Legislators have an obligation to intervene in segregation practices at Waypoint

Law360 Canada (November 3, 2026, 2:19 PM EST) --

John L. Hill

The revelations in Toronto Star courts and justice reporter Jacques Gallant’s investigation into prolonged psychiatric seclusion at Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in Penetanguishene raise questions Ontario legislators can no longer afford to ignore.

If prolonged solitary confinement in federal penitentiaries has been found to violate constitutional protections, why should similar isolation be tolerated when imposed on people suffering from serious mental illnesses in a provincial psychiatric institution?

A psychiatric hospital is not a penitentiary, and seclusion may sometimes be necessary to protect patients and others from immediate harm. But locking someone alone in a room for months or years can inflict profound psychological and physical damage. Calling it treatment does not make that damage any less serious.

Gallant’s investigation describes how a measure intended as a temporary safety precaution appears to have become a long-term way to manage some patients.

Gallant writes about Jake Gordon, a 31-year-old man with treatment-resistant schizophrenia who spent more than five years at Waypoint, almost entirely locked alone in his room. His mother, Diane Worden, became alarmed after obtaining surveillance footage showing her son pacing alone in a small room.

Following the Star’s investigation and increased public scrutiny, Gordon gradually received more opportunities to leave seclusion, spend time outdoors, visit the canteen, listen to music and receive dental and eye care. He was eventually released from isolation and transferred to Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby.

His improvement was remarkable. His mother described him as talkative, smiling and much closer to the person he had been before going to Waypoint.

Worden attributed the change to public scrutiny, expert intervention and the work of Gordon’s lawyer, Anita Szigeti. Her experience raises an uncomfortable question: if Gordon could improve so dramatically once he was permitted greater freedom and human contact, was five years of isolation really necessary?

Another reason the allegations at Waypoint deserve particular attention is its institutional history. Penetanguishene has a disturbing history of psychiatric experimentation and the mistreatment of vulnerable patients.

The former Oak Ridge Division of the Mental Health Centre was the setting for controversial experiments conducted between 1966 and 1983. In Barker v. Barker, 2022 ONCA 567, the Ontario Court of Appeal considered claims by 28 former patients who alleged degrading and abusive treatment in Oak Ridge’s Social Therapy Unit.

The programs included Defence Disruptive Therapy, involving mind-altering drugs such as LSD; the Total Encounter Capsule, in which patients were confined naked in a small, windowless room for periods of up to 11 days; and disciplinary programs involving other psychiatric patients.

The experiments were intended to break down psychological defences and change patients’ personalities. The litigation exposed serious violations of human dignity and allegations of assault and battery.

The present controversy should not be confused with those historical experiments. Nevertheless, the history makes independent scrutiny particularly important. It demonstrates what can happen when medical authority, institutional secrecy and inadequate oversight combine.

A hospital’s description of its practices as therapeutic cannot be the final word. Treatment must be necessary, lawful, humane and evidence-based.

Canadian courts have recognized that prolonged solitary confinement can cross the constitutional line between legitimate institutional management and cruel and unusual treatment.

In Canadian Civil Liberties Association v. Canada (Attorney General), 2019 ONCA 243, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that administrative segregation lasting more than 15 consecutive days in federal penitentiaries violated s. 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court found that prolonged segregation could not be justified under s. 1 of the Charter.

In Francis v. Ontario, 2021 ONCA 197, the Ontario Court of Appeal also addressed the constitutional problems associated with administrative segregation in provincial correctional institutions.

These decisions concerned correctional facilities, not psychiatric hospitals. Nevertheless, the underlying concern is equally relevant: prolonged isolation can cause serious psychological deterioration and lasting harm.

The fact that someone is receiving psychiatric treatment does not eliminate the need to protect that person’s dignity and fundamental rights.

Gallant identifies another serious weakness: the lack of meaningful independent oversight.

Gordon was a civil patient involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act. The Consent and Capacity Board periodically reviewed his status. However, the board is not required to provide written reasons unless a party requests them within 30 days.

Consequently, Gordon’s lawyer could find no accessible record showing whether his prolonged seclusion was properly examined or whether anyone questioned its necessity.

The Ontario Review Board, which oversees forensic patients, must provide written reasons after hearings. The contrast is troubling.

An oversight body that conducts mandatory hearings but leaves no accessible explanation of its decisions invites an obvious question: what is the purpose of oversight if nobody can determine what was examined or why a decision was made?

Gallant also reports that warnings about unethical long-term seclusion at Waypoint and its predecessor date back to at least 1984. In 2019, a psychiatrist warned the Ford government that the hospital’s practices were horrific. According to the Star, the Ministry of Health took no meaningful further action.

An independent assessment in another patient’s case concluded that the conditions were comparable to those the United Nations has characterized as torture in similar circumstances. The Ontario Review Board also found that Waypoint routinely violated its own seclusion policies. These are serious institutional failures.

There is a fundamental difference between temporarily protecting someone from immediate danger and keeping that person locked away for years.

Seclusion may occasionally be necessary, but it must remain an exceptional measure, subject to strict safeguards, regular medical review and independent oversight.

Ontario legislators should demand an independent investigation into Waypoint’s practices, including the length of confinement, the medical justification for individual decisions and the effectiveness of existing oversight. The response should include mandatory written reasons for reviews and public reporting of prolonged seclusion.

Families should not have to rely on investigative journalism to learn how their loved ones are treated in publicly funded institutions.

Oak Ridge’s history makes this responsibility even more pressing. Penetanguishene has already experienced a period when psychiatric experimentation and institutional authority inflicted profound harm on vulnerable patients. The present circumstances are not identical, but history should teach us the dangers of allowing institutions to police themselves.

Solitary confinement has been found unconstitutional when imposed for prolonged periods in penitentiaries. The damage it can cause does not become less serious because the person behind the locked door is a psychiatric patient rather than a prisoner.

A psychiatric hospital is supposed to provide treatment, not simply containment. If isolation becomes a substitute for treatment, and years pass without meaningful independent scrutiny, Ontario’s legislators have an obligation to intervene.

A civilized society is measured not by how it treats people who are easy to manage. It is how it treats those who are most vulnerable and least able to speak for themselves.

John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a JD from Queen’s and an LLM in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. He is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books). His most recent book, Acts of Darkness (Durvile & UpRoute), was shortlisted as one of five nominees for the Crime Writers of Canada’s Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book. Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.

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