After a wave of officer suicides, the OPP vowed to do more for members’ mental health. The reforms have fallen short!
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2026 5:20 am
After a wave of officer suicides, the OPP vowed to do more for members’ mental health. Internal documents show the reforms have fallen short
Twenty-one current and former OPP staff members have died by suicide since 2012, a rate that has remained stubbornly persistent despite promises to improve mental health care within the provincial police force.
The data, obtained through a freedom-of-information request, show that during this same time-period two OPP officers were killed in homicides in the line of duty.
In 2018, after three OPP officers died by suicide in the span of just a few weeks, the force launched reviews of its psychological wellness program and active members’ self-inflicted deaths, along with a series of “mental health roundtables.”
Seven years later, the OPP is still struggling to implement an effective program and address its most at-risk members’ mental health issues, internal records show.
In February of last year, Ontario’s Deputy Solicitor General found significant “structural and systemic issues” with the OPP’s latest iteration of its mental health program.
This conclusion, found in a letter that does not elaborate on specific issues, followed a complaint against the OPP alleging that the force “failed to properly design, implement, and maintain a psychological health monitoring program and failed to provide appropriate education about mental health risks.”
The OPP said that there had been “no clearly defined parameters or accountability measures to ensure compliance” since the program’s inception, according to an “Action Plan” distributed internally in May 2025.
OPP spokesperson Gosia Puzio told the Star that “police suicide in Canada remains a concerning and complex issue which underscores the urgent need for better understanding and support within law enforcement agencies.” She added that “in recent years, the OPP has made great strides in enhancing the support programs available to our members.”
Puzio did not address questions about the persistent issues with the force’s mental health program. The OPP declined to say how many suicides occurred since 2018.
Paul Horne was one of the three officers who died in the summer of that year. A detective inspector, he was nearing retirement after a lengthy career.
Horne worked on human trafficking investigations and did undercover assignments in organized crime, his brother, Rob, said. He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Paul, 50, had recently taken time off work and was seeking a less stressful assignment, Rob said, but the veteran officer was overcome.
Paul “isolated himself and finally, he just couldn’t handle what was happening in his mind,” Rob said. “My youngest brother was my best friend, and the shock still persists.”
When the OPP launched reviews of the deaths and the wellness program later that year, then-OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes said in a news conference, “Clearly we need to do more.” A series of reforms followed.
Rob Horne has been involved in the reviews launched after his brother’s death and is in regular contact with OPP officials, former cops, and other family members of officers who died by suicide. He said he was not surprised by the Star’s findings about the OPP’s lack of progress on mental health.
“If you ask me what kind of progress has been made since he died, I can’t really tell you definitively,” Rob said. “And the reason I can’t is that we’ve been asking for a couple of years for progress measures and progress reporting, and we have yet to see any.”
The OPP first implemented a program named “Safeguard” in the early 2000s to assess officers’ psychological fitness for duty. The job took an obvious toll on members’ mental health: Between 1989 and 2012, the Ontario Ombudsman found that 23 current and former OPP officers died by suicide – meaning there were more deaths by self-inflicted means than other on-duty deaths in that period, including accidents.
After the tragic summer of 2018 however, a review of Safeguard found a lack of evidence for its benefits, violations of provincial regulations inherent to the services provided and a lack of “clear objectives and procedures.” It also found that members were dishonest during assessments as they risked being removed from their position.
The Ministry of the Solicitor General did not provide updated figures on deaths by road accidents, which the Ombudsman identified as another leading cause of death in OPP officers.
In 2021, the OPP hired a new chief psychologist, Dr. Vivien Lee, who recommended scrapping the Safeguard program and replacing it with what she called the Psychological Health Check-In Program (PHCIP), according to a decision note she authored.
This program, Lee said, would include mandatory attendance to annual check-ins with psychologists for targeted high-risk OPP units, but optional participation. Crucially, the only feedback provided to managers under this program would be on members’ attendance, not on whether they are fit for duty, in the hope that this would allow reluctant officers to engage more honestly than they did under the Safeguard program. OPP commissioner Thomas Carrique signed off on Lee’s recommendation in July 2021.
The PHCIP was renamed the Health Check-in Program (HCIP) in 2023 because “psychologists were no longer solely administering the program” and no specific services, such as psychological assessments or diagnostics, were part of the program, the 2025 Action Plan says.
Puzio said that HCIP sessions “may include gathering of personal and work history, screening of potential symptoms” and discussion of coping strategies. She said OPP members can seek psychological assessments or diagnoses through external services. Dr. Lee did not respond to requests for comment.
