Here’s how ‘compassionate intervention’ promised by the federal Conservatives lines up with Alberta’s involuntary treatment act

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is proposing a “compassionate intervention” policy for those with severe addiction at a federal level if he wins the 2025 election, just days after Alberta tabled its own involuntary treatment act.

Poilievre announced the campaign promise on Saturday, which would allow judges to sentence offenders to involuntary addiction treatment as an alternative to prison only if the individual’s crimes involve a small quantity of drugs, where provincial legislation allows it.

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“This isn’t about punishment — it’s about saving lives,” Poilievre said in a media release.

Postmedia spoke to Eric Adams, a law professor at the University of Alberta, to discuss how Poilievre’s campaign promise will line up with Alberta’s involuntary treatment act, what this means for individual autonomy and jurisdictional overlap.

Criminal justice vs. health care

Poilievre’s “compassionate intervention” campaign promise includes allowing judges to mandate offenders into involuntary addiction treatment, require prisons to have recovery-oriented rehabilitation, end the safe supply policy and impose life sentences on fentanyl traffickers and criminal organizations benefiting from the opioid crisis.

Adams said the dividing line between what the federal Conservatives are proposing versus what the province has tabled is the criminal and the non-criminal context.

“The province’s legislation will be dealing with non-criminal apprehensions of individuals. Whether you’re in your home, on the street or in a public place, if you fall under the terms of the provincial Compassionate Care Act, you can be seized, detained, and forced into treatment,” Adams said.

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“The difference in the Conservative potential amendments is that it’ll be for individuals that are already caught up in the criminal justice system.”

Infringing upon individual rights and freedoms

Alberta’s Compassionate Intervention Act would allow for both adults and youth to be placed into involuntary addiction treatment if they are deemed to likely cause significant harm to themselves or others due to their addiction or substance use. Under the legislation family members, guardians, heath care professionals, peace officers and police officers would be able to submit an application to have an individual considered for involuntary treatment. 

Adams said both the UCP and the federal Conservatives “are seeking to experiment with a complex social problem.”

When it comes to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, particularly sections concerning liberty and security of the person, Adams said there’s “no question” that the province’s involuntary treatment act compromises those individual rights.

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“It’s the compulsion into treatment and it’s the compulsion to take medical care by force, effectively that has to get over the constitutional hurdle of interfering with someone’s life, liberty and security of the person, and the only way that that will occur is if the (province) can make the claim, and maybe they can, but it will be a high bar,” Adams said.

Province welcomes Poilievre’s ‘compassionate intervention’

In a statement to Postmedia, Hunter Baril, press secretary to Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams, said Poilievre’s policy proposal is an “opportunity for collaboration.”

“Our government is supportive of policies that bring people out of addiction and into recovery,” Baril said.

“When it comes to the recent policy proposal by the Conservative party, it is not the same system of care proposed by Alberta’s Compassionate Intervention Act, which is a health care response as opposed to criminal justice.”

Adams said if both the provincial and federal policies survive constitutional review, the two can coexist since both are based on the same concept of involuntary treatment.

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ctran@postmedia.com

@kccindytran

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