Toronto Wants Response Teams Without Police To Show Up To Some Non-Emergency Calls

Toronto's City Council is one step closer to approving a new pilot program that would see Toronto non-police response teams show up to some calls in the city. 

If the city's Executive Committee says yes at its meeting next Wednesday, Toronto's City Council will then vote on approving the new teams to respond to non-violent and non-emergency calls, like cases involving mental health crises or wellness checks, in neighbourhoods across Toronto, Scarborough, and Etobicoke.

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$1.7 million Proposed budget allocated for developing the pilot project

Toronto's City Manager recently published a report recommending the pilot program. The city's Executive Committee will vote on approving the pilots next Wednesday, January 27.

If adopted, the pilot project would be fully operational from 2022 to 2025 and run in three neighbourhoods:

• Northwest Toronto (Etobicoke North, Etobicoke Centre, York Centre and Humber River-Black Creek)
• Northeast Toronto (Scarborough Southwest, Scarborough Centre, Scarborough-Agincourt, Scarborough North, Scarborough-Guildwood and Scarborough-Rouge Park)
• Downtown East Toronto (Spadina-Fort York and Toronto Centre).

A fourth part of the project would serve Indigenous communities, and the city says it will be Indigenous-led and co-developed with the relevant communities.

"The pilots will create multidisciplinary teams of crisis workers with training in mental health and crisis intervention, de-escalation, situational awareness, and field training," said a Toronto press release announcing the pilot programs.

The City Manager's report was made after John Tory and City Council directed staff in June 2020 to implement changes in Toronto's policing and establish an "alternative community safety response model." 

That motion was adopted in the middle of protests for Black lives across the world and just a month after Toronto resident Regis Korchinski-Parquet died during an encounter with police.

In early January, community groups across Toronto called for $340 million of the TPS budget to be re-directed to community support workers to allow them to respond to non-emergency calls regarding homelessness, mental health, gender-based violence, and youth crime.