After a tragedy like the Vancouver festival attack, it’s easy to ask: was this terrorism? Was it planned? What was the motive?
But sometimes the scariest answer is this: it was preventable.
The man charged with killing 11 people at Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Day festival was known to have mental health issues. According to reports, his family and friends had long struggled to get him help. In the end, the system didn’t catch him — the police did. And by then, it was too late.
🔍 The Problem Isn’t Just Out West
The GTA is facing the same challenge — a mental health system that doesn’t intervene until it becomes an emergency. By that point, someone’s already at risk.
Toronto Police and Peel Regional Police both operate Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams (MCITs), pairing officers with trained mental health clinicians. These programs have helped — but they’re limited. Most teams only operate during business hours. Many don’t respond outside core areas. In places like Durham or York Region, coverage is even thinner.
Which means a crisis at 2 a.m.? That’s not a clinician — that’s a squad car.
🚨 Police Aren’t Mental Health Workers
Ask any officer — they’ll tell you. They’re not trained to manage psychiatric care. But when a 911 call comes in about someone screaming in the street, threatening self-harm, or in a psychotic episode, they show up first.
That’s not a policing failure. That’s a policy failure.
And when people in crisis are met with uniforms, sirens, and commands — not empathy, calm, or care — it escalates. The outcome? Far too often: injury, arrest, or worse.
🧭 What Leaders Should Be Talking About
Mental health needs its own first responders. That means:
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Expanding Mobile Crisis Teams to 24/7 service across the GTA — including full coverage in Peel, Durham, and York.
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Creating a direct crisis response number — a true alternative to 911, staffed by clinicians, not dispatchers.
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Funding pre-crisis outreach teams that check in before someone spirals — not just after they do.
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Backing families with rapid access to psychiatric assessments and support programs when they see warning signs.
Because if someone’s only getting help when the police are called, then we’ve already failed.
💡 Moving Forward
Mental illness is not a crime. But ignoring it until it turns into one? That’s a public safety issue.
If we want fewer tragedies, fewer confrontations, fewer families burying loved ones or watching them get locked away — we need to fund the middle. The part between “they’re not well” and “call 911.”
The next crisis is already coming. The question is: will we meet it with care — or just cuffs?
🛡️ “Watch the Block” is GTA Weekly’s weekly editorial on community safety across the Greater Toronto Area — because safer streets start with informed communities.
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