In 2022, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim promised to hire 100 cops and 100 nurses. Here's what's actually happened so far.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, speaks during a news conference for a housing announcement in Vancouver, B.C., Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

An update on the health-care piece of Mayor Ken Sim's pledge to hire 100 mental health nurses to pair with 100 police officers has revealed just how little resemblance what is being implemented bears to what was promised in 2022.

Vancouver Coastal Health provided an update Wednesday on how funding allocated to the health authority has been spent, saying 35 positions had been filled as of the end of August and that 50 per cent of those hired have been nurses.

ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung acknowledged that the difference between the number of nurses promised and the number hired may spark criticism, but said focusing on that reflects a "simplistic analysis."

Similarly, Coun. Mike Klassen tacitly acknowledged that what the health authority has done is radically different than what his party promised, saying campaigns are "crazy times.”

For his part, Sim said "we're not in election season" and "we have the experts in the room."

Caitlyn Etherington, presenting to council on behalf of VCH, said progress on hiring has been steady but slow amid challenging conditions in the labour market. She said the focus has been on gradually building up capacity and creating interdisciplinary teams to respond to mental health emergencies – particularly in ways that do not involve the police at all.

"I'm much more pleased with where we are now than if we had just posted 100 nurses. I think it's a more strategic investment," she said.

"The existence of a non-police crisis response is so significant," she later said.

Notably, Sim and his ABC party did not campaign on creating an alternative to police. They specifically ran on dramatically expanding the Car 87/88 program in which an officer is paired with a mental health nurse.

Coun. Rebecca Bligh, referring to the original promise during Wednesday's meeting, described it as officers and nurses "working in lock step, hand in hand."

Rather than 100 nurses to work side by side with 100 cops, the health authority's plan created 55 full-time equivalent positions.

Ten positions are with the Car 87/88 program and all 10 of those have been filled.

The Car 87/88 program has been expanded, its capacity doubled as a result of the city's funding. Instead of two cars on the road each day, there are four.

In addition, four positions have been created in the Vancouver Police Department's operation command centre, where a nurse has been embedded to triage calls. This has resulted in the call being diverted to the health-care system 50 per cent of the time. Two of these four positions have been filled.

The remaining 41 positions are on two newly created teams that do not involve the police and while 23 have been filled, 18 remain vacant. Etherington said, generally, it is more difficult to recruit people to new teams than established ones but she is hopeful the programs will be fully staffed in the coming months.

One of the teams created is the mobile crisis de-escalation team, which takes referrals directly from shelters and other community organizations, but can’t be accessed by the general public. The other is an Indigenous crisis response team, which will provide mobile and culturally safe, responses with a focus on the Dowtown Eastside.

Data on patient outcomes has not yet been collected but is expected to be included in a later report. Between the expanded Car 87/88 teams, the nurses at the OCC, and the moderate crisis de-escalation team, VCH says there have been an average of 116 "health-care interactions" per day. Data for the Indigenous crisis team is not yet available.

Council was unanimous in its gratitude to the health authority for the work done so far while also giving themselves credit for providing the funding by passing a motion shortly after being elected that was titled Enabling the Requisitioning and Hiring of 100 New Police Officers and 100 Mental Health Nurses.

"Without the motion in the first place, all this progress was not even possible," said Coun. Lenny Zhou.

On the policing side, the question of whether Sim has made good on his promise is slightly murky.

One hundred new positions were created, bringing the "authorized strength" of the department up from 1,348 to 1,448, according to spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison.

"Staffing numbers fluctuate daily and weekly, depending on new hires, resignations, and retirements," Addison added.

Between October, 2022 and the end of August, 2024 there were 179 officers hired. But during that same time, 112 members left the force – a net gain of 67 officers.