Photo by Curtis Galbraith

By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

City Hall to consider increases to police budget alongside increases to mental health supports

Jul 16, 2020 | 5:30 AM

Staff at Grande Prairie City Hall will be considering funding increases for mental health care alongside increasing the police budget when it puts together the proposed 2021 budget.

That would also include funding for addictions support, housing, or preventative programs.

At Monday’s meeting, council approved a series of five motions put forward by Councillor Dylan Bressey

“I think my whole term on council, it’s been really clear that our police have been responding to mental health calls where they should have other resources available to help with their response. That’s not new thinking to me, it’s something that I’ve been advocating heavily with the province for over a year now and I think it’s a conversation we need to have more of at the city.”

He adds he wants what he calls a “hard conversation” on the policing budget.

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“For me, it’s not about looking to cut our budget. However, over the next few years, we’ve got millions of dollars of increases built into our budget and any other city program, if we were increasing it, we’d be taking hard looks at if that increase was worthwhile or if there are other, alternate investments we should make. I’d like to do the same with our police funding.”

Bressey doesn’t think he is out of step what police themselves are asking for.

“Where one of the reasons police don’t have enough time to respond appropriately to crime in our community, is because they’re spending a lot of time dealing with issues that would better be dealt with by other professionals.”

One of the other motions called for Mayor Given to write to Premier Kenney and other provincial politicians to talk about the success of current supportive housing supports and the Police and Crises Team, which are partnerships with the province, in an effort to have more things like this.

The Police and Crises Team, or PACT, sees a mental health nurse go with an RCMP member if police are called out to deal with someone having mental health troubles. Bressey would like to see this program expanded.

The other three motions included ones that affirmed that mental health challenges jeopardize the safety of some people, and hurt the community’s viability, that police are often sole responders during mental health calls, and that more proactive approaches to housing, addictions, and mental health would decrease demands on the police and improve the community.

Council voted in favour of all of this unanimously.