Military Police Powers to Detain Soldiers in Mental Health Crisis Change by Province

Government Files is The Canada Report's public-records analysis series examining government documents obtained through Canada's Access to Information (ATI) and provincial Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. These transparency laws allow members of the public to request internal government records from federal and provincial institutions. This article reviews documents released through those processes and summarizes what the records contain and what they show. While we strive for accuracy, this article represents an analysis and interpretation of the source material. For complete accuracy and full context, readers should review the original documents, which are available in full below.

Full Document

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A Canadian Armed Forces policy that took effect in August 2025 sets out when military police may take a soldier, sailor or aviator in mental health crisis into custody against their will — and records show that authority is not the same everywhere in the country. Military police can act on a doctor's medical certificate in seven of Canada's thirteen provinces and territories. In the other six, they fall back on their general powers as peace officers.

The document is Chapter 323 of the Canadian Armed Forces Military Police Policy Manual, titled Mental Health Intervention. It was released by the Department of National Defence under access request A-2025-01384, which asked for military policy and procedure on involuntarily committing CAF members to mental health facilities between 11 September 2001 and 30 September 2025. Seven pages were disclosed in full.

What the Documents Show

The chapter is marked version 1.0, issued 25 August 2025, and the revision table describes it as a full review and re-write. It supersedes a Canadian Forces Military Police Group order dated 10 July 2018, meaning the rules governing these situations were rewritten from the ground up roughly a month before the end of the period the request covered.

The policy applies to non-commissioned members and officers appointed as military police under regulations made for section 156 of the National Defence Act who are employed in law enforcement duties. It opens by acknowledging a jurisdictional problem that shapes everything after it: mental health care, including crisis intervention, falls under provincial and territorial authority. Each province and territory writes its own rules for non-consensual intervention, and those rules must square with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protection against arbitrary detention.

Military police authority in these situations comes from two places stacked together — their federal designation as peace officers, and the provincial laws that give peace officers powers. The policy points to Queen's Regulations and Orders 22.011(a), which grants military police peace officer powers for the maintenance or restoration of law and order, the protection of property and persons, and the arrest or custody of persons. That, the document states, is what allows military police to detain someone in crisis and transport them to a medical facility.

The policy is also written to cover civilians, not just service members. It defines a person in crisis as an individual, military or civilian, whose behaviour brings them into contact with military police or other emergency services because of an apparent need for urgent intervention. Since most civilians living on a defence establishment are dependants of a serving member, the document places responsibility on that member to help with escorting and transporting the person to care. Military police conduct in these encounters has drawn outside scrutiny before — the Military Police Complaints Commission, the federal watchdog that criticized a biased sexual assault investigation at CFB Moose Jaw, appears in the policy's own reference list through a final report issued in February 2009.

The Authority Stops at Provincial Borders

The clearest finding in the release is a map of where military police can and cannot act on a medical order. Some provinces authorize "any person" to take a named individual into custody under a medical certificate directing a psychiatric assessment. Where that language exists, military police qualify as any person and are legally able to detain and transport the person named in the form.

The policy lists seven jurisdictions where that regime is in place: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Yukon. That leaves Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut off the list — a group that includes bases such as Valcartier, Bagotville, Shilo and Goose Bay. In those jurisdictions, the document says military police fall back on their primary authority under the Queen's Regulations and Orders when a call comes in from Canadian Forces Health Services.

A second regime covers judicial orders. Military police are authorized to execute an order from a justice of the peace or a provincial court judge directing that a person be detained for psychiatric evaluation, but only where they are named in the order — and the policy identifies just three jurisdictions where that applies: Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Yukon.

The policy draws one line firmly. The medical certificate is completed by medical or mental health professionals, and the document states plainly that police do not and will not have the authority to "form" a patient. Even where the certificate route exists, military police will only assist if they or the medical authorities believe there is a realistic risk of violence and ambulance transport is not a viable option.

The Threshold for Taking Someone Into Custody

Where no certificate or court order is involved, the policy sets a two-part test. Military police must first have reasonable and probable grounds to believe the person has threatened or attempted to cause bodily harm to themselves, has behaved violently toward another person or caused someone to fear bodily harm, or has demonstrated a lack of competence to care for themselves. They must then reasonably believe the person is suffering from a mental disorder severe enough that it will likely result in serious bodily harm to the person or to someone else, or serious physical impairment.

