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Canada's mental health legislation

Part of: BJPsych International Mental Health Law Profile Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Richard L. O'Reilly  and
John E. Gray
Richard L. O'Reilly
Affiliation:
Western University, Ontario, Canada, email roreilly@uwo.ca
John E. Gray
Affiliation:
Western University, Ontario, Canada
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Abstract

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In Canada the ten provinces and three territories are responsible for their own health laws and services. The 13 mental health acts have core similarities, but there are clinically significant differences. In most Canadian jurisdictions legislation is based on common law; in Quebec, it is based on a civil code. Canadian jurisdictions favour voluntary admission and sometimes make this explicit in their mental health acts. For involuntary admission or compulsory in-patient or community treatment to be valid, three elements must be applied correctly: the process, the criteria and the rights procedures. These are reviewed in this paper.

Type
Mental health law profiles
Information
International Psychiatry , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , August 2014 , pp. 65 - 67
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 2014

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