Kamloops Council is poised to begin lobbying the province for some for of involuntary treatment in the BC interior to be made available.

The motion, put forward by Councillors Dale Bass and Bill Sarai, reflects a statement from the Premier which calls for the creation of involuntary care centres for people living with mental health and addiction issues throughout the province and to create these facilities within correctional centres in the province.

Sarai says we need to start somewhere and there are many causing a lot of problems on our streets who might need care and they may have to do it involuntarily. “Not only [a harm] to themselves, but to the residents and the businesses that they live in, they need the help first. These are the people that we’re targeting and and the province is targeting first. There’s people on our streets, that are not thinking straight and causing great harm.”

Councillor Stephen Karpuk says we need more involuntary care, but says jails are not the only place that should be considered. “A correctional facility is that a hillsides? I mean, they’re correcting behavior. They’re correcting a mental health issue. I don’t know that we’re clearly defining that it has to be a jail or something to that note. What we’re asking here is, please look into this. We need it now.”

Bass says it is for the most extreme of circumstances. “It is the people, that very slim group of people, who just don’t have the capacity to get through a day without hearing voices in their head and endangering their lives.”

There was some opposition to the motion with Councillor Nancy Bepple opposed to the idea while Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson was hoping to include voluntary care as part of the discussion.

The motion as presented is below.