Like the director of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal Fady Dagher, we recognize the difficulties and the challenge that mental health disorders represent for his services. We agree with him that it is not up to the police to “become specialists in social and mental health fields”. We are also of the opinion that police interventions are not suitable in the vast majority of situations. Finally, we would like to thank Mr. Dagher for having publicly underlined the important contribution of community organizations in supporting and accompanying people with mental health problems.
However, although we agree (without ever having spoken to each other) on the potential of community organizations as essential actors, we cannot subscribe to the notion that they could solve all crisis situations related to mental health. The reality requires a will and actions distinct from those advocated until now by our decision-makers.
In our view, a community that gives itself the real mandate of improving the mental health of its population must engage in a process of change and make major investments in the community environment in order to provide Montreal and Quebec society with a real assumed possibility. This third way that we have valued and promoted for years is indeed active. To this end, obviously forced in a crisis situation, Mr. Legault clearly recognized this during the pandemic when he spoke to the population on a daily basis. The community is an essential service. Unfortunately, a large majority of our elected officials have not yet grasped the extent of the capacities of our movement for the well-being of the population.
Complementary approaches
The other option that we represent not only makes it possible to overcome certain limits (or even certain shortcomings) of the public network, but also to guarantee support and quality accompaniment that the private sector cannot offer. By investing in community organizations to first compensate for the current underfunding and then, secondly, to support the development of new innovative local actions focused on the needs of the communities, Quebec would give itself the means to strengthen and promote complementary approaches. In fact, these independent local initiatives and actions are, in fact, responses that are both different from and additional to the services offered by the state health and social services system, to police interventions or to policies or public actions by the City (such as the mobile mediation and social intervention team).
We appreciate Mr. Dagher acknowledging the underfunding we suffer from. However, we would like him to support with us a broader vision, in which we consider the contribution of the multiple actors that make up society and the multiplicity of approaches that guide their actions. Community organizations will never replace the police, nor will they survive health services. Community organizations offer Quebec society a distinct and additional avenue…another option with its principles and values.
We therefore offer you a different way to develop an extensive local network with the aim not only of supporting people living with mental health problems, but also of contributing globally to improving the mental health of the Montreal population. We hope that our recommendations will be taken into account and that the public authorities will choose to collaborate with the community to develop concerted and complementary solutions in terms of mental health.