Summary

The Compassionate Intervention Act creates a legal framework for involuntary assessment, detention, and treatment of people determined to have severe substance use disorders and to be likely to cause harm. It establishes facilities, hearings, and orders allowing up to one year of involuntary detention or mandated out-patient treatment.

This bill allows government officials, medical professionals, or any person filing a sworn statement to trigger involuntary addiction assessment and potentially involuntary detention or court-ordered out-patient treatment of someone they believe has a severe substance use disorder and is likely to cause harm to themselves or others. A person can be apprehended by police without a warrant, taken to a designated assessment centre, and held for up to 24 hours while an assessment team determines whether to recommend a hearing. If the team recommends a hearing, a three-member board panel holds a quasi-judicial hearing within 72 hours to decide whether to issue a recovery order. An in-patient recovery order can detain someone in a treatment centre for up to six weeks at a time, renewable indefinitely in six-week increments. For detentions beyond 60 days, the registrar can apply to the Court of King's Bench for a long-term order of up to one year. Out-patient recovery orders can mandate participation in treatment programs for up to six months, renewable in six-month increments. The bill does not define how severe a disorder must be to qualify, what 'likely to cause harm' means in operational terms, or what counts as 'practising medicine' or 'treatment' under these orders, leaving broad interpretive discretion to assessment teams, admitting professionals, and the board. The bill applies only in areas designated by the minister, comes into force by cabinet order, and has not yet been proclaimed.