FILE PHOTO - Coun. Dale Bass is asking Kamloops city councillors to consider lobbying the province for an involuntary mental health centre in the Interior.

(KAREN EDWARDS / iNFOnews.ca)

Two Kamloops city councillors want the province to remember the Interior as new involuntary care facilities open up.

On April 8, they brought a motion to city council pitching a lobbying effort to bring at least one of the new centres further inland.

"It was a challenge for me because I don't believe in this, forcing people, but the reality is there are some people who need someone to step in to help them," Coun. Dale Bass said.

She and Coun. Bill Sarai brought the motion to council partly spurred by their work as liaisons with Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre, and while Bass said involuntary care isn't something she would normally advocate for, it's a program she said could benefit the community and people with the most severe, self-destructive mental illnesses.

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"Even though I don't agree with it, that doesn't matter if this is going to help save people," she said. "This is for that small subsection of people, not necessarily unhoused, with severe, debilitating mental health issues that make them a clear danger to themselves at risk of death."

BC Premier David Eby announced plans for two secure facilities in September, with one at a Maple Ridge women's jail and the other at the Surrey pretrial jail. Those, along with hundreds of beds at other facilities, were pitched as BC's effort toward involuntary mental health care.

Every person admitted has to be committed under the Mental Health Act. Though Eby said it's part of the province's heightened effort to combat the overdose crisis, a top BC health adviser, Dr. Daniel Vigo, recently clarified doctors can't simply use it to prevent "risk-taking" like drug use if not combined with mental disorders.

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Involuntary care is controversial and is criticized as ineffective. Bass said even her own friends and family are surprised she would bring the motion forward. She generally disagrees with forcing people into treatment, but she said after researching the province's program and statements from Vigo, she said it could help some of the hardest to help.

"I'm a councillor. It's my responsibility to benefit the community. This is one that will benefit a subsection of our community," she said. "And I would rather compromise my own belief and try to find a way to provide care than have the morgue pick them up."

Bass said it doesn't necessarily have to be in Kamloops, but the effort for now is to ensure the province continues its expansion to the Interior.

Council is expected to debate the motion on April 15.

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