The government has already called it “Maureen’s Law”: future legislation aimed at preventing a repeat of the tragedy that cost the life of Maureen Breau, a Sûreté du Québec police officer stabbed last year during an arrest went wrong.
But if we really want Maureen’s name to mark the history of Quebec, if we want things to change for real, in this province, we will need more than a bill facilitating the sharing of information between the police and the health network.
Prime Minister François Legault’s announcement on Monday is a step in the right direction, but Quebec must go further and finally allow better supervision of violent or disturbed people who are released.
The government must make it easier for the police, but also for psychiatrists, for whom current legislation puts lives in real danger.
It must be inspired by “Brian’s Law”, which truly changed things in Ontario.
“The objective is for information to circulate well between the police and the health network,” explained François Legault. The law project1 will allow police officers to have access to the medical information of individuals deemed not criminally responsible for their actions and who have been released under conditions by the Commission for the Examination of Mental Disorders (CETM).
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE SÛRETÉ DU QUÉBEC
Policewoman Maureen Breau
Smoother communication certainly won’t hurt. At the coroner’s public inquest into the deaths of Maureen Breau and Isaac Brouillard Lessard, shot dead after stabbing the sergeant, police officers said they were frustrated2 by the lack of collaboration from the health sector. “It seems like there’s a satisfaction in kicking out a police officer,” one of them said.
But the hearings of the coroner’s public inquiry also shed harsh light on the communication problems… within the Sûreté du Québec itself.
“Our hands are tied, I cannot intervene if I do not have the necessary elements to stop him,” pleaded a police officer who went to the apartment of Isaac Brouillard Lessard on March 24, 2023, only three days before the tragedy.
However, this police officer could have intervened… if she had known that Isaac Brouillard Lessard was under conditions set by the CETM. However, not only did she not know it, but she was unaware of the existence of this administrative tribunal, whose decisions aim to ensure public safety!
She wasn’t the only one. Her supervisor had apparently never heard of CETM either, despite her ten years of experience in the police force. The agent who received the complaint from Isaac Brouillard Lessard’s uncle did not know what the CETM eats in winter…
In this tragic case, the problem was not so much the opacity of medical confidentiality as the astonishing lack of awareness of CETM within the police force. Stunned, coroner Géhane Kamel noted that the police had all the levers in their hands to bring Isaac Brouillard Lessard back to the hospital. Only, they didn’t know it. So, they simply left.
Three days later, the man in crisis committed the irreparable.
As 911 calls involving mental health disorders explode, SQ officers need training on this subject – and urgently. This will certainly be part of the recommendations of Coroner Kamel, whose report is expected in the fall.
But, as I said, it will take more than that to avoid other tragedies.
A quarter of a century ago, Ontario adopted Brian’s Law, so named following the assassination of Brian Smith, a former National Hockey League player shot dead in the street by a schizophrenic.
At the time, Ontario police officers could only force the hospitalization of a disturbed person if the latter presented a “serious and immediate” danger to themselves or others, as is still the case in Quebec.
But since the adoption of Brian’s Law, “the Ontario criteria are looser,” explains Stéphane Wall, retired supervisor of the City of Montreal Police Department. If the police have reason to believe that there is a significant danger to the community, they can force a transport to the hospital.
Quebec has every interest in taking inspiration from Brian’s law, believes the expert. This is also what the Association of Psychiatrists of Quebec thinks, for whom “current laws do not promote the prevention of violent acts”3. In terms of dangerousness, the bar is set too high in Quebec, say the speakers. Too often, we wait for danger to materialize before intervening.
And too often, a patient is discharged before their condition has stabilized. “We call it the revolving door phenomenon,” says Stéphane Wall. Families are discouraged. They called 911, their guy was losing his temper, and he came back three hours later…”
Although we have been denouncing this phenomenon for years, as desperate as it is dangerous, we have the impression that nothing is changing. Until now.
Following the murder of Maureen Breau, the Minister responsible for Social Services, Lionel Carmant, charged the Quebec Institute for the Reform of Law and Justice4 to revise from top to bottom the Act respecting the protection of persons whose mental state presents a danger to themselves or othersalso called Law P-38.
The Institute’s recommendations are expected at the end of 2025 at the latest. A longer gestation than that of Maureen’s law. But, even more than the legislation that will bear his name, the expected overhaul of Law P-38 could change lives – and save some. So, we can truly say that Sergeant Maureen Breau did not die in vain.
1. Read “A “Maureen Breau” bill will be tabled, announces Legault”
2. Read “Investigation into the death of Maureen Breau: the police testify”
3. Read “Laws do not promote prevention”
4. Consult the mandate of the work launched by Minister Lionel Carmant