Granville Bridge Means Prevention Fencing

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Dr. Brendan Yao. I'm a medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health. Happy to be here to speak in support of this motion. I'd just like to begin by establishing the fact that these types of suicide deaths are preventable tragedies. As mentioned, they impact the individual involved. their loved ones, first responders, health care workers, bystanders, and really our community at large. Suicide prevention fencing or means prevention are an established evidence-based approach to preventing suicide. They're a critical life-saving infrastructure for people experiencing momentary acute mental health crises. And we don't really have to look far to find evidence for their efficacy, although there is international evidence of their success. The City of Vancouver has demonstrated their leadership in this space by the installation of fencing on Ironworkers Memorial Bridge in 2015 and Broad Bridge in 2017. Of note, there have been no suicide deaths on these bridges since the installation of this infrastructure. And Granville Bridge is a logical location for the installation of this infrastructure in Vancouver. Currently, Granville Bridge has the second highest number of suicide deaths of any Vancouver Bridge, averaging around 2.6 deaths every year. And for individuals who do make it to the hospital, my Vancouver General Hospital Trauma Services colleagues are responsible for providing the immediate resuscitation, surgical intervention, and intensive care for those with often catastrophic injuries. Among those who survive, many face lifelong disability and significant long-term trauma as well. I'd like to note that my colleagues at the VGH Trauma Service has written a letter of support for this motion as well. I'd like to summarize by saying that the installation of fencing on Granville Bridge would save lives and would be a highly worthwhile investment. Our team at VCH looks forward to our continued collaboration with the City of Vancouver on this topic. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. And I think maybe Stacey Ashton is the speaker ahead of me, but I might be wrong.

Okay, great. Well, good afternoon, Honourable Chair, Members of Council. My name is Tom Lancaster. I'm the Director with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I'm also the General Manager of Granville Island. I know most of you, if not all of you, through happy times when we're celebrating arts and culture on the island. amongst the millions of people who show up every year. This is definitely a different topic. I'm also an extremely proud resident of Vancouver and representative of numerous organizations on Granville Island and around Falls Creek. But first, I would like to say thank you for standing in public office during these times when it isn't always easy to do so. I thank you also for taking on the job of difficult decision-making at a time when the world is becoming more and more complex. I would also like to pass on a sincere thank you to Councillor Dominato for this motion, Stacey Ashton for her tireless advocacy to save people's lives, and to other members of this council who have either reached out to me personally or have been clearly on the record to prioritize the installation of means prevention fencing on the Granville Bridge. We all know who you are, and we thank you. I won't spend any more of my time speaking about the severe tragedy of human beings' loss of life. One of our fellow Vancouverites on the Granville Bridge, making their decision to take their own life in a time of extreme distress, as we all know, is preventable. I also won't repeat the trigger warnings of the word suicide, as we can't talk about preventing it without naming it as such. I'm assuming, though, that we are all on the same page that any one of us would do whatever we could to save just one human life, let alone prevent needless deaths for decades into the future. While we all know this is a priority, where it stands amongst other capital spending priorities may be a cause for debate. I do understand that. Here is some perspective, though, that I hope may assist in this discussion around these priorities. As you all likely know, Granville Island is one of the most visited places in all of Canada. It is usually the first place that Vancouverites bring visiting guests. It is beloved and cherished by local folks. It is the heart of arts and culture in our city. Last year, we welcomed just under 11 million visitors to the island. Tens of thousands of people every day wandering our public spaces in and around and underneath the Granville Bridge. More than half of those visiting are children and families. There's also 3,100 people working full-time on Granville Island. in our businesses, nonprofits, and theaters. Prioritizing committing the capital for this fencing is not about pulling on hard strings. It is fundamentally an issue of public safety, supporting small business, protecting workers, and protecting the public, which is our public.

I would just like to say there's a massive constituency of people who will look upon this council's commitment to means-preventing infrastructure, specifically fencing on the bridge, with great support and gratitude.

