Vancouver council votes to fund 100 new police officers, 100 new mental health nurses

Vancouver city council has approved a motion to follow through on a promise by the new mayor to hire more police and mental health nurses.

Mayor Ken Sim campaigned on a promise to hire 100 more officers and 100 nurses for programs that would respond to non-emergency mental health calls.

The motion earmarks $4.5 million to the police and $1.5 million to the health authority from the city's operating budget to start hiring in January.

The idea, which is expected to cost $20 million a year, has received significant criticism from more than two dozen people speaking against the motion at an earlier meeting.

The motion put before council Tuesday afternoon received the support of the six councillors from Sim's ABC party.

Councillors Adriane Carr, Pete Fry and Christine Boyle opposed it.

Councillors raise concerns, business association praises vote

In the debate preceding the vote, Fry and Carr both raised concerns about the rapidly increasing budget estimates for the hiring of new police staff as well as mental health nurses.

This week, the VPD presented a report to the Vancouver Police Board, showing an operating budget of $383,138,062 for 2023 — an 11.17 per cent increase from 2022.

The VPD is also asking for more money for new initiatives, including hiring 20 civilian professionals, purchasing cell phones and funding community policing centres.

It estimates the new hires alone — 100 officers and 20 civilians — will cost an additional $15.7 million.

"I am really struggling with where the numbers are coming from, how the numbers are vetted," said Fry during the debate preceding the vote. 

"We've seen the numbers change a number of times and frankly I know this is going to go ahead, because of the ABC majority, but I think it's reckless."

The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade was quick to praise the move to fund additional police officers and nurses, with president Bridgitte Anderson stating in an emailed release that "this investment represents a welcome response to the increase in vandalism and violent attacks we have experienced in the last two years, which has negatively affected both our community and our reputation as a safe, welcoming city."

Police presence 'anxiety-provoking': Crisis Line chair

Stacy Ashton, chair of the B.C. Crisis Line Network, says involving officers when a person is in a mental health crisis can be "hugely anxiety-provoking" if someone doesn't trust the police.

"Their role is really public safety. Their role is to kind of control the situation and get folks to comply with their instructions," Ashton said of the police.

"And when somebody is in crisis, they're out of control and the worst thing you can do in that moment is take even more of their control away.''

Ashton, speaking Tuesday on The Early Edition, said when police are called to assist a person who is in mental health distress, that person becomes labelled as known to police, meaning they are going to get an escalated police response the next time they are in crisis — and that creates a cycle.

A better solution is to have peer-assisted crisis teams that include a mental health professional and a peer support worker with lived experience of mental health issues, she said.

According to Ashton, about 50 per cent of people taken to hospital by police are turned away because they don't meet the conditions for psychiatric help.

Sim, leader of the ABC party, was endorsed by the Vancouver Police Union during the municipal election campaign. 

ABC Coun. Brian Montague is a former Vancouver police officer, and Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung, also a member of the ABC party, is married to a police officer.