Canadian Government Executive - Volume 27 - Issue 05

OUR MISSION IS TO CONTRIBUTE TO EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC SERVICE MANAGEMENT EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR | J. RICHARD JONES john@promotivemedia.ca DEPUTY EDITOR | LORI TURNBULL lori@promotivemedia.ca MANAGING EDITOR | MARCELLO SUKHDEO marcello@promotivemedia.ca COLUMNISTS | JEFFREY ROY HARVEY SCHACHTER JOHN WILKINS EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD DENISE AMYOT, PENNY BALLANTYNE, JIM CONNELL, MICHAEL FENN, LANA LOUGHEED, JOHN MILLOY, VIC PAKALNIS, ROBERT SHEPHERD, ANDREW TREUSCH, DAVID ZUSSMAN SALES & EVENTS VICE PRESIDENT, SALES | TERRI PAVELIC 905-727-3875 x2 terri@promotivemedia.ca DIRECTOR, CONTENT & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT | DAVID BLONDEAU 905-727-3875 david@promotivemedia.ca ART & PRODUCTION ART DIRECTOR | ELENA PANKOVA elena@promotivemedia.ca SUBSCRIPTIONS AND ADDRESS CHANGES CIRCULATION SERVICES | circulation@promotivemedia.ca GENERAL INQUIRIES 21374, 2nd Concession Rd, East Gwillimbury, ON, L9N 0H7 Phone 905-727-3875 Fax 905-727-4428 www.canadiangovernmentexecutive.ca CORPORATE GROUP PUBLISHER | J. 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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. www.canadiangovernmentexecutive.ca 4 / Canadian Government Executive // September/October 2021 WEB What’s your mental health like? Mental health is a state of well-being that includes our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and the ability to manage what life throws at us. Everyone has mental health, just as we have physical health, but sometimes we let our mental health go by not taking proper care of it. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), in any given year, 1 in 5 people in Canada will personally experience a mental health problem or illness. By age 40, about 50 per cent of the population will have or have had a mental illness. Often, mental health and mental illness are confused as the one and the same thing, but they are not. The CMHA explains that everyone will experience challenges regarding their mental well-being, but not everyone will experience a mental illness. However, mental illness indirectly affects all Canadians at some time either through their own experience, or that of a family mem- ber, friend, or colleague. In this issue of CGE, we take a look at keeping mental health top of mind. To confound the problem that we already face with mental health, the pandemic has significantly increased men- tal health issues. Jeff Boutilier, General Manager Pharmacy and Chief Clinical Officer at Express Scripts Canada writes about the findings from a survey by Statistics Canada, in collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada, on mental health disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic from September to December 2020. He points out that the findings confirm that the pandemic’s toll on mental health is significant and requires attention. He provides tips for em- ployers to help support mental health and well-being in employees as they return to work. A major factor that affects mental health is stress. Every year in the U.S., work-related stress causes 120,000 deaths and results in $190 billion in healthcare costs. Angela Civitella, a business leadership coach provides seven tips to deal with stress and in making better decisions the next time we find ourselves in this situation. In her piece, One For All and All For One in Prioritizing Mental Health , Pravina Rajadurai, a federal public servant writes about the negative impact of employee stress on work outcomes. By taking action to establish safe and healthy workplaces will result not only in organizational success but is also essential to societal well-being. The pandemic has brought about many changes that have transformed how we shop, work and study. It has caused many service providers to shift their business models to more viable online options. Jingy Yang, a financial analyst writes about how governments are undertaking reforms in responding to the rapid technological change. In Canada, she points out that public service leaders and policymakers need to accelerate comprehensive government digitization to meet growing citizen expectations and converging technological pressures. As if the pandemic and mental health challenges aren’t already not enough, the world is wit- nessing an equally profound disruption of currencies and payment systems, with far-reaching implications just beginning to be understood. CGE Columnist Jeffrey Roy writes that there are reportedly more than 6,500 payments offerings with Bitcoin the most widely recognized cryp- tocurrency and is already accepted as legal tender in El Salvador and Ukraine. He points out that Canada seems to be content with the wait-and-see approach. He recommends that due to a myriad of developmental and national security reasons, Canada’s next Parliament should make the expansion of crypto-literacy an urgent priority – for elected officials, public servants, and the populous at large. Thanks for taking the time to read this issue. Marcello Sukhdeo Managing Editor, Canadian Government Executive marcello@promotivemedia.ca EDITOR’S NOTE