Police-Encounters-With-People-In-Crisis

50. The first visit was to the psychiatric emergency department at the Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) on College Street in Toronto. Dr. David
Goldbloom, Senior Medical Advisor at CAMH (and the Chair of the Mental Health
Commission of Canada), explained the functioning of the emergency department and
described CAMH’s generally very positive experiences with TPS officers who attend at
the emergency department with persons apprehended under the Ontario Mental Health
Act.
51. The second visit was to Sanctuary, a centre that helps some of the City’s most
vulnerable persons, including the homeless, addicts, prostitutes and others—many of
whom experience mental health issues. At Sanctuary, the Review team met with a group
of staff and clients at the centre, who had a discussion with the Review team about their
first-hand experiences with the TPS.
7. Consultation with the Advisory Panel
52. At the outset of the Review I assembled a three-person multi-disciplinary
Advisory Panel to assist the Review team. The distinguished members of the Advisory
Panel were forensic psychiatrist Dr. John Bradford, criminal lawyer Paul Copeland, and
Norman Inkster, former Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
53. The Advisory Panel advised the Review team on a confidential basis regarding the
scope and subject matter of the Review, participated in meetings and conference calls
with the Review team, attended the roundtable discussion described below, and
reviewed and commented on portions of the draft Report.
8. Roundtable discussion
54. The Review team held a half-day roundtable discussion on April 3, 2014 with
representatives of various stakeholder groups, including persons with lived experience
of mental illness, mental health professionals, civil liberties advocates, and members of
the TPS. Advisory Panel members were also in attendance.
55. The purpose of the roundtable discussion was to allow the different stakeholders
to engage with one another about the issues addressed by the Review, and to challenge
one another’s ideas in a constructive manner designed to assist the Review team in
assessing and reconciling some of the conflicting perspectives on these challenging
issues.
56. The full list of invited participants at the roundtable discussion is as follows:
Dr. John Bradford
Pat Capponi
Paul Copeland
Dr. Dorothy Cotton
Advisory Panel member and forensic
psychiatrist
Lead Facilitator, Voices from the Street
Advisory Panel member and lawyer
Professor of Psychology, Queen’s
University
Police Encounters With People in Crisis |54