunswick to appoint a mental health advocate. He celebrated in November 2019 when a motion passed unanimously in the legislature to introduce the position, but nothing has happened since.

"To me that is unacceptable," he said. "That a motion voted unanimously over two years ago has not yet been actioned."

Introduced by the Liberals, the original 2019 motion called on the Progressive Conservative government to create an independent legislative officer position, to represent people with mental health issues and their caregivers.

When the Higgs government refused, the motion was amended to create a mental health advocate position, but that has never been budgeted for, nor acted upon.

• Province's 'neglect' leaves man on verge of breaking promise to sister with schizophrenia
• Advocate for mentally ill says shortage of home-care workers landed sister in hospital - twice

Ouellet has two siblings with schizophrenia, and he has helped to care for them for decades.

He has seen firsthand the difficulties that families like his face trying get patients the help they need.

Ouellet has fought for adequate home care for his sister on several occasions and has seen her spiral into psychosis requiring hospitalization when no care providers were available to help her manage her medication.

He now worries she will have to move into a special care home since the health system cannot provide what she needs. 

"Mentally ill individuals don't have a voice," said Ouellet, a retired civil servant. "Those individuals in the community that I journey with, who suffer from mental illness, and I accompany them to the clinic and other appointments that they have, I so often see that they're not fully understood and they're not capable to speak for themselves."

Wish list for new year 

In a letter to Health Minister Dorothy Shephard in October, Ouellet outlined his top priorities for the new year.

In addition to the appointment of a mental health advocate for New Brunswick, he asked that the mental health court that operates in Saint John be expanded to Fredericton, Bathurst, Edmundston, Miramichi and Moncton.

• Mentally ill offenders get court program back in Saint John

He is also calling for a mental health addiction treatment centre in Moncton that would be exclusively for women.

CBC News tried to ask Shephard why the province hasn't yet appointed a mental health advocate, and when someone will be appointed.

Health Minister Dorothy Shephard introduced a plan to improve mental health services in the province in 2021, but it did not include any mention of the appointment of a mental health advocate. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

No one from the Department of Health has responded.

Ouellet has received a letter from Shephard in which she explained that work continues on multiple initiatives. He said her response was not what he was hoping for.

"I sometimes wonder if our high ranking officials in government are sensitized to mental illness. I ask myself that question because … it has been a need for years."

Ouellet is calling on Shephard and the Higgs government to finally appoint an advocate to represent the concerns of those who are all too often unable to get the help "they truly and deeply need."

"We definitely need an advocate position to be there for those most vulnerable in our province — the mentally ill. They need someone to be there to help them navigate the system, someone to be there to make sure their rights are respected, and that they're treated with dignity."

Mental health plan not enough

In February, Shephard laid out a five-year action plan to improve mental health services in the province.

It includes a promise for same-day service at walk-in clinics across New Brunswick, and a provincial youth centre based in Moncton by 2024.

• More walk-in clinics, mobile crisis units coming this year, vows health minister

It did not include any mention of appointing a mental health advocate.

Ouellet said that after decades of helping his sisters and brother and many others navigate the mental health care system, the plan simply does not go far enough.

Paul Ouellet goes through the detailed files he keeps about the care of his sister who suffers from severe schizophrenia. He has helped to care for his siblings with mental illness for decades, and believes that without his advocacy they would be dead. (Vanessa Blanch/CBC)

"If I would not have been journeying with them for the past 47 years, I don't think honestly that they would be alive today," he said of his siblings.

"I can be the advocate for them — but those are only a few in my family that I'm journeying with and a few in the community. How about those others in the province who don't have anyone to talk to, anyone to express their frustration, their difficulty to navigate the system?"