Psychiatric Survivors/Consumers Die and Nothing Is Done: An Examination of the Discriminatory Nature of the Ontario Coroner’s Act

Authors

  • Tracy Mack York University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v3i1.145

Keywords:

Mad people, Ontario Coroners Act, psychiatric and correctional facilities, government accountability, mandatory and discretionary inquests

Abstract

Through a critical examination of the Ontario Coroners Act, this paper reveals the expansive loopholes within the legislation disallowing public inquests in regards to the deaths of Mad people held in police custody, psychiatric hospitals and correctional facilities. The lethal abuses and rights violations occurring within the system are neither oversights nor technicalities, but rather are a result of the standard procedures and applications of the Coroners Act.  An in-depth investigation of cases mandated under the legislation, further demonstrates how these deaths are attended to with a level of ambiguity, along with an expansive and arbitrary interpretation of the Coroners Act, providing ample leeway to disregard holding open, public, and transparent inquests, is evidence that these deaths remain improperly investigated, if they are at all. Legislative change to the Coroners Act is urgently required in order to have these deaths seriously investigated and to prevent the continuation of psychiatric consumers/survivors dying suspiciously under the control of the state.

Downloads

How to Cite

Mack, T. (2014). Psychiatric Survivors/Consumers Die and Nothing Is Done: An Examination of the Discriminatory Nature of the Ontario Coroner’s Act. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 3(1), 36–64. https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v3i1.145

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 1 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

There are no article processing or submission charges for CJDS authors.

Author(s) are not required to assign their copyright in and to their article to the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. Instead, The CJDS asks for one-time rights to print this original work.

All articles in the journal are assigned a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

Authors are asked to contact the journal Editor if they wish to post the article on any website; translate or authorize a translation of the article; copy or otherwise reproduce the article, in any format, beyond what is permitted under Canadian copyright law, or authorize others to do so; copy or otherwise reproduce portions of the article, including tables and figures, beyond what is permitted under Canadian copyright law, or authorize others to do so.

Contacting the Editor will simply allow us to track the use and distribution of your article.  We encourage use for non-commercial, educational purposes. 

Authors must provide proof of permission clearance prior to the publication of their work if they are including images or other materials that are not their own.  Keep in mind that such clearance can at times be costly, and often takes time.  The journal editor can often work with you to seek permissions if you need information, advice or assistance.