The force’s union, the Ontario Provincial Police Association (OPPA), said it offers members access to their own mental health program, called Encompass, and declined to further comment. According to its website, Encompass offers “a comprehensive and accessible approach to mental healthcare” including “counselling, assessments, intensive treatment programs” and other resources.
The 2025 Action Plan aimed to establish “structured guidelines and accountability” and “enhance program effectiveness and ensure compliance.” It called on all mandatory HCIP mental health checks to be completed by June 30 of every year.
A February 2025 review of OPP members’ attendance shows that 80 per cent of the targeted units’ 383 members – who work in fields such as human trafficking, child sexual exploitation and forensic identifications – completed their mandatory annual health check-ins.
There is one glaring exception, however: among the 21 identified members of covert operations, only one had completed their check-in.
A second attendance report, this one from June 2025, shows that only 70 out of 375 members of targeted units had completed that year’s mandatory annual check-in – fewer than 20 per cent. None of the covert operations members had done so.
The attendance report does not offer an explanation for covert operations’ poor track record, but emails suggest persistent communication issues between the OPP’s Healthy Workplace Team, which is in charge of the program, and covert operations management. Records show Linda Burrell, a senior manager of clinical operations, sent three emails between February and April of that year asking for covert operations members’ contact information.
There is no mention in the documents obtained by the Star via its freedom-of-information request of this information ever being sent to Burrell.
Puzio did not address questions about members’ attendance records. She said the HCIP “has been successfully implemented.”
Dilnaz Garda, president of the non-profit organization Canada Beyond the Blue, which supports law enforcement officers’ families with mental health resources, said “there are issues in every system,” but the OPP made meaningful progress in recent years. She commended Commissioner Carrique for his support of an Ontario Police Suicide Memorial. “He led on this issue because it was the right thing to do, at a time when other leaders were too afraid to act,” Garda said.
Rob Horne said he continues to work with and hope for the provincial force to get better. “We, the family members, we’re not giving up. We will do everything we can to support the OPP,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can to also hold them to account, because the stakes are just so high.”
“The only thing my brother would want is for his colleagues to be as safe as they could be.”
Frédérik Plante is a Toronto-based investigative reporter for the Star. You can reach him at fplante@thestar.ca, @fx_plante on X or @fxplante.bsky.social on Bluesky.
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigat ... c9c41.html
Twenty-one current and former OPP staff members have died by suicide since 2012, a rate that has remained stubbornly persistent despite promises to improve mental health care within the provincial police force.
The data, obtained through a freedom-of-information request, show that during this same time-period two OPP officers were killed in homicides in the line of duty.
In 2018, after three OPP officers died by suicide in the span of just a few weeks, the force launched reviews of its psychological wellness program and active members’ self-inflicted deaths, along with a series of “mental health roundtables.”
Seven years later, the OPP is still struggling to implement an effective program and address its most at-risk members’ mental health issues, internal records show.
In February of last year, Ontario’s Deputy Solicitor General found significant “structural and systemic issues” with the OPP’s latest iteration of its mental health program.
This conclusion, found in a letter that does not elaborate on specific issues, followed a complaint against the OPP alleging that the force “failed to properly design, implement, and maintain a psychological health monitoring program and failed to provide appropriate education about mental health risks.”
The OPP said that there had been “no clearly defined parameters or accountability measures to ensure compliance” since the program’s inception, according to an “Action Plan” distributed internally in May 2025.
OPP spokesperson Gosia Puzio told the Star that “police suicide in Canada remains a concerning and complex issue which underscores the urgent need for better understanding and support within law enforcement agencies.” She added that “in recent years, the OPP has made great strides in enhancing the support programs available to our members.”
Puzio did not address questions about the persistent issues with the force’s mental health program. The OPP declined to say how many suicides occurred since 2018.
Paul Horne was one of the three officers who died in the summer of that year. A detective inspector, he was nearing retirement after a lengthy career.
Horne worked on human trafficking investigations and did undercover assignments in organized crime, his brother, Rob, said. He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Paul, 50, had recently taken time off work and was seeking a less stressful assignment, Rob said, but the veteran officer was overcome.
Paul “isolated himself and finally, he just couldn’t handle what was happening in his mind,” Rob said. “My youngest brother was my best friend, and the shock still persists.”
When the OPP launched reviews of the deaths and the wellness program later that year, then-OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes said in a news conference, “Clearly we need to do more.” A series of reforms followed.
