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

For years, police have been on the front lines of mental health crisis calls in Toronto, but the city’s police chief believes it’s now time to rethink that approach.

In a year-end interview with CBC Toronto, Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw suggested it’s time to take a deeper look at mobile crisis intervention teams (MCITs). 

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. 

Clayton Campbell, president of the Toronto Police Association, told CBC Toronto he was disappointed to learn in a recent meeting that the program will end “at some point in the future.”

“We thought they’d be proper consultation and that really hasn’t been done,” he said. “They 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.”

In a statement to CBC Toronto, TPS spokesperson, Stephanie Sayer, said no decisions have been made and consultations are continuing with stakeholders.

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. “When 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

On Wednesday, she told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning officers usually aren’t necessary for such calls anyway.

“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. 

Dilya Neizova, acting manager for the city’s Alternative Safety Response Unit, told CBC Toronto TCCS teams do collaborate with MCITs when necessary. 

“[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. “We’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.