Canada: 17 organisations condemn forced detention plans in BC

17 ORGANIZATIONS CONDEMN FORCED DETENTION PLANS: BCCLA, South Asian Legal Clinic of BC, Pivot Legal, Surrey Union of Drug Users & 12 more join P.O.W.E.R. to denounce involuntary treatment expansion

Moms Stop the Harm, Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society, Spring Mag, VANDU, HRNA, Care Not Cops, Stop the Sweeps, BCAPOM, EACH+EVERY,CSSDP Vancouver, Crackdown, and COPA join the call.

On Sept. 15, 2024, Premier David Eby announced that his BC NDP would expand apprehensions under the Mental Health Act should the party be re-elected. Eby’s press conference follows a similar announcement from the BC Conservatives, and puts the competing forerunners in consensus on this violent policy as an election nears.

Today, P.O.W.E.R., Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society, BC Civil Liberties Association, South Asian Legal Clinic of BC, Surrey Union of Drug Users, Moms Stop the Harm, Harm Reduction Nurses Association, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Stop the Sweeps, Pivot Legal, BC Association of People on Opioid Maintenance, Spring Magazine, EACH+EVERY, Care Not Cops, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy - Vancouver, Crackdown Podcast & Committee Organizing for Prohibition Abolition, 17 groups in total, have joined together to condemn all proposed expansions of involuntary treatment.

The BC Association of Social Workers, Canadian Mental Health Association - BC division, and First United Church have already publicly decried the plans.

Policy details are still to be decided – or have yet to be announced – however, it is clear that criteria will explicitly include drug use as justification for apprehension and forced detention under both parties’ proposals, and prisons are included as detention sites in Eby’s vision. 

Involuntary treatment is a violent intervention in BC, and often includes restraints, apprehension, forced injections, as well as widely varied detention lengths. Local and international research, as well as community reports and evaluations, have shown it to be a practice with net negative and/or harmful outcomes. Rare, selective positive stories from a few do not erase the impacts felt by the many people who suffer negative consequences.

As P.O.W.E.R. researcher Stephanie states, “this is just another way for them to hide the problem,” including unaddressed issues linked to the toxic drug supply, housing and displacement, as well as the endless cycles of the criminalization of poverty across British Columbia (BC).

When the BC NDP announced a similar plan in 2020 to pass Bill 22, which would permit the involuntary detention of youth who overdose, there was immense public pushback. This resistance was driven primarily by Indigenous groups, and led to the party scrapping the plan, citing commitments to reconciliation and collaboration with Indigenous communities.

“This is another way to criminalize Indigenous people, we know the jails are already full of my Indigenous kin. This is the continuation of a colonial framework to keep Indigenous people below the poverty line, criminalized and oppressed,” states Sparkling Fast Rising River Woman Elder Mona Woodward, Board of Directors, Surrey Union of Drug Users, Cree, Lakota-Sioux and Saulteaux from Kawacatoose First Nation.

“Treatment does not have a specific meaning, but we know that involuntary treatment is upheld by the violence of apprehension and police power,” adds Tyson Singh Kelsall ਟਾਈਸਨ ਸਿੰਘ, a PhD candidate in Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. “We know who police discretion is weaponized against and who it benefits. We do not need further carceral creep into all facets of everyday life, instead we need to foster community care and inclusion.”

Healthcare workers have spoken out against the announcements, as they have in the past, due to the traumatic and violent nature of the intervention. An omnipresent threat of involuntary treatment can drive care avoidance for people already the most excluded from healthcare and social services.

“I see the trauma caused by healthcare daily. Individuals experiencing inequities with poor health outcomes, disengaged from care and untrusting of the system. The politicians announcing involuntary treatment will kill people,” reflects Blake Edwards, outreach worker and BScNursing student, Care Not Cops. “[The threat] will erode the fragile trust I try so hard to cultivate.” 

Legal experts have also raised concerns that involuntary detention will undermine fundamental legal rights.

“We are very alarmed that political leaders in BC are proposing to subvert the vital principle of bodily autonomy – the idea that people have the right to consent to medical treatment and are free to make decisions about their life,” says Meghan McDermott, policy director and staff counsel at the BC Civil Liberties Association. “The forced detention and treatment of people who use drugs cannot be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society and would inherently violate Charter rights, including Section 7, which guarantees everyone the right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or security of the person. Without a genuine investment in decriminalization and a safe supply of drugs, and culturally safe, accessible, and voluntary treatment services, musings around involuntary detention and treatment for drug use are socially irresponsible and downright cruel.”

Darren Graham, a researcher with P.O.W.E.R. and board member of the BC Association of People on Opioid Maintenance questions the lack of access to community and voluntary support, “We must service the infrastructure for those who want it.”

We must build support across the voluntary care spectrum that people actually want to access, and that fits our needs. Instead, we are seeing another expansion of colonial, carceral legal tools that sever community relations. Weaponizing this violence as a political and governance strategy is unbecoming, cruel, and we can do better.

BACKGROUND

BC Civil Liberties Association: David Eby Knows Better
Sarah Auger: Incarceration is Not Compassionate Care
Lisa Lapointe: Involuntary care will not end the drug crisis
Pivot Legal Society: Involuntary Care: Criminalization by Another Name
The Conversation: Forcing drug users into treatment is violent policy
Marilou Gagnon, Tim Gauthier, Nesa Hamidi Tousi et al.: Why NDP Should Drop Its Youth Overdose Bill
Community Legal Assistance Society: Operating in Darkness
BC Ombudsperson Report (2019): Protecting the Rights of Involuntary Patients under the Mental Health Act
International Journal of Drug Policy: The impact of an unsanctioned compassion club on non-fatal overdose