• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

More Proof of Canada's Failed Mental Health Policies?

truthatallcost

DP Veteran
Joined
Aug 1, 2014
Messages
26,719
Reaction score
6,278
Location
California
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Other
Canada, Tronoto - After Shawn O’Neill’s release from court-mandated psychiatric treatment, he no longer had to visit the hospital every day. And no one could force him to take medicine. So he didn’t.

The first person Shawn O’Neill stabbed that chilly Sunday morning was Christopher Young. O’Neill jumped at him on the Church St. sidewalk and plunged a kitchen knife into his lower right abdomen.

John Tedesco was jogging past Maple Leaf Gardens minutes later when O’Neill drove the same knife into the small of his back.

Sally Kaack, an Australian ballerina, was next. The blade punctured her right lung.

Finally it was Jennifer Tran, a St. Mike’s hospital resident walking home from a night shift. O’Neill stabbed her through her winter coat and the knife broke against an iPhone in her left breast pocket, above her heart.

Police later called it “a rampage.” None of the victims died or were grievously injured, and last week, a Superior Court judge ruled that 62-year-old O’Neill is “not criminally responsible on account of mental illness” (NCR), for the quadruple stabbing on Jan. 25, 2015.

Even so, impact statements included in the ruling highlight how the incident has marked the lives of O’Neill’s victims ever since, prompting anxiety and stress and fear of strangers. The pain, it seems, can linger like an unfading bruise.

But the ruling also underscored a sense that the ordeal could have been avoided.

One year before the attacks, O’Neill was freed from court-mandated psychiatric treatment for paranoid schizophrenia and substance abuse. He entered the system in 1996 when he was deemed “not criminally responsible” for the first time after brandishing a knife on Queen St. For more than 17 years, O’Neill was treated for mental illness, closely monitored by doctors and subject to annual hearings at the Ontario Review Board, a provincial body that oversees roughly 1,500 people deemed NCR by the legal system.

After the board granted O’Neill’s absolute discharge in January 2014 — a move opposed by his family and doctors at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health — he no longer had to visit the hospital every day. And no one could force him to take medicine.

So he didn’t. According to the recent judge’s ruling, O’Neill fell into a spiral of drinking and weed smoking, and stopped taking medication to control his psychotic symptoms.

In late January 2015, “while labouring under delusions” that he needed to stop a murky conspiracy to abuse children, O’Neill grabbed a kitchen knife, went out to the street and stabbed four people.

The judge said that, while O’Neill won’t be criminally sentenced, he is expected to be institutionalized and forced into mental health treatment for a long time.

 
Such a thing would never happen in the US because we have the best health system in the world.

Right???
 
Like most articles that where the title includes a question, the answer is, "No."
 
Hard to look at one case and say the system is a failure as a whole. The system always needs improvement, and it often falls short. It certainly failed this guy, and it's hard to know the reason for that by just looking at the ancillary details of the article.

By the way, could you please link to the article? The news source matters.
 
Can somebody explain why there is this universal opposition to executing mentally ill killers?

Logically, we should be more lenient with the mentally healthy scum. At least we can reason with them, scare them, bribe them, or whatever. If successful, they could be again productive members of the society, which is done in Europe, where murder gets you 6 months or something like that.

With truly mental cases, there is no chance of rehabilitation. Add to this that a day in a mental hospital runs about 2k a day, and life no parole in prison at 40k a year all of a sudden looks like a basement bargain on Black Friday.
 
Μολὼν λαβέ;1065890619 said:
Its better to have it and not need it that to need it and not have it. ;)

Is this a Chinese proverb or did you just compose it yourself?

Either way, I like it.
 
Is this a Chinese proverb or did you just compose it yourself?

Either way, I like it.

Its one of my mottoes about life. It can be applied to various situations and it seemed apropos to yours.

As far as getting your carry permit, I strongly suggest you make hay while the sun shines. (No, I didn't create that idiom.) But it seems apropos to your situation as well.
 
Canada, Tronoto - After Shawn O’Neill’s release from court-mandated psychiatric treatment, he no longer had to visit the hospital every day. And no one could force him to take medicine. So he didn’t.

The first person Shawn O’Neill stabbed that chilly Sunday morning was Christopher Young. O’Neill jumped at him on the Church St. sidewalk and plunged a kitchen knife into his lower right abdomen.

John Tedesco was jogging past Maple Leaf Gardens minutes later when O’Neill drove the same knife into the small of his back.

Sally Kaack, an Australian ballerina, was next. The blade punctured her right lung.

Finally it was Jennifer Tran, a St. Mike’s hospital resident walking home from a night shift. O’Neill stabbed her through her winter coat and the knife broke against an iPhone in her left breast pocket, above her heart.

Police later called it “a rampage.” None of the victims died or were grievously injured, and last week, a Superior Court judge ruled that 62-year-old O’Neill is “not criminally responsible on account of mental illness” (NCR), for the quadruple stabbing on Jan. 25, 2015.

Even so, impact statements included in the ruling highlight how the incident has marked the lives of O’Neill’s victims ever since, prompting anxiety and stress and fear of strangers. The pain, it seems, can linger like an unfading bruise.

But the ruling also underscored a sense that the ordeal could have been avoided.

One year before the attacks, O’Neill was freed from court-mandated psychiatric treatment for paranoid schizophrenia and substance abuse. He entered the system in 1996 when he was deemed “not criminally responsible” for the first time after brandishing a knife on Queen St. For more than 17 years, O’Neill was treated for mental illness, closely monitored by doctors and subject to annual hearings at the Ontario Review Board, a provincial body that oversees roughly 1,500 people deemed NCR by the legal system.

