KIJPUKTUK, NOVA SCOTIA (7 March 2025)
East Coast Prison Justice Society (ECPJS), PATH Legal, and the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia urge timely action - including an end to police deployment to wellness checks - following the death of two community members in Halifax / kjipuktuk on February 22 and 28, 2025. The deaths occurred following encounters with Halifax Regional Police (HRP). In both incidents, HRP were called in response to individuals in mental distress (aka “wellness checks”) and deployed conducted energy weapons (aka Tasers) to subdue the individuals.
These tragic events, which occurred less than one week apart, bear a striking similarity to one another and recall the deaths of Chantal Moore, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Rodney Levi, Ejaz Choudry, D’Andre Campbell, and other individuals - predominantly Black and Indigenous - who died following the deployment of Canadian police officers as a response to mental distress. Research shows that Black and Indigenous people, as well as people with mental health and substance use issues, are disproportionately represented among police use of force fatalities.
The deaths on February 22 and 28 further evidence the unsuitability of police as a response to individuals in crisis. They highlight what existing provincial policies and guidelines on police crisis response and de-escalation fail to consider: that police responding to a mental health crisis call is in and of itself an escalation. A system that sends police to mental health emergencies while sending healthcare providers to physical health emergencies is discriminatory. Police presence introduces the potential for weapons use, including use of Tasers, which are misclassified as “less lethal” than other weapons and thereby more readily used, despite their implication in the police-involved deaths of persons with mental health disabilities in Canada and the US.
Police attendance on wellness checks has been rejected by Haligonians and Nova Scotians for years. The 2022 report Defunding the Police: Defining the Way Forward to HRM calls for diversion of mental health calls to civilian response teams (recommendation 15), noting that “[the] current model of mental health crisis intervention in HRM is outdated and no longer aligned with best practices” (p. 126). The Mass Casualty Commission likewise recommends that 911 policies be updated “to reflect that mental health service providers are most often the more appropriate first responders to mental health calls,” with police being dispatched only in the event that a mental health service provider deems it necessary (Vol 5, p.536). These keystone reports indicate that continued use of police officers for mental health crisis calls is unnecessarily escalatory and contrary to best practices. Instead, we must invest in civilian-based crisis response and preventive community-based supports.
To read our Calls to Action and for further information, click here for a PDF copy of the entire release.
– END –
For media inquiries or further information, please contact:
Sheila Wildeman, ECPJS Chair - Sheila.Wildeman@Dal.Ca / 902-476-2121
Tari Ajadi, ECPJS Board Member - tari.ajadi@mcgill.ca / 778-230-0020
Asaf Rashid, ECPJS Board Member - asaf@arashidlaw.ca / 902-919-5769
Emma Halpern, Executive Director, Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, Legal Director, PATH Legal Services - ed@efrymns.ca / 902-221-5851
For interviews in French: Laura Beach, ECPJS Board Member - laurabeach@cunet.carleton.ca / 438-823-1565