Stranger Attacks and Outcry: How Support Swelled Behind Mandatory Care in BC

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 attack happened in broad daylight in front of a theatre, leaving a 70-year-old dead and another victim with a hand cut off. The suspect had more than 60 previous police interactions.
In Vancouver, there’s an average of about one random attack per day, the Vancouver Police Department told The Epoch Times.
“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 said. “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.
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.
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.
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.