After the board granted O’Neill’s absolute discharge in January 2014 — a move opposed by his family and doctors at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health — he no longer had to visit the hospital every day. And no one could force him to take medicine.

So he didn’t. According to the recent judge’s ruling, O’Neill fell into a spiral of drinking and weed smoking, and stopped taking medication to control his psychotic symptoms.

In late January 2015, “while labouring under delusions” that he needed to stop a murky conspiracy to abuse children, O’Neill grabbed a kitchen knife, went out to the street and stabbed four people.

The judge said that, while O’Neill won’t be criminally sentenced, he is expected to be institutionalized and forced into mental health treatment for a long time.



Yeah, so what? An anecdote has no importance whatsoever in terms of policy. Do you think your mental illness would be better adressed i Canada or wherever you live now?
 
An awfully wordy one. Never seen it. On bumpers.

It's not on front bumpers. You need to lift up your head and look as the bumper goes away into the distance.
 
It's not on front bumpers. You need to lift up your head and look as the bumper goes away into the distance.

I never said front bumpers. Looks like Canada has failed with bumper stickers too.


Quote Originally Posted by coldjoint View Post
An awfully wordy one. Never seen it. On bumpers.
 
I never said front bumpers. Looks like Canada has failed with bumper stickers too.

We'll be alright. We'll never be like the US but we'll be just fine.
 
Yeah, so what? An anecdote has no importance whatsoever in terms of policy. Do you think your mental illness would be better addressed i Canada or wherever you live now?

From my PoV, this is less about mental illness and more about the Canadian government dumping thugs on the defenseless Canadians.

Just like the feds dumping illegal criminals here.

Both saying: screw you and fend for yourself.

Just wondering: If got stabbed by one of those morons, pulled that knife out of my chest, stabbed the sob and the pos dies, would I be prosecuted in Canada?
 
Last edited:
From my PoV, this is less about mental illness and more about the Canadian government dumping thugs on the defenseless Canadians.

Just like the feds dumping illegal criminals here.

Both saying: screw you and fend for yourself.

Just wondering: If got stabbed by one of those morons, pulled that knife out of my chest, stabbed the sob and the pos dies, would I be prosecuted in Canada?

Depends. Are you muttering a racial, ethnic or gender-specific slur while you stab him?
 
Such a thing would never happen in the US because we have the best health system in the world.

Right???

No, our system is over burdened. California cut $750 million in mental health services out of its budget under Jerry Brown. Free healthcare for our millions of illegals continues however. I've seen the devastation in my town, with many mentally ill people wandering the streets, didn't used to see very many here.

With 40 million people in an overpopulated blue state, the mentally ill have been the first to be thrown under the bus.
 
Yeah, so what? An anecdote has no importance whatsoever in terms of policy. Do you think your mental illness would be better adressed i Canada or wherever you live now?

Can't stand seeing the result of your politics with your own eyes? Don't shoot the messenger Grand Mal.
 
Can't stand seeing the result of your politics with your own eyes? Don't shoot the messenger Grand Mal.

What does that even mean? Do you really say that one lunatic running amok shows that a whole system has broken down? Can you really be that dumb?
 
No, our system is over burdened. California cut $750 million in mental health services out of its budget under Jerry Brown. Free healthcare for our millions of illegals continues however. I've seen the devastation in my town, with many mentally ill people wandering the streets, didn't used to see very many here.

With 40 million people in an overpopulated blue state, the mentally ill have been the first to be thrown under the bus.

That was such a bigoted, xenophobic and inhumane thing to say. Don't you know that the illegals are Americans, too? And that they are sweet, cuddly people who came here to better themselves? And that they were invited to come by our first black, and totally awesome, best president ever?

And that the devastation you mentioned is totally OK with the Californians, or they would be building that awful, will-never-work, wall themselves.

Or at least vote differently. They don't, so everything is according to the California voters' wishes.

I hope you feel better now.
 
What does that even mean? Do you really say that one lunatic running amok shows that a whole system has broken down? Can you really be that dumb?

A while back I posted a story about a man in Canada who attacked a complete stranger on a Greyhound bus in Canada. He beheaded the man and proceeded to eat parts of the man's flesh while horrified bus passengers watched.

6 years later....the Canadian government has deemed this man "cured" and will be picking up the cost for his apartment, food, expenses, when he is released.
Meanwhile, the elderly parents of the victim have been financially and emotionally drained from this experience.

Is Canada's mental health system a joke? Check.
Is it the result of liberal insanity run amok? Check.

You're priorities have become so distorted that a cannibal killer is given a great deal of sympathy, while the elderly parents of the victim are utterly forgotten about.
 
A while back I posted a story about a man in Canada who attacked a complete stranger on a Greyhound bus in Canada. He beheaded the man and proceeded to eat parts of the man's flesh while horrified bus passengers watched.

6 years later....the Canadian government has deemed this man "cured" and will be picking up the cost for his apartment, food, expenses, when he is released.
Meanwhile, the elderly parents of the victim have been financially and emotionally drained from this experience.

Is Canada's mental health system a joke? Check.
Is it the result of liberal insanity run amok? Check.

Your priorities have become so distorted that a cannibal killer is given a great deal of sympathy, while the elderly parents of the victim are utterly forgotten about.

You are waaaay too harsh on Canada. All those elderly parents have to do to get their benefits is to eat somebody for lunch at a bus station. Preferably alive. Then the benefits are doubled.

So, who said that Canada is a sick and disgusting place with f***** up priorities?

Ooops.. I think it was me when the subject was unrestricted abortions on demand for any reason and at any time during pregnancy. Just like in China and North Korea.

What a country.
 
Back
Top Bottom