Both halves must be met, and detention is reserved for situations that cannot be managed through less intrusive means. The non-emergency path gets more space in the document than the emergency one. Military police are directed to de-escalate, seek consent, and try to arrange transport through a family member, friend, co-worker or anyone else the person is comfortable with. A military police escort is described as a last resort, available only if resources permit.

During working hours, if military police lack grounds to apprehend but believe a member would benefit from seeing a mental health practitioner, they notify the unit — and the chain of command has the authority to direct that member to the Base Hospital. After hours, when the Base Hospital is closed, they are told to try to persuade the member to attend the nearest medical facility voluntarily, escorted by a friend, family member, co-worker, chaplain or other religious or spiritual advisor. If the person asks for a support person, military police must record the request in their notebook whether or not that person can be reached or shows up.

Anyone apprehended must be informed of their rights under section 10(a) of the Charter, and military police are required to explain that although the person is detained, they are not under arrest, and what the difference between the two means.

Handcuffs, Ambulances and Cruisers

The operational detail in the chapter is specific. A person showing signs of a mental health crisis is not to be left unattended. Use of force must be proportional and necessary, and military police may exercise discretion on whether to handcuff someone at all, taking into account medical condition, age, disability, pregnancy or frailty. Where restraints are required, the policy directs members to minimize their impact by hiding them.

Transport is expected to be by ambulance, on the reasoning that mental health is foremost a medical concern. A police vehicle is treated as the exception, permitted when an ambulance wait is unreasonable and only after a supervisor approves it. Three conditions must be met and documented: the person has no apparent physical medical condition requiring paramedics first, there are no hygiene, contagion or biohazard concerns, and there are no apparent officer safety concerns. The vehicle must have a secure partition, and it is to be searched before and after the trip, with the person searched before entering.

Service members are taken to the Base Hospital once it is confirmed to be equipped and staffed to handle the situation; civilians go to the nearest civilian hospital. Either way, military police must remain at the facility and keep the person in custody until care is formally transferred to the receiving medical authority. Firearms and other regulated items may be seized under section 117.04(2) of the Criminal Code, with a return to justice filed for everything taken, and the policy directs members to apply for a preventive firearms prohibition order where they have grounds to believe the person should not have access to them.

The chapter also names 9-8-8, the national Suicide Crisis Helpline, as a resource military police should pass on when appropriate — and, notably, one they can use themselves when medical advice is not readily available on scene.

What's Missing from the Records

The request asked about a 24-year window. What came back covers roughly the last five months of it. The 2018 order that governed these situations for most of the period is referenced only as superseded, and its contents are not part of the release. Neither is anything from the seventeen years before that.

More significantly for anyone trying to understand the practice rather than the rule, the release contains no data. There are no figures on how many Canadian Armed Forces members have been apprehended under these authorities, at which bases, under which provincial regime, or how those interventions ended. The policy itself creates a paper trail — a General Occurrence report for every intervention following an emergency call, an Articulation for Apprehension template in the Security and Military Police Information System, and notebook entries — so records of individual cases exist. They are simply not in this release. One category is deliberately routed elsewhere: interventions that follow a request from Canadian Forces Health Services for a medical certificate are logged as a Street Check rather than a General Occurrence, which the policy says is done to protect the confidentiality of the individual.

The local layer is missing too. The policy instructs military police detachment commanders to write or update their own standing procedures identifying the nearest facility equipped to handle psychiatric patients, contacts at their Base Hospital mental health clinic and General Duty Medical Officer, and any local support services. Those base-level procedures are where the policy actually meets the ground, and none of them were disclosed. The chapter also carries small signs of a hurried rewrite: the section numbering skips from 323.13 to 323.15, and one heading is numbered 3233.11. Defence has released other internal records through the same access law, including documents on a classified operation to recover objects downed over Canada in 2023, but on this subject the paper that exists publicly is the rulebook, not the record of its use.

All information referenced is from the Department of National Defence, request number A-2025-01384, obtained through an Access to Information request. The release consists of seven pages containing Chapter 323, Mental Health Intervention, of the Canadian Armed Forces Military Police Policy Manual, version 1.0, issued 25 August 2025.