Seeking to “significantly improve the security of the population of Quebec”, the Minister of Public Security and the Minister responsible for Social Services presented Bill 66 on June 30, part of a series of alarmist interventions concerning persons subject to a verdict of not criminally responsible due to mental disorder.
The bill, nicknamed the “Maureen Breau bill” in the media, has four objectives: the exchange of information between health and police circles, the establishment of a system of liaison, improvement of the information contained in the Police Intelligence Center as well as uniformity in the assessment of danger.
“Danger” and stigmatization
After the dramatic events involving two not criminally responsible people followed by the Mental Disorders Review Commission which took place in recent years, this bill will have a major and highly stigmatizing effect on the lives of thousands of people. The bill also includes people declared unfit to stand trial, for whom no proof of involvement in the commission of an offense has been made to the satisfaction of a court.
For around twenty years, governments in Western countries have regularly legislated, in the wake of isolated events, to restrict the rights of people suffering from mental health problems. Quebec is no exception.
Despite assertions that the objective would not be to stigmatize the people concerned, the presentation of the bill was punctuated by alarmist statements such as “we are unfortunately not safe from another case”, which establish links between mental health and danger.
As Minister Carmant recognized, people living with mental health problems are no more dangerous than people without them, and are themselves more often victims of violence. Nearly 70% of offenses committed by persons not criminally responsible in Quebec are not offenses against the person.
Despite the lack of scientific basis for the link between mental health and danger, it was announced that a standardized dangerousness assessment tool was in preparation. According to Minister Carmant, its use would be accompanied by criteria whose evaluation is as simple as “one, two, three, four”, comments which clash with the state of knowledge.
There is significant scientific controversy over the reliability of such tools, which would have the effect of overestimating the level of risk of marginalized and racialized people living in poverty. Researchers write that basing mental health intervention on such tools leads to unnecessary or more coercive interventions, in addition to violating rights.
Information sharing and increased monitoring
The bill introduced does not introduce anything new in principle, since it reinforces a range of surveillance practices of the most marginalized people by formalizing new channels for exchanging information without their consent being necessarily required. Last year, the Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital Affairs passed a law providing for the transmission of personal health information to police services when “necessary for the planning or execution of an intervention”. The deployment of mixed teams of police and social workers is also, according to Minister Carmant, a means of transmitting information.
The unusual measure that the bill adds to those already in place is the involvement of correctional services, to which liaison officers will be attached. It must be remembered that Canadian criminal law has chosen to redirect people who are not criminally responsible and unfit to stand trial to the review board system rather than to the prison system, whose environment and approach are considered inadequate for their care.
However, just like the probation officer acting within the prison system, the liaison officer’s mission will be “continuous risk assessment” through monitoring, collection and exchange of information.
But the presentation of the bill did not allow us to know what kind of information will be transmitted. In addition to not answering the telephone or moving, “behavior” or “behavior in relation to the uniform” were mentioned – information which, according to Minister François Bonnardel, would not be protected by professional secrecy, but about which we do not know according to which standards they will be selected and transmitted. It is easy to see how such measures, due to the discretionary power vested in the professionals involved, would result in significant infringements of the right to privacy.
As part of a prison paradigm, the proposed bill normalizes exceptional information exchange and surveillance practices based on a link that is known to be non-existent between danger and mental health.
As the parliamentary session draws to a close, the hasty adoption of this bill involving attacks on people’s fundamental rights would stifle the holding of an informed public debate, as well as real participation of the population.