Ontario mulling involuntary addictions treatment for people involved in corrections
Queen’s Park Reporter
Toronto
Published Yesterday
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The Ontario government says it will explore whether it can impose mandatory drug treatment programs on people involved in the criminal justice system, though mental-health advocates criticize involuntary care as punitive and ineffective.
The Thursday announcement, which does not disclose details of the government’s consultation exercise, coincides with the introduction of an omnibus crime bill.
“Our government is taking action to strengthen the correctional system and help end the cycle of crime and addiction,” said Ema Popovic, a spokesperson for Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones.
The consultation will look at “programming options for people in correctional institutions or on probation or parole, including mandatory treatment as a condition of probation or parole.”
A number of provinces, including British Columbia and Alberta, have launched controversial involuntary care initiatives for cities grappling with heightened homelessness, addiction and violent crimes involving people with mental-health issues.
Several mental-health experts say they are skeptical about involuntary care programs, because there is no evidence that such treatment works. And other observers say governments can anticipate legal challenges under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they make such programs a reality.
“These things are clearly not Charter compliant in Ontario, we have a robust bar that’s very prepared and ready to take this kind of thing on,” said Anita Szigeti, a prominent mental-health lawyer and professor in Toronto.
“It’ll be in the courts.”
Ms. Szigeti said governments across Canada are embracing punitive policy approaches to drug addiction because more tolerant measures have fallen out of favour politically.
“We’ve got supervised consumption sites and harm reduction that we know saves lives,” she said. “So they’re defunding all that and replacing it with forced interventions that we know do nothing.”
Ms. Jones told reporters at Queen’s Park this week that her government will be canvassing stakeholders about mandatory drug treatment for people in the criminal justice system.
“We want to talk to these individuals with lived experience. Families who have been impacted. Clinicians who understand what addictions do and how they can impact peoples lives,” the Health Minister said.
Official Opposition NDP Leader Marit Stiles said her party wanted to see details of the government’s initiative: “We’ll be looking to see what they’re proposing,” she said.
Some Ontario medical officials hope they will be invited to share their views with the government in coming weeks.
“We’re looking forward to being part of the conversation,” said Dr. Leslie Buckley, chief of the addictions division at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
CAMH is Canada’s largest mental-health hospital and based in Toronto. Dr. Buckley said in an interview that involuntary treatment is a complex tool that needs to be discussed in conjunction with many other measures.
“It’s an opportunity to show how important it is to lift up the whole treatment system,” she said. She added that “you can’t just focus on this sort of mandatory care for people who are in the justice system because we really want to be improving access for everybody.”
In British Columbia, Premier David Eby has touted involuntary care as a solution to a toxic drug crisis that has fuelled addictions, street crime and thousands of overdoses deaths. His government last month opened a new 10-unit involuntary treatment facility in Surrey that will house people in mental-health crisis.
In April, the Alberta government introduced the first bill of its kind in Canada that would grant parents, police and health care workers the power to refer people with severe addictions into care against their will.
Dr. Monty Ghosh, an addictions specialist and researcher based in Alberta, said involuntary treatment measures may solve little in themselves.
“If you pile it all together, it’s very inconclusive whether it works or not,” he said.
“It begs the question: Are we investing a heavy amount of money into something that’s not really been properly tried?”
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