Mental Incapacity, Guardianship and the Elderly : An Exploratory Study of Ontario's Consent and Capacity Board

In 1992, Ontario completely changed its adult guardianship laws and enacted three novel pieces of legislation: the Consent to Treatment Act; the Substitute Decision Act; and the Advocacy Act (a change that was finalized in 1996 when the Advocacy Act was repealed and the Consent to Treatment Act was replaced by the Health Care Consent Act.) Ontario's innovative legal reform was the outcome of a long and thorough legislative effort aimed at shifting the political balance from a paternalistic to an autonomy-respecting adult guardianship system. Since the proclamation of Ontario's new adult guardianship laws, no empirical research (or any other scientific research for that matter) was conducted with regard to the actual success, failure, implementation, or other dimensions of the new legal regime. This article presents the findings of an exploratory study of the elder guardianship experience in Ontario under its new legal regime, as viewed from the narrow yet important perspective of Ontario's Consent and Capacity Board. The findings provide a glimpse of Ontario's elder guardianship reality and establish the main questions and important dimensions that should be further examined in future studies in this field