A.        Introduction

Thhis Paper has identified many concerns with specific aspects of  Ontario’s laws related to legal capacity, decision-making and guardianship: how individuals are assessed for legal capacity to make decisions, have substitute decision-makers (SDMs) or supporters appointed, understand their legal rights and responsibilities, and raise and address concerns, among other issues. One underlying theme running through many of these issues is the decentralized nature of Ontario’s system, with multiple institutions and processes reflecting a diversity of needs, and a focus on individual action to access the system and its supports. An recurring concern throughout this initial phase of the project has been the challenge in coordinating all of the many institutions and aspects of this area of the law, and ensuring that they are working well together towards the achievement of the ultimate purposes of the law. This concern may be understood as the result of three significant and interrelated gaps in the current regime: mechanisms for transparency and accountability for the effective operation of the system; systems or institutions for coordinating the various system functions; and means for identifying flaws or implementation issues in the system as whole.  Each of these are briefly examined below.

 

B.  Transparency and Accountability for System Functioning 

A recurrent challenge in attempting to evaluate how well Ontario’s laws in this area are working and to identify and assess potential law reform options is the pervasive lack of data  with respect to the functioning of the current regime. For example, while several organizations have made considerable efforts over the years to improve understanding of the laws among the public, SDMs, service providers and professionals, the lack of any central coordinating role makes it difficult to identify who has been doing this work or how effective it has been.. There is therefore no straightforward means of determining what are the most pressing needs for information and education, what resources are available to address these needs or what might be the most effective strategies or tools for doing so. In many cases, it is simply not possible to gather any meaningful data at all about the operation of key aspects of the system: concerns related to the abuse and misuse of powers of attorney (POA) are an obvious example, where there are no means of determining how many POAs are in effect, let alone how common abuse is. Similar issues arise in almost every area, from assessing capacity to dispute resolution. While the Public Guardian and Trustee (PGT) and the Consent and Capacity Board (CCB) do collect statistics for case management purposes and report publicly on an annual basis, the information available through this means touches on only a few aspects of the system.

Without such data, it is difficult to meaningfully assess whether the reforms of the 1990s have met their goals; or whether any shortfalls in doing so are the result of problems with the fundamental assumptions and strategies underlying the laws or with their implementation. Just as it is important to have monitoring and oversight mechanisms to ensure that the law is functioning as intended on an individual basis, it is important to have such mechanisms with respect to the effectiveness of the laws as a whole. The Framework for the Law as It Affects Persons with Disabilities states,

In general, laws benefit from the inclusion of mechanisms to ensure accountability, transparency and effectivenss. Often there is a lack of monitoring and oversight mechanisms for laws disproportionately or exclusively affecting persons with disabilities; as a result, it is difficult or impossible to determine whether these systems are operating effectively or the degree to which persons with disabilities are subject to abuses or violations of their rights. Monitoring of the law and regular evaluation of its effects provides a strong foundation for meaningful law reform, and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation should be built into the law from the outset.

The Frameworks include a number of questions related to monitoring of the law that are relevant here.

  • What mechanisms does the law include to allow those affected, including persons with disabilities, to provide feedback on the effectiveness of the law and on any unanticipated negative consequences for persons with disabilities?
  • How does the law require meaningful information about its impact and effectiveness to be systematically gathered and documented?
  • How does the law require that information about its operation and effectiveness be made publicly available?
  • How does the law ensure that those charged with implementing and overseeing the law regularly report on their activities and the effectiveness with which the law, program or policy is administered?
  • Where the law provides significant discretion to those charged with its implementation, what additional reporting and monitoring mechanisms does it include to ensure that this discretion is exercised consistently, fairly, transparently and in a principled manner?


  • QUESTION FOR CONSIDERATION: Are there reforms to law, policy or practice which would increase transparency and accountability for the legal capacity, decision-making and guardianship system as a whole?

 

  • QUESTION FOR CONSIDERATION: What steps can be taken to support ongoing monitoring and evaluation of any reforms to the law in this area, and to ensure that changes to law, policy and practice have the effect intended?


C.        Coordination of the Legal Capacity, Decision-making and Guardianship System

Many jurisdictions include as part of their legal capacity, decision-making and guardianship regime institutions or mechanisms that are intended to coordinate or oversee certain functions that are considered essential to the effective functioning of the system as a whole. Commonly, these include education, monitoring and oversight, and last resort functions.

For example, in Ireland’s proposed new statutory framework (which is briefly described elsewhere in this Paper), the Office of the Public Guardian would fill a strong centralizing role in the system, with an extremely comprehensive range of functions, including:

  • supervising decision-making assistants, co-decision-makers, decision-making representatives and attorneys for relevant persons,
  • establishing and maintaining a register of decision-making assistance agreements,  co-decision-making orders, decision-making orders and decision-making representative orders, and  enduring powers of attorney,
  • appointing special visitors and general visitors, who visit decision-making assistants, representatives, co-decision-makers and attorneys  or the persons that they are assisting,