Jamie Sarkonak: Reopen the asylums |
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Jamie Sarkonak: Reopen the asylums
Tumbler Ridge shooter not the first violent person to be released from psychiatric detention
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The Alberta father who severed his daughter’s esophagus and punctured her lung is currently enjoying freedom as he awaits his sentence. This wasn’t for his family’s lack of trying: after he was granted bail by a nonchalant judge (after which he made a series of social media posts admitting his guilt), a relative tried getting him detained on mental health grounds. He was taken in for a psychiatric evaluation — only to be released shortly afterward.
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It’s a story that plays out again and again in Canada. Another notable case? The Tumbler Ridge shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar (or Strang), had been visited by police on “multiple occasions over the past several years dealing with concerns of mental health” and was apprehended under B.C.’s Mental Health Act “for assessment and follow-up,” according to the RCMP in a news conference after the tragedy.
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Maybe, some of you would be thinking, we need to re-open the asylums. And you’re probably right.
Psychiatric detention currently has a very high bar, the rules generally allowing detention only when a person poses an imminent risk of harm to themself or others. The thresholds and processes vary by province, but in general, simply being out of one’s mind isn’t enough. Our system prioritizes individual freedom over just about all else, and thus, our downtowns are filled with fentanyl zombies who can’t care for themselves, and it’s normal to hear about crimes committed by deranged individuals who, in better times, would have been kept far away from the public.
It wasn’t always this way. Back in the ’50s and ’60s, wrote Toronto mental health court judge Richard D. Schneider in a 2015 report, psychiatric detention in Ontario was premised on a model in which “mentally disordered individuals are hospitalized if there appears to be a need to treat them and they are not availing themselves of the necessary treatment voluntarily.”
This was replaced in 1978 with a model in which detentions are only possible where an individual “is perceived to be a danger to himself or others.” Numerous Canadian jurisdictions made similar changes around this time, following a trend that began in the United States, according to scholarship on the matter.
You can see the effects of lax mental health detention standards throughout the public record.
One Anthony Minardi, found not criminally responsible in 2025 for a 2023 arson, had previously been hospitalized for a month in 2020 for threatening to kill himself and his mother. Despite being diagnosed with cannabis-induced psychosis with manic features, he “consumed cannabis during passes from the hospital.” Some medication nevertheless improved his condition, and he was discharged to his mom’s house after a month of involuntary treatment.
Minardi’s condition deteriorated as time went on, and by 2023 he burned down a barn on his family’s farm, resulting in criminal charges. He was back in the hospital again later that year after an incident in which he called police, who reportedly retrieved him from a bush. He had to be chemically restrained after lunging at health staff.
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In January, a panel of the Ontario Review Board maintained that Minardi’s medical supervision must continue — which is only a minor consolation, because the same decision notes that he’s currently living with his mother. He continues to use drugs, and an assessing doctor found that he was “likely have another psychotic episode” and that he “poses a significant threat to the safety of the public.”
In 2025, the Ontario Review Board released Joshua Newkirk-McCoy from psychiatric detention; he was charged in 2019 for stabbing a person on an Ottawa bus and found not criminally responsible in 2023. That decision mentions a history of being fired for behaving strangely at work, a criminal record of over 30 convictions, a Schizophrenia diagnosis and a history of medication non-compliance.
In one 2022 incident, he was found by police lying on a stranger’s porch; he was taken to the hospital by police, where he explained that he was hearing voices, believed that doctors and family were conspiring against him, and claimed he could read others’ minds and emotions. Nevertheless, “He did not meet criteria for involuntary admission under the Mental Health (Act) and was therefore discharged.” Newkirk-McCoy is now being monitored in the community, where he is allowed to drink alcohol; doctors have warned that alcohol consumption may result in a “decompensation of his mental state” that could require him to be returned to the hospital.
And just in January, James Mousaly — an Ontario Power Generation worker who was charged with terrorism offences in 2024 after making videos explaining how to damage nuclear power stations — was released without conditions by the Ontario Review Board. He had been found not criminally responsible of his crime in 2025, which meant no criminal guilt or criminal record. His time in custody was very brief.
The board’s decision to release paints a troubled history of a man who couldn’t manage his illness: his mental deterioration, often spurred by drug use, dated back to at least 2021 and led to “hospitalizations and trouble with his family.” However, after being charged for broadcasting instructions on how to sabotage nuclear power plants, he was not taken into psychiatric detention: he “didn’t meet the criteria for involuntary admission despite still being manic and unwell, he did not pose a threat to the safety of the public and was discharged,” according to the decision.
Mousaly has been discharged into freedom thanks to the generosity of Ontario Review Board members. But the board was not unanimous: a dissenting minority argued that his return to the community should come with hospital supervision. They mentioned one doctor’s concerning assessment: “based on Mr. Mousaly’s recurrent illness, historical discontinuance of medication, and poor insight into his disease, as well as his offending while manic and psychotic, that Mr. Mousaly currently represents a significant threat to public safety.”
Crimes by highly deranged individuals are often preceded by warnings: manipulation and harm to friends and family, mental breakdowns, violence, delusions, and, if they manage to cross the high bar for psychiatric detention, hospitalization. Public order has suffered, tragedies have happened. We need to seriously consider going back to the midcentury ways of detaining and treating for those who can’t care for themselves before they become a danger to the rest of us.
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