When emergency dispatcher Sarah Levesque gets home after her shift, she sometimes sits in her car for an extra twenty minutes. These moments alone help her decompress after hours of answering calls that range from minor emergencies to life-threatening situations.
“You never know what the next call will bring,” Levesque told me when we met at a coffee shop near her home in Surrey, British Columbia. “One minute you’re helping someone who’s locked out of their car, the next you’re talking a person through CPR while they wait for paramedics to arrive.”
This constant pendulum between routine and crisis is just one aspect of the mental health challenges facing Canada’s first responders. Last week marked the launch of the nationwide “Answering the Call” campaign, which aims to bring unprecedented attention to the psychological toll experienced by those working on the front lines of emergency services.
The campaign arrives at a critical moment. A 2023 study from the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment found that 44.5% of public safety personnel reported symptoms consistent with one or more mental disorders – nearly four times higher than the general population.
“We’re seeing alarming rates of post-traumatic stress injuries, depression, and anxiety among first responders,” explains Dr. Nicholas Carleton, scientific director at the institute. “What many people don’t realize is the cumulative impact. It’s not always one catastrophic event, but the accumulation of hundreds of difficult calls over years of service.”
Walking through Crab Park on Vancouver’s waterfront last month, paramedic Devon Williams pointed to a bench overlooking the harbor. “That’s where I come to clear my head,” he said. Williams has served as a paramedic for eleven years and has witnessed firsthand how attitudes toward mental health have evolved within emergency services.
“When I started, there was still this culture of ‘toughen up,'” Williams recalled. “You’d respond to a traumatic call, and everyone would pretend they were fine. Now we’re starting to acknowledge that you can be both strong and affected by what you see.”
The “Answering the Call” campaign was developed through collaboration between the Mental Health Commission of Canada and various first responder organizations. It focuses on three key areas: reducing stigma, improving access to specialized mental health supports, and implementing preventive measures within workplaces.
Public Safety Canada has committed $30 million over five years to support the initiative, which includes a national advertising campaign featuring real stories from first responders and their families.
For fire captain Miguel Santana, the campaign represents long-overdue recognition. “We’ve lost too many colleagues to suicide,” he told me during a tour of his Vancouver fire station. On his locker, Santana keeps a photo of former teammate Chris Warner, who died by suicide in 2019 after struggling with PTSD.
“Chris never felt comfortable asking for help,” Santana said. “He worried it would make him look weak or affect his career advancement. That’s the culture we’re trying to change.”
The campaign also highlights how emergency work affects family life. Tamara Bourgeois, whose husband has been a police officer for 16 years in Halifax, described the ripple effects she’s observed.
“There are nights when he comes home and can barely speak,” she said during our phone conversation. “Other times, he’s hypervigilant, constantly checking doors and windows. Our children have learned to recognize when Dad needs space.”
Bourgeois helped create a support network for first responder families in her community. “We need resources not just for the workers themselves, but for those of us who support them at home.”
Innovative approaches are emerging across the country. In Edmonton, the fire department has implemented a peer support program where specially trained firefighters provide initial mental health support to colleagues following difficult calls.
Meanwhile, Toronto Paramedic Services has introduced regular psychological check-ins for all staff –
