Police-Encounters-With-People-In-Crisis

that period. These other deaths were the result of suicide (13 deaths), as well as restraint
asphyxia, acute drug intoxication, cardiac arrest, and unknown causes.
E. The social context relating to mental health and policing
89. Mental health is given a relatively low priority in Canada. According to the World
Health Organization, mental illness accounts for 13% of the world’s disease burden, yet
Canada invests only 7.2% of its health spending in its mental health services, and the
percentage is declining. While countries like Australia, New Zealand, and the United
Kingdom all have had mental health plans, service targets, and targeted investments
since the late 1990s, Canada did not have a national mental health plan until 2012. 11
90. Health care is a provincial responsibility in Canada. Ontario has developed a
mental health plan setting out policy direction, and does invest in mental health
initiatives, but the overall percentage of health spending dedicated to mental health in
Ontario has substantially declined over the past 35 years, from 11.3% in 1979 to 8.2% in
1992 to less than the national average of 7.2% in 2011. 12
91. Mental health has simply not been as high a priority for the Ontario government
as other health issues.
92. The relative shortage of funding for mental health care in Ontario affects police,
because the police are called upon to respond when a person with a mental health issue
poses a danger to self or others, commits a crime, causes a disturbance, or otherwise is
in crisis. More mental health spending would lead to more treatment resources both in
hospitals and in the community, and more social supports. It is reasonable to expect
that these resources and supports would reduce the incidence of police contact with
people in crisis by reducing the incidence of crises, and by creating alternative ways of
helping to resolve them.
93. The relative reduction in mental health spending over time has coincided with
the de-institutionalization process of recent decades. Through this process, people with
mental health issues are more often treated in the community rather than in psychiatric
institutions, and are not detained against their will except in a relatively narrow range of
circumstances involving primarily danger to self or others. The overall effect has been
an increased number of people with mental health issues living in the community, while
decreasing the resources available to serve them.
94. Within the City of Toronto, the effect has been an increase in the number of calls
to the TPS involving people in crisis. By way of example, as noted in the data set out
above, the number of Mental Health Act apprehensions by the TPS was 7,627 in 2009,
while in 2013 it was 8,384. Many of the individuals from the TPS with whom we spoke
commented on this trend—an ever-increasing involvement by front line police officers
with people in crisis. One front line officer referred to sometimes having 3 or 4 calls with
11
Steve Lurie, “Why Can’t Canada Spend More on Mental Health” (2014) 6 Health 684 at 684-686, online: Scientific Research:
Open Access .
12
Id. at 686.
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