Jake Sawatzky

Jake is our Member of Parliament, and he is not coming to this as a politician. He was in men’s mental health before he was in politics, and he is part of the work on the national strategy for boys and men’s mental health.

He is on stage with Jhöl for an interview, then he stays for brunch, man to man, questions and all. What gets said in that room he carries back to Ottawa, where the policy actually gets written.

Before Ottawa

Jake didn’t come to men’s mental health through politics. He came to politics through men’s mental health. That order matters. Most elected officials learn a file from briefing notes. Jake learned this one from the work itself, he was mid-way through a master’s degree in counselling psychology when he was elected.

He understands that the gap between a man who is struggling and a man who gets help is rarely about access to services......it’s about whether anyone in his life ever made it okay to say he was struggling at all. That’s the gap this work is trying to close.

What He’s Building

There is real movement at the national level on a strategy for boys and men’s mental health. Jake is part of that work. The conversation in the room at the New West brunch isn’t a community event that happens in isolation from policy......it’s the kind of conversation that shapes what the policy looks like.

When you speak honestly in that room, a man who sits in Ottawa hears you. That’s not a small thing.

From Jhöl