ManitobaA proposal to create a new emergency service dedicated to mental-health calls drew mixed reactions at city hall Tuesday. Firefighters union criticizes plan, calls for more staff for existing servicesCameron MacLean · CBC News · Posted: Dec 09, 2025 7:21 PM EST | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Mayor Scott Gillingham says a proposed crisis response service would ease pressure on police and paramedics in Winnipeg. (Riley Laychuk/CBC)A proposal to create a new emergency service dedicated to mental-health calls drew mixed reactions at Winnipeg city hall Tuesday. City council’s executive policy committee approved a motion from Mayor Scott Gillingham for a single-source consultant contract with Pensa Consulting to create a detailed proposal for what the city is calling the Winnipeg Community Crisis Response Service.Gillingham says it would ease pressure on police and paramedics and offer people in crisis a more appropriate response.The new unit would respond to mental-health crises that don’t involve threats to safety or require medical intervention.Gillingham first floated the idea in 2024, pointing to the 21,000 well-being calls Winnipeg police have said they respond to each year, on average.An alternative response could prevent situations from escalating, while freeing emergency resources for higher-risk calls, Gillingham said.System is already strained: unionWhile some welcome the idea, others fear the solution could just make the problem worse. Nick Kasper, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg, told councillors the fire-paramedic service faces chronic understaffing, soaring overtime costs and rising psychological injury claims.”It causes our members deep concern that today, you propose to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to design a fourth emergency service, at the very moment when your existing emergency service is in a documented state of crisis,” he said.Past city reviews have found the fire-paramedic service needs roughly 80 additional staff to meet current demand, as annual call volumes continue to climb, Kasper said. But Gillingham said simply adding more people to the same structure won’t fix deeper problems.”Your request is that we just add more FTEs [full-time equivalents] into the same system, without changing the system,” he said during the meeting. “I’m proposing changing the system.”Others spoke in favour of the plan, including Kate Kehler of the Police Accountability Coalition, who argued a trauma-informed, non-police response should have been introduced years ago.”We have long called … for a de-tasking of the police for services like mental-health crises, who really do deserve a medical response before enforcement,” she said.Experts in other cities say Winnipeg is not alone in trying to shift how it handles mental-health emergencies. Jessica Ferne, executive director of the Distress Centre of Ottawa and Region, said that city’s crisis response model relies on partnerships among 911 dispatchers, hospitals and community responders.Dispatchers can transfer callers directly to trained crisis workers, in what’s known as a warm transfer.”What [people in crisis] need is not an emergency response service. What they need is to talk things through with the trained specialist,” she told host Marcy Markusa in an interview with CBC’s Information Radio.Even when police or paramedics do attend, having a crisis responder connected with the caller can help “de-escalate the situation such that it’s a safer environment for everybody,” she said. Ferne said about 25 per cent of those calls are de-escalated without police or paramedics ever being sent.She urged Winnipeg to focus on deep community consultation and to invest in local organizations that already know the city’s needs.A final proposal for Winnipeg’s crisis response service is expected sometime in 2026. Any new model would require approval from city council.ABOUT THE AUTHORCameron MacLean is a journalist for CBC Manitoba living in Winnipeg, where he was born and raised. He has more than a decade of experience reporting in the city and across Manitoba, covering a wide range of topics, including courts, politics, housing, arts, health and breaking news. Email story tips to cameron.maclean@cbc.ca.
Winnipeg councillors approve consultant to study mental health emergency service
