Premier unfazed by legal challenge against detention law

Premier Wab Kinew said he’s not concerned about the legal challenge to legislation that allows 72-hour detention for people in a drug psychosis who pose a danger to themselves or others.

Dr. Jim Simm, Manitoba’s retired chief psychiatrist, is taking the province to court. The case questions the constitutionality of the law, which passed late last year, that allows the province to incarcerate intoxicated people for up to 72 hours. Simm said it will harm those suffering from mental illness or disabilities.

Simm, an outspoken critic of the Protective Detention and Care of Intoxicated Persons Act, is seeking leave from the Court of King’s Bench to challenge the law that he says violates provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

On Monday, the government reported that no one has been detained under the new law for more than 20.5 hours.

Such challenges to “new approaches” brought forward by the province are to be expected, Kinew said Monday.

“I want to reassure Manitobans this is constitutional, this is guided by the evidence, this is guided by community,” the premier said when asked about it an unrelated event.

“We expect that this will be able to stand (up to) scrutiny not just from judges and physicians, but also from you, the public, who know what is happening with this terrible scourge of addictions in our province,” Kinew said, adding he respects the physician’s expertise.

The premier said anyone believed to be intoxicated by drugs is assessed by an emergency room physician and if it’s deemed appropriate, they can be transferred to the new 20-room protective care/detox centre. Health officials have said it’s expected that patients will be subject to regular monitoring, and reassessed by medical staff after 24 and 48 hours.

Kinew said the centre, which opened on Dec. 2, 2025, for alcohol-intoxicated detainees and on March 4, 2026, for non-alcohol detainees, hasn’t yet held anyone for longer than 24 hours.

The vast majority held at the Disraeli Freeway site are held for alcohol intoxication rather than drug intoxication, the premier said.

There have been 2,834 alcohol intakes since it opened Dec. 2 and 11 non-alcohol intakes since March 4.

The average length of stay was 5.2 hours, with 20.5 hours being the longest length of stay, a cabinet communications spokesman said in an email Monday.

The premier said he’s confident the law respects Charter rights.

“In a free society, everyone’s free except for reasonable limits that the government can put on your freedoms. When you start to harm others — somebody’s committing a crime, a violent crime — the state can incarcerate you because you are subject to reasonable limits,” the premier said, adding that citizens must be protected from the threat of violence, whether at a bus top or going for a walk.

“I think everyone who sees what’s going on with meth in our streets these days recognizes that the balance is out of whack and we have to get back to reasonable limits and keeping the community safe…. We cannot let the sickest person in the community determine the well being for everyone else,” Kinew said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca