Police officers shouldn’t be leading mental health calls, Toronto police chief says

For years, law force feature been on the face lines of mental wellness crisis calls in Toronto, but the city's police chief believes it's now time to rethink that approach.

The Toronto Police Service program sees officers paired with a nurse to attend mental health crisis calls.

But now, Demkiw feels the role of police in such calls should be re-examined. 

“I'm proposing that if mental health is a health issue, then mental health calls should be led by the health sector and the police should be there to the extent that it's necessary for safety,” he said.

The MCIT program was established in 2000 with a mandate that includes providing quality service to people experiencing mental health crises, making immediate mental health assessments, and providing secondary responses like follow-ups and referrals to appropriate mental health agencies. 

A recently as 2021, the force was pushing to expand the program, as some advocates pointed to a growing need for resources so that mental health calls wouldn't end in tragedy.

At the time, there was a growing focus on calls to police about people in crisis that did not end peacefully, most notably the recent deaths of Ejaz Choudry, D'Andre Campbell — both shot and killed by police in the GTA — and the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet.

But the force said in November, it would be reviewing the MCIT program.

Nadine Ramadan, spokesperson for the police, said at the time the aim of the review was to "make room for alternative non-police response teams where police respond to violent and high-risk calls, while non-violent mental health calls are triaged to the Toronto Community Crisis Service."

The MCIT program operates in 16 divisions across the city and consists of 25 police officers and 35 full-time, part-time, and casual mental health nurses provided by partnering health-care networks and hospitals. 

“We thought they'd be proper consultation and that really hasn't been done,” he said. €œThey haven't talked to the province, they haven't talked to the municipality or really a lot of our members that are involved in this really important program.”

Meanwhile, the discussion has prompted some to wonder whether the MCIT program is as necessary as it once was, since the city began its own Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCSS) in 2022.

Campbell feels the two programs should work together. 

“It's not an either or scenario,” he said. €œWhen you're looking at mental health, it's truly an epidemic in this city. Why remove a tool from the toolbox?”

On the other hand, Susan Davis, executive director of Gerstein Crisis Centre (one of the agencies that makes up the TCCS), agreed with Demkiw that police should be less involved in mental health crises.

Toronto wants to expand community crisis service to the TTC

“There aren't very many health issues where police lead the intervention. They may support that intervention at times, but they aren't at the forefront of it,” she said.

Since its inception, the TCCS has responded to more than 38,000 calls, according to city data. 

The service can be accessed by calling 211 and a portion of calls are also transferred from 911. 

“[But] the majority of the calls that we get, we are able to resolve without the need for other emergency services,” she said. 

Of the TCCS calls transferred from 911, city data shows 78 per cent were handled without police involvement.

If the TCCS is ultimately left to take over from the MCIT program, Davis feels more support will be needed. 

“We need to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place,” she said. €œWe've built up a lot over the last few years, but we know that if we were to shift absolutely everything to Toronto Community Crisis Service, that would probably be overwhelming.”

Police have not released a timeline for when the MCIT program might end.

Reporter

Tyler Cheese reports on local and provincial news in Toronto and the GTA. You can contact him at tyler.cheese@cbc.ca or @TylerRCheese on X.

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