Rob Horne has been involved in the reviews launched after his brother’s death and is in regular contact with OPP officials, former cops, and other family members of officers who died by suicide. He said he was not surprised by the Star’s findings about the OPP’s lack of progress on mental health.
“If you ask me what kind of progress has been made since he died, I can’t really tell you definitively,” Rob said. “And the reason I can’t is that we’ve been asking for a couple of years for progress measures and progress reporting, and we have yet to see any.”
The OPP first implemented a program named “Safeguard” in the early 2000s to assess officers’ psychological fitness for duty. The job took an obvious toll on members’ mental health: Between 1989 and 2012, the Ontario Ombudsman found that 23 current and former OPP officers died by suicide – meaning there were more deaths by self-inflicted means than other on-duty deaths in that period, including accidents.
After the tragic summer of 2018 however, a review of Safeguard found a lack of evidence for its benefits, violations of provincial regulations inherent to the services provided and a lack of “clear objectives and procedures.” It also found that members were dishonest during assessments as they risked being removed from their position.
The Ministry of the Solicitor General did not provide updated figures on deaths by road accidents, which the Ombudsman identified as another leading cause of death in OPP officers.
In 2021, the OPP hired a new chief psychologist, Dr. Vivien Lee, who recommended scrapping the Safeguard program and replacing it with what she called the Psychological Health Check-In Program (PHCIP), according to a decision note she authored.
This program, Lee said, would include mandatory attendance to annual check-ins with psychologists for targeted high-risk OPP units, but optional participation. Crucially, the only feedback provided to managers under this program would be on members’ attendance, not on whether they are fit for duty, in the hope that this would allow reluctant officers to engage more honestly than they did under the Safeguard program. OPP commissioner Thomas Carrique signed off on Lee’s recommendation in July 2021.
The PHCIP was renamed the Health Check-in Program (HCIP) in 2023 because “psychologists were no longer solely administering the program” and no specific services, such as psychological assessments or diagnostics, were part of the program, the 2025 Action Plan says.
Puzio said that HCIP sessions “may include gathering of personal and work history, screening of potential symptoms” and discussion of coping strategies. She said OPP members can seek psychological assessments or diagnoses through external services. Dr. Lee did not respond to requests for comment.
The force’s union, the Ontario Provincial Police Association (OPPA), said it offers members access to their own mental health program, called Encompass, and declined to further comment. According to its website, Encompass offers “a comprehensive and accessible approach to mental healthcare” including “counselling, assessments, intensive treatment programs” and other resources.
The 2025 Action Plan aimed to establish “structured guidelines and accountability” and “enhance program effectiveness and ensure compliance.” It called on all mandatory HCIP mental health checks to be completed by June 30 of every year.
A February 2025 review of OPP members’ attendance shows that 80 per cent of the targeted units’ 383 members – who work in fields such as human trafficking, child sexual exploitation and forensic identifications – completed their mandatory annual health check-ins.
There is one glaring exception, however: among the 21 identified members of covert operations, only one had completed their check-in.
A second attendance report, this one from June 2025, shows that only 70 out of 375 members of targeted units had completed that year’s mandatory annual check-in – fewer than 20 per cent. None of the covert operations members had done so.
The attendance report does not offer an explanation for covert operations’ poor track record, but emails suggest persistent communication issues between the OPP’s Healthy Workplace Team, which is in charge of the program, and covert operations management. Records show Linda Burrell, a senior manager of clinical operations, sent three emails between February and April of that year asking for covert operations members’ contact information.
There is no mention in the documents obtained by the Star via its freedom-of-information request of this information ever being sent to Burrell.
Puzio did not address questions about members’ attendance records. She said the HCIP “has been successfully implemented.”
Dilnaz Garda, president of the non-profit organization Canada Beyond the Blue, which supports law enforcement officers’ families with mental health resources, said “there are issues in every system,” but the OPP made meaningful progress in recent years. She commended Commissioner Carrique for his support of an Ontario Police Suicide Memorial. “He led on this issue because it was the right thing to do, at a time when other leaders were too afraid to act,” Garda said.
Rob Horne said he continues to work with and hope for the provincial force to get better. “We, the family members, we’re not giving up. We will do everything we can to support the OPP,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can to also hold them to account, because the stakes are just so high.”
“The only thing my brother would want is for his colleagues to be as safe as they could be.”
Frédérik Plante is a Toronto-based investigative reporter for the Star. You can reach him at fplante@thestar.ca, @fx_plante on X or @fxplante.bsky.social on Bluesky.
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigat ... c9c41.html