I stood at the back of the ballroom, watching attendees gather their notebooks and phones as the latest speaker stepped away from the podium. The energy at the 2025 Mental Health Summit felt different this year—more urgent, perhaps more honest about the scale of what we’re facing.
“Half a trillion dollars,” the woman next to me whispered, shaking her head. “I knew it was bad, but hearing that number…”
She was referring to the figure that had silenced the room moments earlier: mental health conditions now cost the Canadian economy an estimated $550 billion annually through lost productivity, healthcare expenditures, and disability supports. For perspective, that’s roughly 20% of our entire GDP.
I’ve covered health policy conferences for nearly a decade, but this summit marked a significant shift in how we’re talking about workplace mental health. No longer just a “nice-to-have” wellness initiative, psychological safety has moved to the center of both economic and public health discussions.
“We need to start treating psychosocial risks with the same seriousness as physical workplace hazards,” explained Dr. Robyn Houlden, occupational health researcher from the University of British Columbia, during her keynote. “The evidence is clear that work environments directly impact mental health outcomes, and employers have both ethical and legal responsibilities to address these risks.”
Throughout the three-day event in Toronto, I heard repeatedly from business leaders, union representatives, and health professionals about the evolving understanding of workplace responsibilities. The Canadian Mental Health Commission presented new research showing that organizations implementing comprehensive mental health strategies saw a median return of $1.62 for every dollar invested through reduced absenteeism and disability claims.
What struck me most was the concrete shift toward shared accountability. Gone were the simplistic “resilience training” solutions of past conferences, replaced by nuanced discussions about systemic changes needed across workplaces, healthcare systems, and communities.
“We’ve been asking individuals to adapt to broken systems for too long,” said Maria Gonzalez, chief strategy officer at Mental Health Partners Canada. “The pandemic forced us to acknowledge that organizational structures themselves can create or worsen mental health challenges.”
The summit highlighted several organizations making significant headway. VanCity Credit Union shared how they’ve implemented regular psychosocial risk assessments, finding that workload pressure and lack of recognition were their employees’ top concerns. Their subsequent changes to project management and recognition systems led to a 34% reduction in stress-related leave over 18 months.
Similarly, Edmonton’s public services department presented findings from their pioneering approach to trauma exposure management among emergency workers. Their integrated support model—combining peer support, clinical services, and organizational policy changes—reduced PTSD rates by nearly 40% compared to previous years.
The healthcare sector’s experiences were particularly illuminating. I spoke with Simone Baptiste, a nurse manager from Saint John Regional Hospital, during one of the networking breaks.
“After what healthcare workers endured during the pandemic, we’ve had to completely reimagine support systems,” Baptiste told me. “We found that traditional employee assistance programs weren’t enough—we needed to address the fundamental issues of staffing, workload, and decision-making autonomy.”
Her hospital system now conducts quarterly psychological safety surveys and has implemented a “no blame” approach to addressing identified concerns, with leadership evaluated partly on their effectiveness in creating supportive environments.
Not every story was positive. Representatives from numerous sectors acknowledged significant barriers to progress, from limited mental health resources in rural communities to the persistent stigma in male-dominated industries.
“We’re still fighting against the ‘tough it out’ mentality in construction,” admitted Roberto Sanchez from the Canadian Building Trades Union. “But we’re making inroads by focusing on productivity and safety rather than just emotional language—when we explain that psychological distress increases accident risk by 60%, suddenly everyone’s listening.”
The summit also highlighted the disproportionate mental health impacts on equity-deserving groups. Statistics Canada data presented showed that Indigenous workers, racialized employees, and 2SLGBTQ+ individuals experience workplace mental health challenges at significantly higher rates than their counterparts.
“Any effective workplace mental health strategy must acknowledge these disparities,” emphasized Dr. Winnie Chang from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. “Organizations need to examine how their cultures and policies might be contributing to these differences, rather than assuming a one-size-fits-all approach will work.”
The policy discussions were equally substantive. Federal representatives outlined upcoming regulatory frameworks that will require organizations above certain sizes to implement psychological health and safety management systems, similar to those already in place for physical workplace safety.
“The voluntary approach has brought us progress,” acknowledged Deputy Minister Jacqueline Porter, “but the economic and human costs of inaction are simply too high to leave this entirely to individual organizational choice.”
On my final afternoon at the summit, I joined a workshop where participants from various sectors were mapping out implementation challenges. The conversations were refreshingly practical—discussing everything from how to measure psychosocial risks effectively to navigating privacy concerns when tracking mental health metrics.
As I packed up my recorder, I reflected on the evolution I’ve witnessed covering this beat. Ten years ago, workplace mental health conversations focused almost exclusively on individual coping mechanisms. Five years ago, the dialogue had shifted to organizational culture but remained vague about specific responsibilities. Today, we’re finally seeing concrete frameworks, accountability measures, and shared ownership of solutions.
The $550 billion figure remains staggering, but for the first time, I left a mental health conference feeling that we’re moving beyond awareness into genuine structural change. The road ahead remains long, but the direction is clearer than ever.
