Health Minister Christine Elliott is under fire for cutting $335 million from planned mental health funding in Ontario this year.

With the defeat of the previous Liberal government on June 7, Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have cancelled former premier Kathleen Wynne’s promised $2.1 billion in additional mental health services over four years.

Instead, the Tories are adding $1.9 billion over the next 10 years, which matches federal funding for mental health.

But that means a planned $525-million annual injection in new funding has been reduced to $190 million.

“Why is the premier cutting new funding for mental health by $330 million a year?” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath asked in the legislature Thursday.

“Addictions and Mental Health Ontario says $2.4 billion in new funding is needed over the next four years,” Horwath said. “But instead of delivering, the premier is dragging Ontario backwards. The premier has cut $2.1 billion over four years and replaced it with $1.9 billion over 10 years.

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“Now even the premier can do that math.”

Elliott defended the change.

“We are adding to funding for mental health. We are committing $3.8 billion over 10 years, $1.9 billion from the provincial government to match the $1.9 billion coming from the federal government,” the minister said.

“The Liberal government, in the past, made a lot of promises during the election campaign, but we know how solid those promises are and we know how accurate they are,” she said.

“I would suggest that the leader of the official opposition’s math is about as bad as the previous Liberal government’s math.”

However, the first instalment of the $2.1 billion Liberal plan had started to flow because it was approved in former finance minister Charles Sousa’s March budget, which was passed into law before the election campaign began in May.

Horwath said the Tories’s cuts are “disgraceful” at a time when the demand for mental health services has never been greater.

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“Today, there are over 12,000 children waiting over 18 months to get the mental health care supports that they need ... and there are 13,000 people in Toronto alone waiting five years for the supportive housing that they need,” the NDP leader said.

“The premier’s cut of $330 million annually is not going to end the crisis that we continue to have in mental health care in this province.”

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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