A particularly violent stranger attack in Vancouver on Sept. 4 was a catalyst for calls to get dangerous individuals off the street through “mandatory care.” It may be seen as the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Some mayors in the province had already long called for mandatory care, and Premier David Eby joined them on Sept. 15. At the annual meeting of B.C. municipal leaders this week, 10 mayors, three First Nations leaders, and Vancouver’s police chief also threw their support behind the approach.
The Sept. 4 fatal attack is a particularly egregious example of the stranger attacks happening regularly across the province and the country. The suspect had more than 60 previous police interactions. The attack happened in broad daylight in front of a theatre, leaving a 70-year-old dead and another victim with a hand cut off.
In Vancouver, there’s an average of about one random attack per day, the Vancouver Police Department told The Epoch Times.
For and Against Involuntary Treatment
Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog has been advocating for mandatory care since he was elected in 2018. He recalled in an interview with The Epoch Times a particularly brutal stranger attack in his city in 2022: a man with a long history of mental illness stabbed a 79-year-old coffee shop worker to death, later telling police the victim was a zombie.
“It is ridiculous for people to continue to allow others to live in the streets, in misery, and be a danger to themselves and others,” Krog said, adding that involuntary care is “necessary for their own protection and for the protection of the public.”
Activist Garth Mullins with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users says “locking up drug users” could discourage them from seeking voluntary care.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be feeling very good going to my methadone doctor if I know that she has the power to lock me up if she doesn’t like the progress I’m making,” he told The Canadian Press on Sept. 16. “So, we should build a voluntary treatment [system] that opens the door for people before we build a system of involuntary treatment that locks it behind them.”
Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West argues the rights of repeat offenders have taken precedence over public safety.
“The whole system is very much geared towards the rights of the offender and is very much geared towards releasing people. And I think we are out of balance. The pendulum has swung too far to one side,” he told The Epoch Times.
He said mandatory care is the more compassionate approach.
“There’s nothing compassionate about leaving another human being to be repeatedly victimized and just in deplorable conditions,” West told The Epoch Times. “There’s also nothing compassionate about a system that allows for severely mentally ill, violent people to be out on the streets and kill innocent human beings.”
Karla Ahlqvist, owner of the Wildlife Thrift Store in Vancouver, also supports mandatory care. She has spent almost $100,000 annually for the past three years on additional security measures for her store, as staff and customers are both at risk, she told The Epoch Times.
Stranger Attacks
Vancouver police began raising the alarm about a spike in stranger attacks in 2021. The department says it has seen an improvement recently, with an average of 1.1 attacks per day in 2023 versus 1.8 attacks in 2022. A spokesman told The Epoch Times this is likely due to many factors, including increased public awareness and more police funding.Random attacks have occurred in other parts of Canada, with Toronto police in particular reporting them on a semi-regular basis. On the afternoon of Sept. 11, a man was stabbed by a stranger on a streetcar in downtown Toronto after an altercation. In July 8, a young man was walking along a pathway near Sunrise and Victoria Park avenues a little after 12 p.m. when a stranger allegedly jumped on his back unprovoked and slashed his head and chest with a knife. In both cases, the injuries were not life-threatening.
Mulling Facility Sites
The shuttered mental health facility Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., has been eyed as a potential site for mandatory care. West has joined the growing call to open a modernized version of Riverview or similar facilities.Riverview Hospital was in operation from 1913 to 2012 and at its peak had thousands of beds. As mental health practices in the province changed and institutionalization was no longer considered the best approach, Riverview began to downsize until it eventually closed.
Although Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim last week added his voice to the call for a new version of Riverview following the deadly stranger attack in his city, the provincial government said Riverview is not yet part of its recently announced plan.
‘Vote-Determining Issue’
Eby said the first treatment site will open “in the coming months” in Maple Ridge on the grounds of the Alouette Correctional Centre.The pledge from the NDP’s Eby came four days after B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad announced plans to implement involuntary treatment for people with severe addictions if his party forms government in the upcoming provincial election.
In Nanaimo, Krog said he is glad that the opioid and mental health crisis is becoming part of the public discourse, and says it will be a “vote-determining issue” in the provincial election on Oct. 19.
“The public in British Columbia wants action on the issue of the mental health addictions, trauma, and brain injury crisis that is everywhere in our streets,” he said.
