Fix the law for care, not control

When Nick Kasper, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg, says the system is broken, we should listen.

In his recent Free Press opinion piece, It’s time to modernize Manitoba’s addiction laws (Think Tank, Oct. 23) and other public remarks, he has urged Manitoba to update its outdated Intoxicated Persons Detention Act — a law written for the beer-and-bourbon era, not for fentanyl or meth.

The provincial government passed Bill 48: The Protective Detention and Care of Intoxicated Persons Act, this fall.

It aims to allow people in severe drug-induced crises to be held in “protective-care centres” for up to 72 hours (rather than 24), with a mandatory medical assessment after the first day. It was humane in intent — to keep people safe long enough to stabilize them in a clinical environment instead of a jail cell. Both the NDP government and the Opposition agree: it needs to be done right.

As I’ve written previously, Manitoba’s problem isn’t that it lacks compassion — it’s that it keeps designing laws, systems and budgets around containment rather than recovery.

Every day, first responders like Kasper’s members find themselves reviving the same people from the same crises in the same locations.

It’s not a lack of effort; it’s a lack of structure. Bill 48 does not offer much help on that front.

From emergency rooms to encampments, from shelters to holding cells, we’ve built a loop instead of a ladder.

Bill 48 could have been a bridge, but without a clear pathway to treatment and housing, it risks becoming a longer version of the same 24-hour cycle. The question remains: what happens after 72 hours?

Manitoba once understood what sustained care looked like. Long-term mental-health hospitals gave people time to recover.

In the 1980s and 1990s, we closed them and promised community-based care that never came. Emergency rooms, police cars and tent cities filled the gap.

Today, those forgotten promises haunt our streets.

An improved version of this law must make protective detention the beginning of recovery, not the end. It must require that medical assessments lead to clear treatment plans and that every transition — from stabilization to recovery to housing — is supported by a shared framework between health, addictions and housing. These are not optional linkages; they are the spine of an effective recovery system.

We already have models to follow.

Programs in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan have begun integrating short-term stabilization units with long-term treatment beds and supportive-housing pathways. When health-care and housing systems talk to each other, outcomes improve and emergency calls drop.

Manitoba can build on those lessons instead of repeating past mistakes.

Critics will say we can’t afford it. The truth is, we already pay far more by doing nothing.

Ambulances, emergency rooms, shelters and jails are the most expensive “housing program” we’ve ever built. According to national data, supportive housing and treatment reduce justice, policing and health-care costs by as much as 70 per cent.

Investing in recovery saves both lives and money.

Protective detention must lead to protective care. Protective care must lead to treatment. Treatment must lead to housing — and a life worth protecting.

This isn’t just semantics. It’s a shift in how Manitoba sees addiction — from something to contain to something to heal.

If Bill 48 is to become more than a new label on an old problem, it has to close the gaps between care, housing and accountability. That requires not just legislative change, but public measurement: clear metrics showing how many people are stabilized, how many enter treatment, how many complete it and how many remain housed six months later.

Kasper’s right to sound the alarm, and the Opposition is right to insist on doing this properly.

The next version of this law must clearly link protective care to treatment and, ultimately, to stable housing — with real accountability shared across ministries.

Only then can we move from managing crises to healing communities.

Manitoba’s first responders are exhausted from standing in the breach of a broken system.

They don’t need another bill that manages symptoms — they need a law that creates solutions. Let’s make this one about care, not control.

Hersh Seth is a Winnipeg resident and community organizer advocating for humane, health-care-based approaches to mental health, addiction and encampments.