Thank you very much for Councillor Dominato for bringing forward this motion. I'm really happy to be able to speak to this and to have this in front of Council again. I'm not happy about why, but I also know that the reality of suicide bridge barriers is, it's a hard one to grapple with. As the lead of the Crisis Centre of BC, we work in suicide prevention every day, right? It's a very constant thing for us and for many people, and gladly so. Suicide is not something you think about every day. What we know from the front line is why barriers work. They work because when a person is experiencing a suicidal crisis, clear thinking is gone. The desire to escape that current situation is very much a pressure on the mind, and it overwhelms that hope for a better future. People talk about feeling like they are a burden, that the world would be a better place without them. And when people come out of a suicidal crisis, they look back at those thoughts and they don't make any sense at all anymore because they weren't rational thoughts. They weren't real thoughts that made sense. And that's why these kinds of barriers at known suicide locations make a difference. They buy us time for this person to have their thoughts interrupted when they're not making any sense and then make a different decision. And what we know is that most people who make a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide. 90% of folks never attempt again. They go and find their happy lives. It matters. It means that these bridge barriers can be the difference between a life that ends and a life that continues. The barrier does not solve every pain in a person's life, obviously, but it can interrupt the moment when that pain becomes fatal.

When we lose somebody from suicide, we lose the life that could have been. And this is what is so painful for the survivors, is knowing that person every minute after that is not there for all of the events that happen and the life that comes after. The thought of if only there had been a way to stop them is a constant thought in your mind. And we know in the case of Bridges that there was a way. The Granville Street Bridge is a known location of concern. We acknowledge the need for barriers, and we've made that contingent on other governments, but we really just need to make it happen. The question before council isn't whether suicide prevention barriers are necessary. The question is whether we can treat them with the urgency that a life-saving institution life-saving infrastructure deserves. And I'm so glad to see this motion come forward so we can move ahead with that.

Good afternoon. My name is Emma, and I'm only in the ninth grade at West Point Gray Academy, and I live next to the Granville Street Bridge, and I'm highly in favor of this motion. Today, I'm speaking not only for myself, but for families in my building, residents along Beach Crescent, people on Granville Island, and everyone who's been forced to witness these tragedies that happened on the bridge due to the absence of suicide barriers. This bridge has caused years of trauma for me, beginning when I was only 12 years old. I saw a man sitting on the edge of the bridge, moments away from ending his life. I stood there crying, later trying to understand what could bring someone to that point, with my mom struggling to explain it to me. No child should ever have to witness that, but it didn't end there. Over the years, I've watched people sit on that edge again and again. I've seen people jump, and I've seen a dead woman in my driveway. And on May 12th, I watched a woman hanging from the bridge. She was there for eight hours. That night, I laid in my bed, trying to fall asleep as quickly as possible because I was terrified of hearing a body hit the floor. Those images don't leave you. They steal your sense of safety, and they change the way that you feel in your own home. I can barely live with my blinds open anymore because I'm afraid of what I might see outside my window. And yet, despite years of warnings and preventable deaths and years of residents speaking up, suicide barriers continue to be ignored because of cost. So my question is, since when do we put a price tag on human life? Since when does money take precedence over saving lives? Because these barriers create time for intervention and give people in crisis the chance to get home safely. They protect families from unimaginable loss. And every life saved means a family does not lose someone they love. They protect communities like mine. They protect residents, workers, and children from witnessing trauma that can stay with them forever. And we already know that they work. After suicide prevention barriers were installed in the Burrard Bridge, fatalities stopped. We have evidence. We know that these barriers save lives. So why does it come down to cost? Recently, I received a response from Prime Minister Mark Carney's office, informing me that my concerns have been forwarded to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Public Safety. These issues are being taken seriously and could receive federal support, but we need action and immediate action. Every delay in the construction of these barriers means another opportunity for tragedy, another life lost, another family shattered, and another young person forced to witness something they should never have to see. The question is no longer whether these barriers work or if they're needed. The question is, how many more people have to die before we decide that their lives are worth protecting? Thank you.

Speaker two has disconnected, unfortunately.

And what that means is saying that this is a priority unequivocally.