“Brianna’s father and I would beg doctors to keep her in hospitals,” Charles told the committee. “The doctors would overlook what we said and release her, sending us home with Narcan kits.”
They would ask police to invoke the Mental Health Act and take her to the hospital when she threatened to hurt herself, Charles said, but the officers wouldn’t take her against her will.
“There’s no question in my mind that she should have been in mandatory, involuntary psychiatric and substance abuse treatment, rather than in a homeless encampment in a tent,” Poilievre said on Thursday.
British Columbia’s NDP premier announced last month that his government would expand involuntary care for people in mental health and addictions crisis, and that the province will open secure facilities for people who have been detained because they’re a danger to themselves or others. B.C. is now in an election campaign.
The B.C. chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association has expressed misgivings about the plan without better oversight over the mental-health system.
“A movement to detain more people under these current conditions and culture, without addressing significant gaps in the quality and effectiveness of care, will not lead to positive or dignified outcomes for people,” the association said in a statement last month.
