History
Established in 1998, the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health (CAMIMH) is an alliance of mental health organizations comprised of health care providers and organizations representing persons with mental illness and their families and caregivers. CAMIMH’s mandate is to ensure that mental health is placed on the national agenda so that persons with a lived experience of mental illness and their families receive appropriate access to care and support.

Vision
We envision a country where all Canadians enjoy good mental health. Canadians with a lived experience of mental illness, their families and care providers must have access to the care, support and respect to which they are entitled and in parity with other health conditions.

We are committed to a National Action Plan that upholds the following principles:

• Mental illness and mental health issues must be considered within the framework of the determinants of health and recognizes the important linkages among mental, neurological and physiological health.
• Given the impact of mental health issues and mental illness (ie on the suffering of Canadians, on mortality, especially from suicide, on the economy, on social services such as health, education and criminal justice), Canadian governments and health planners must address mental health issues commensurate with the level of their burden on society.
• Mental health promotion and the treatment of mental illnesses must be timely, continuous, inter-disciplinary, culturally appropriate, and integrated across the full life cycle and the continuum of care (i.e. physical and mental health; social supports and tertiary care to home/community care).