Manitoba’s capital city is officially going to explore a new emergency service dedicated to responding to mental health crises.
The city’s executive policy committee approved Tuesday a motion from Mayor Scott Gillingham for his office to work with a consulting firm to outline how a proposed Winnipeg Community Response Service could work with community partners, health-system supports and the city’s 911 operations.
The mayor said that $228,000 to fund the proposal would come from his office.
He supports creating a specialized service to answer wellness calls and dispatch trained, trauma-informed responders, allowing police to focus on violent and property crime.
“If someone calls 911 because there’s a mental health crisis, they don’t need a badge-and-gun response or a trained firefighter. What they need is a mental health worker who understands their need,” he said.
Well-being checks remained the top call for service for city police for the fifth year in a row. Statistics from Winnipeg police show that dispatchers fielded more than 21,000 calls relating to mental health concerns last year.
The city currently has some mental health and crisis response services, including a mobile crisis service and a partnership between police and mental health clinicians to work together to respond to low-risk situations.
But earlier Tuesday, the committee heard from a delegation that said change is needed.
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Support worker Kaitlin Holokrys told the committee she often wonders whether one of her clients would still be alive today if she received the mental health services she needed.
Holokrys works with adults living with addictions, mental illnesses and disabilities.
In 2022, she had to call 911 for an ambulance after her client who was dealing with chronic suicide ideation and other mental health concerns harmed herself. Holokrys was told that a police officer needed to be present because her client could pose a threat.
Later that year, her client was in the throes of another mental health crisis while alone and attempted to get help but it came too late. The woman died by suicide.
“She did everything she was supposed to, but no one was able to help her,” said Holokrys.
She told the committee that any services for wellness calls need to be rooted in community and led by civilians. “When police are the default for crisis response, it often leads to negative outcomes for people in crisis,” she said.
Some wellness checks have ended in fatal shootings. In 2019, 43-year-old Machuar Madut was shot dead by a police officer who responded to a call. It was reported Madut struggled with mental health issues leading up to his death.
Afolabi Stephen Opaso, 19, was fatally shot by police in 2023 after officers were called to an apartment building for a well-being check.
“We need this forced service to be rolled out as soon as possible,” said Kate Kehler, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg. “There is no reason to expect that we will not lose someone else in the interim in what should have been a preventable death.”
A union representing firefighters opposed a fourth emergency service, saying that existing emergency services are in a “documented state of crisis” and that the city should instead increase funding to the current services.
“Prioritize stabilizing the service you already have,” Nick Kasper, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg, IAFF Local 867, told the committee.
If a new emergency service is created, it would not change the number of calls fire and paramedic crews respond to because they are required to be on hand for any calls relating to higher-level medical needs, said Kasper.
Gillingham disagrees, saying, “To put more members, whether they be firefighters, paramedics, police, into the same system without changing the system, is only going to produce more of the same high call volumes.”
Elsewhere in Canada, cities such as Toronto have implemented their own services that dispatch mental health workers and paramedics to calls that don’t pose safety concerns.
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