The provincial government says it’s accepted changes to its mental health system after a report looking into a triple stabbing at a Chinatown festival in Vancouver last year.
The report, authored by former Abbotsford Police chief Bob Rich, says the suspect in the stabbing, Blair Donnelly, was on his 100th unescorted leave from the BC Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on Sept. 10, 2023, when he allegedly stabbed three festivalgoers at the Light Up Chinatown Festival.
The external review, ordered by the provincial government after the stabbings, says Donnelly was found not criminally responsible for killing his daughter in 2006 while “suffering from a psychotic delusion that God wanted him to kill her.”
Dave Teixeira, who’s a victims rights advocate, says the report has been a long time coming — but the ball is now in the province’s court to actually act.
“Especially on the eve of an election, will the sitting government actually accept the recommendations from this Rich report and pledge to move it forward, or is this going to be another series of reports that is just going to gather dust in someone’s office?” Teixeira asked.
He says the rhetoric around mental health and involuntary treatment has been very high in the last few months but he and other victims rights advocates are willing to work with any political party that’s committed to keeping people safe.
“I think victim families and other individuals would be happy to [work] with a political party who actually puts a meaningful foot in front of the other and move this forward. But what has been happening, at all levels of government all across Canada, is a lot of talk and no action. So now is the time, here in British Columbia, to move this report forward.”
Teixeira is a representative of the family of the victims of convicted child killer Allan Schoenborn — now legally named Ken John Johnson — who in June was denied an extension to his 28-day unescorted leaves into the community from the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam.
Rich’s report makes several recommendations to better handle “higher-risk patients,” including bolstering their care teams, improving policies around granting patient leaves, shoring up staff training in forensics and the use of “risk-management tools,” such as GPS tracking systems.
The B.C. Ministry of Health says it has accepted all of Rich’s recommendations and has already begun implementing them including “following new polices for granting leave privileges at the hospital.”
Court records show Donnelly is due back in Vancouver provincial court in March 2025.