Toronto must find a new way to deal with people in mental health crisis and root out racism within its police force, concerned citizens said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Sen. Kim Pate joined Green Party parliamentary leader Elizabeth May and Fredericton Green MP Jenica Atwin at a news conference on Parliament Hill.

Calls to defund police have grown in the wake of the police killing of a Black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis, as well as the death in Toronto of 29-year-old Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a Black woman who fell from her balcony while police were in her home.

Calls for police reform and changes to the way Pride celebrations are carried out echoed across Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square on Sunday.

"For too long, the health care system has relied on police to respond to mental health crises in the community ... " the centre said. "People with mental illness and their families deserve better."

"Would we send a police officer to respond to a heart attack or an asthma attack? It's a disservice to our community and it's a disservice to the police when the police officer becomes the only option to call during a mental health crisis."

A Toronto police board member says the community needs better options than calling officers for those in mental health crises.

Change won't come from mass emails and one-time anti-racism training, experts say. It has to be more radical than that.

Chantel Moore, an Indigenous woman in Edmundston, N.B., was fatally shot by police who had come to perform a wellness check, and Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a Black woman, fell from her Toronto balcony after family members called police to her home.

The death of Rodney Levi of the Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nation in an RCMP shooting continues to put the focus on police relations with Indigenous communities in Canada.