Like most people who might be called heroes, Mark Baratta shies away from the label. A lean and purposeful man, Baratta has saved 17 people, each on separate occasions. He chalks it up, with a shrug of his shoulders, to keeping his head in the presence of death.
“I’ve always been that sort of person who doesn’t panic,” he says.
Under normal circumstances, you can imagine Baratta being honoured at a civic ceremony. Instead, Toronto police want him jailed.
The rub for Baratta is that he’s saving lives on the front lines of the opioid epidemic, an area where public health clashes with the criminal code, and with policies that infuriate outreach workers as half-measures.
The day of the interview, Baratta sat on a flat rock in the garden of the Parkdale Community Health Centre, the sun warming his back. His presence was appreciated, judging by the people who stopped to say hello and gladly hand over cigarettes.
