As the province wraps up its fall session, it wasn’t done introducing new legislation.
The government of Saskatchewan used its final day of sittings for this year to put forward its highly anticipated involuntary drug treatment proposal.
The Compassionate Intervention Act, Bill 48, would allow those with addictions to receive treatment against their choosing and comes months after the idea was first floated ahead of the start of the fall session in October.
Premier Scott Moe says the introduction of the bill right before the end of the fall legislative sitting was done on purpose.
“It’s so that we now have the winter and the spring session to work through some of those operational questions that are there with those that are directly supporting people in their recovery journey,” Moe told reporters following Friday’s sitting.
Under this legislation, recovery orders can be requested by family members, referred to by medical professionals or can come from police intervention. However, anyone under the age of 18 cannot be forced into involuntary drug treatment.
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Patients who are given recovery orders will then be assessed by a hearing panel and can appeal the panel’s decision through the Court of King’s Bench.
Saskatchewan’s justice minister, Tim McLead, says this legislation is intended to address a “very select number of people” whose intoxication has “gotten them to a place where they lack the necessary capacity for their own care and they pose a threat to themselves or others.”
“Those individuals need to be provided with a healthy, safe environment until they can regain the ability to make a healthy choice,” he told reporters at a press conference Friday following the introduction of the bill.
But for the executive director of an addiction treatment centre in Saskatoon, this legislation is only leaving her wondering where patients will be taken and what treatment they will receive in a system already at its capacity.
“There’s just nothing but questions, and there hasn’t been a lot of answers,” said Kayla DeMong, executive director of Prairie Harm Reduction.
“Even with what’s being put out today, it still doesn’t answer any of the questions around what this will actually look like.”
Saskatchewan’s minister of mental health and addictions, Lori Carr, who introduced the bill Friday, told reporters that details surrounding the bill — such as where and how many involuntary treatment facilities will be allocated to support the legislation — still need to be ironed out.
Involuntary treatment centres will be different from voluntary ones and the number of involuntary beds will be in addition to the 500 the province is working on adding to the drug-treatment system, Carr said.
Carr was also unable to provide a timeline on when involuntary treatment spaces will be operational.
But Saskatchewan’s Opposition say there are not enough beds for voluntary treatment as it stands.
“There’s many people out there wanting to get into treatment, and there’s no spaces available,” said Betty Nippi-Albright, mental health and addictions critic.
As the province now sets out to obtain feedback from stakeholders, DeMong said she hopes they will consult those who are accessing support as well as Indigenous groups.
“Of anybody in the community, those are the groups that need to be at the table first and really looking at what this model is,” she said.
The bill will have its second reading when the legislature resumes on March 2.
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