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.