adam zivo: vancouver car ramming suspect should have never been free in the first place
canada's failure to embrace involuntary psychiatric treatment and institutionalization has disturbing outcomes
4 minute read
people attend the candlelight vigil near the scene where a car drove into a crowd of people during the lapu lapu festival on april 27, 2025 in vancouver, canada. (photo by andrew chin/getty images)
a joyful filipino street festival ended in carnage saturday night after a man driving an suv rammed into a crowd, killing 11 people and injuring at least 20 more. the man arrested and charged with eight counts of murder has a history of mental illness. while many factors contributed to this avoidable tragedy, perhaps the greatest of them was canada’s failure to embrace involuntary treatment and institutionalization.
if the suspect, kai-ji adam lo, 30, is found not criminally responsible and sentenced to psychiatric care, instead of prison, he will be institutionalized, like he should have been in the first place. in this case, the outcome of our more “compassionate” approach to mental health is disturbing.
the lapu lapu day festival was coming to a close when the suspect charged in the attack, drove recklessly through the neighbourhood and accelerated into a narrow street that had been reserved for pedestrians and food trucks. according to witnesses interviewed by the vancouver sun, the accused drove so quickly that many of his victims were flung like bowling pins and had no time to scream. there were bodies everywhere, some twisted grotesquely. the youngest of the deceased was just five years old.
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by the time the car stopped, its hood had disintegrated from the force of hitting so many people. although the accused attempted to flee, he was detained by bystanders until his arrest. when they screamed at him, he held his hand to his head and calmly responded: “i’m sorry.”
the provincial online court database indicates that lo had no prior criminal record.
in a subsequent news conference, the vancouver police ruled out terrorism as a motive and disclosed that they, along with specialized health-care professionals, had had a “significant” number of interactions with lo due to his poor mental health. the exact number remains unclear, but it appears that there were at least a few dozen.
global news later reported that one such interaction had occurred the day before the attack, and that officials would not disclose further details beyond confirming that it did not warrant a hospital visit. concerningly, the vancouver sun also reported that, just hours before the attack, a family member contacted a hospital psychiatric ward out of concern for lo, as he appeared to be suffering from delusions and paranoia.
it appears that lo’s unravelling was substantially driven by the sufferings of his family.
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after his older brother was murdered in january 2024, lo launched a fundraising page to cover the associated funeral costs, ultimately receiving more than $9,000 in donations. he wrote that he was “burdened with remorse” for not spending more time with his brother, whose death had left his mother with “an indescribable sorrow.” he further noted that his mother was “financially strained” after taking out “significant loans” to build his brother “a modest tiny home” that had involved “painful encounters with builders.”
then, in august, lo set up another fundraising page for his mother after she attempted suicide and was hospitalized for a month. he wrote that she tried to take her own life because of her grief over her son, and because a long period of unemployment had left her “struggling immensely with her finances” and “on the verge of losing her home.”
“the day i found her unconscious, i feared i had lost the only family member i have left,” he wrote. “i cannot stand to see her suffer anymore, and there’s nothing i can do to help her.”
he claimed that she told him that she would rather die than give up her home, and that he worried that she would attempt suicide again if she could not pay her bills. yet, this fundraiser only secured $175 in donations. as they lived together, it appears that he may have been on the verge of losing his housing, too.
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several of lo’s neighbours confirmed to the globe and mail that the suicide attempt and prolonged hospitalization occurred, and that lo often yelled at his mother and showed signs of anxiety. a notice of claim filed in a provincial court also indicates that the family owned a $213,000 laneway home, which they now rent out, that had a list of alleged defects.
more details of lo’s life will undoubtedly emerge over the next few months, but it is already clear that he was a profoundly sick man who should have been segregated from society before his breakdown reached its macabre climax. and yet he wasn’t. why?
the root cause here is the dismantlement of canada’s large psychiatric hospitals — a process popularly known as “deinstitutionalization.” these asylums were shuttered, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, under the belief that their conditions were inhumane and that patients would benefit from living in regular communities while receiving outpatient support.
while not unreasonable in theory, canadian deinstitutionalization abjectly failed because the mental health services that were supposed to replace these shuttered asylums were never adequately funded. oftentimes, discharged patients were abandoned without adequate shelter or care, and ended up homeless or imprisoned.
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because of this movement and its philosophical baggage, we now have a status quo where, although involuntary care is still available, our capacity to provide it is limited. we have a status quo where this care is frowned upon as a violation of civil rights, and where its use is dominated by crisis management, rather than proactive healing. under this system, people like lo do not get help until it is too late.
dr. julian somers, a clinical psychologist and distinguished professor at simon fraser university, argues that the federal government bears some responsibility here, as “there are really no good reasons not to change, other than a lapse of leadership and an unwillingness to alter the status quo.”
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