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Position Against CTOs by the Queen Street Patients Council, 1998.
No Force Coalition (Archive) 2000: The No Force Coalition is opposed to community treatment orders ("CTOs"). On June 21, 2000, the government passed Bill 68 (7 NDP and 2 Liberal MPPs opposed it), an amendment to the Mental Health Act and other legislation that will expand the criteria for commitment, relax consent-to-treatment provisions and rights advice requirements, and introduce "Community Treatment Orders" or "leash laws", a kind of home institutionalization in which people will be forced to take medications in or out of hospital (see Bill 68).
About CTOs "During the election campaign, the government promised to force the mentally ill into treatment.... Opponents are already gearing up... they say they will become victims of provincial government policies [that] will put mental health back one hundred years." --CBC News, November 3, 1999.
These changes will be proclaimed law and come into effect in December. The next day, the Ministry of Health announced "funding [that] complements the government's introduction of Brian's Law...." The changes were contested by 34 different groups, who represented hundreds of agencies and organizations; everyone from the Canadian Mental Health Association (Ontario division) to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association joined psychiatric survivors, family members and professionals in presenting objections to the Standing Committee on General Government, yet no real changes were made. Substancial research, major legal issues, the problem of inadequate services in the present system, increased costs, and the dangers to basic civil rights were not enough to defeat public relations, prejudice and fear. The No Force Coalition is proud to have encouraged discussion on CTOs in the psychiatric survivor community and among the wider community. We've been fighting CTOs for months before they were presented in Harris' re-election campaign last June (see our June 21 press release, or our April 20 letter to MPPs (find your MPP's contact info here). Bill 68 has been succesfully sold as a way of "protecting public safety" despite the fact that psychiatric survivors are more often victims of violence than they are violent themselves (see the science on violence). Are CTOs just about the "mentally ill" or will they affect all Onatrio citizens' rights? Looking to U.S. "Involuntary Outpatient Committal" laws, which are rarely used in most states because they don't work, the Harris Tories announced CTOs on April 22, 2000 to relax rules and encourage police and mental health professionals to commit and forcibly treat people in emotional distress. Anyone who experiences a breakdown or some emotional crisis will all be affected, as will their family, friends and community members. If someone has been in a psychiatric facility for more than 29 days, or has been in contact with a psychiatrist twice, they can be "asked to agree" to a CTO, whether they are in a facility or not. If a doctor believes someone will benefit from treatment and that an illness may lead to "serious mental deterioration", this alone enables them to commit someone involuntarily. All they have to do is find the person incapable to consent and they can be force-treated. Pro-drug lobbyists are ecstatic. CTOs and Involuntary Outpatient Commital laws have been passed throughout the 1990's as a result of strong pharmaceutical lobby pressure. This is not just a treatment issue-- Community Treatment Orders are a human rights issue which will impact on all Ontarians. See: Psychiatric survivors have observed that even under the old legislation, rights were often ignored, and overprescription of major tranquilizers and other powerful drugs continues unabated, as admitted in a recent study by psychiatrists– high dosages are common yet unnecessary by psychiatric standards! The old Mental Health Act was much more balanced, even according to Michael Bay, head of the Consent and Capacity Review Board, in that it addressed dangerous behaviour rather than assuming a segment of the population is dangerous. The old Act allowed for the detainment of people who were or may have become violent, suicidal or unable to care for themselves (even if they risked serious bodily harm). If they were deemed incapable, they could have been force-treated (by drugging or electroshock), and held in a facility indefinitely. In fact, under Section 27, the old Act allowed for people to consent to treatment in the community in the form of a "leave agreement". The new law encourages (even demands) that psychiatrists commit or force treat people living in the community or in hospitals if they meet the new lax requirements for involuntary committal. Powerful drugs like "anti-psyhotics" have never been proven safe or therapeutic (see the science on "medications"). One rationale for CTOs is that being drugged in the home is more liberal than being drugged on a ward. But what will happen to standards of care and accountability, let alone the hope of retreat from force? This "preventative" use of psychiatric treatment is being thrust upon people in almost 40 US states, in two other Canadian provinces (BC, Sask., and Manitoba is pending), along with other western nations. A question repeatedly asked is, With so few enhanced services and community programs (let alone housing and jobs), how will anyone get proper care, and what will happen to people once they are drugged up in the community, especially if they are on the streets? Could they become more vulnerable? The government says community services are coming in the form of Assertive Community Treatment teams (the CMHA observes that resources are still being put into institutions rather than community services, at a ratio of 4:1). Mental health reform and "deinstitutionalization" have not been properly funded. In preparation for CTOs, the Ministry of Health has provided some $141 million to ACT teams across Ontario (about half the total mental health spending). At their best, community treatment teams respect individual choice and refer people to services that may presently exist, but services are so few and limited that ACT teams often end up ensuring people take their medications ("medication compliance") and fail to get them housing or provide other basic needs. Resistance: There has been overwhelming opposition to CTOs from churches, crisis centres, advocacy groups and mental health organizations. Even the National Action Committee on the Status of Women has chimed in by sending a letter to the government. But powerful family groups (Schizophrenia Society of Ontario) and a few psychiatrists (the so-called "Coalition of Ontario Psychiatrists") who believe biomedical force is the best solution to homelessness and violence have won the premier's heart. Psychiatric survivors will not accept this attack on our right to freedom and choice, and we invite anyone who wants to protect their own civil rights to join us. See our list of supporters below! Here are some talking points on Community Treatment Orders: 1. Cost of implementing CTOs?
2. Usefulness of CTOs?
3. The Present Laws?
4. Are the mentally ill more violent than others?
5. Are medications effective?
What's the real agenda behind CTOs? Canada's housing problem is exploding. A Clarke Institute study found that people labelled mentally ill are not losing housing in record numbers, but rather that homelessness and its effects push people to emotional distress. Our government's response? Why create affordable housing when they can force-drug people on the streets to make them more "managable"? Who profits from expanded use of psychotropics? The manufacturers, and those who want others on medications for management purposes. Though violent crime statistics show violence is decreasing in society, news stories on violence are exceedingly graphic and sensational, and "mental illness" is increasingly mentioned as a possible factor (whether the victim or the perpetrator is allegedly ill). This reporting encourages the public to support or demand more coercive laws that break down basic human rights. Other discriminatory laws include 'mandatory drug testing' for welfare recipients and the recently passed "Safe Streets Act". See AJ Rhomer's article on what CTOs look like from street level! See People Against Coercive Treatment's site! A List of organizations against Community Treatment Orders See past efforts of survivors and others to speak out on CTO Bill 78, promoted by Liberal MPP Bill Patton, which passed second reading on November 26, 1998, but died in committee that December. Alternatives to Force: What Do We Really Need?
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