Canadian society has a comparatively high rate of substance abuse and a serious opioid drug crisis. Canada’s population has among the highest drug overdose death rates internationally, and among high income countries.
Canada’s problem with drug addiction has been exacerbated by governments’ deliberate policy choices to adopt a “lenient” approach to drug addiction focused on harm reduction rather than treatment.
The increase in drug addiction is indicated by the soaring rate of homelessness in Canada as many of these homeless are drug addicts. In August 2026, the homelessness and addiction crisis became so overwhelming that it prompted Ontario’s Big City Mayors (OBCM) to pass a motion calling on the Ontario government to adopt more proactive policies to deal with homelessness and addiction. OBCM is a lobby group comprising cities with populations of 100,000 or more that collectively represent nearly 70% of Ontario’s population. The crisis is not confined to Ontario; it also affects other provinces.
The Mental Illness – Substance Abuse Connection
In a recent article in the medical journal Psychiatry Research, published on August 6, 2026, entitled “Co-occurring mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders in Canada 2022: prevalence, patterns, correlates, and changes over time”, researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton have confirmed from a study on Canadians 15 years of age and older that there is a close link between mental illness and substance abuse. It found that in 2022 16.4 % had a combined mental disturbance and substance use disorder. Among people with substance use disorders, 48.9% had a mental health disorder in 2022. Generally, mood/anxiety disorders and concurrent mental health disorders have doubled from 2012 to 2022.
The Tragedy Behind the Statistics
The problems of mental illness and substance abuse are not statistical curiosities for policy wonks to wonder at but are very real tragedies for addicts and their beleaguered families. The increase in drug addiction combined with mental health problems is resulting in more vicious assaults, stabbings, and shootings of innocent victims without any provocation. There are so many examples of these tragic events occurring across Canada that one cannot begin to list them all. Just a few examples give one the chilling impact of these occurrences. Three individuals at Queen Elizabeth theatre in Vancouver were stabbed several years ago by an addict with mental illness and one died from the assault; more recently in 2022, a 30 year old man was shot 15 times by an assailant without provocation; a father sitting on a Starbucks patio in Vancouver was killed by an individual with mental health problems (schizophrenia) combined with an abuse of cannabis; a young man from Stratford, Ontario fatally shot his girlfriend in the head point blank.
These tragedies are compounded by the inability of either the criminal justice system or the mental health establishment to redress the wrongs committed. The continuing policy failures of federal, provincial and municipal governments over the years have had a cumulative effect that has brought us to our current social decline. It is not without a sense of irony that the OBCM is not arguing for a reversal of these failed policies that many of the mayors have embraced in the past. In doing so, the OBCM has employed the politically correct term “compassionate care and intervention model” rather than the more accurate “mandatory treatment” or “involuntary treatment” terms. OBCM members seem incapable of freeing themselves from the previously politically correct mindset that got us here in the first place!
Of course, the Canadian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) has come crashing out of the gate thundering, criticizing both Alberta and Quebec provincial governments for introducing changes to facilitate what the CCLU terms “involuntary addiction treatment”, arguing that such programs violate “the fundamental rights of individuals, undermining personal autonomy and the right to make decisions about one’s own body and healthcare.” Unfortunately for the CCLU’s moral credibility, it was shockingly silent during the COVID scamdemic when everyone was ordered/pressured to take an experimental drug that was not a vaccine, nor was it safe or effective as MP Dean Allison’s (Niagara West) recent independent parliamentary independent hearings into COVID-19 have shown.
Treatment/Policy Alternatives Exist
Mental health falls under provincial jurisdiction and the conservative government of Alberta has led the way with addressing the problems posed by drug addiction. Under the leadership of Danielle Smith, Alberta has introduced a version of involuntary care, where a panel decides if someone will be place into treatment after a request from police, family members or a doctor. Alberta’s move was followed by Quebec. In addition, two NDP provinces in Canada, Manitoba and British Columbia, have established programs for mandatory treatment.
The BC program was the subject of the recent (end of July) lengthy and learned decision in Council of Canadians with Disabilities v British Columbia (Attorney General), in which Madam Justice Lauren Blake of the Supreme Court of British Columbia found that certain sections of the BC legislation violated ss. 7 and 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that “the impugned legislation is neither minimally impairing, nor are its effects proportionate to the purpose of the legislation” and as such could not be saved by s. 1 of the Charter. Justice Blake gave the province a six-month window to amend the legislation to be Charter compliant.
Need for a Change in Attitude
The situation in Canada of increasing addiction with concurrent mental health problems has created a circle of horror that simply cannot continue. There needs to be an open and frank discussion on the pros and cons of mandatory treatment programs with an emphasis on healing the addict, not enabling his/her continued addiction. The time has come to accept that in order to protect innocent lives from unprovoked assault and death, it is reasonable that the Mental Health Acts and Consent to Treatment Acts of each province provide for the mandatory treatment of those suffering from addiction and mental health problems. Such treatment programs are not antithetical to Charter values of “security of the person” or “equality claims” but they do require legislatures to clearly articulate reasons and procedural safeguards, including transparency and independent audits of the programs, to ensure Charter and legislative compliance. This is critical not only to stop the unmanageable soaring rate of homelessness in Canada, but also to provide for the public safety of innocent people and stop the human tragedies that are now taking place weekly in this country.