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• Law to better protect vulnerable persons

Bill 18 was adopted on June 2, 2020 and will pass into law by June 2022.
Nothing will change until then.

The bill will enhance the measures in place to protect vulnerable individuals. The new legislative provisions relating to the protection of incapable persons will be adaptable to each situation, will safeguard the autonomy of these individuals, while taking into account their wishes and preferences, will preserve individuals’ ability to exercise their civil rights insofar as possible, and will provide more oversight for the administration of the patrimony of minors.

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  Curatorships will become tutorships, but incapable persons will continue to be represented for the same acts. Curators will become tutors and will have powers of simple administration. Moreover, incapable persons will regain certain rights, such as the right to vote in provincial and municipal elections. Upon reassessment of the incapable person, the court will have to determine whether modulated tutorship is appropriate given the incapable person’s faculties and, if necessary, review the acts they may or may not perform alone.

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  The court will have to take into account the incapable person’s faculties in determining whether the tutorship needs to be modulated. This decision will help determine the person’s degree of autonomy and the acts they can perform alone. Furthermore, the time limits for medical and psychosocial reassessments will be tailored to each individual, although they may not exceed five years.

  However, if it is obvious to the physician conducting the medical assessment that the incapable person’s condition will not change, the time to the next assessment may be extended up to 10 years.

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  This non-judicial measure will allow people living with a difficulty to receive assistance, if they so wish, in making decisions and exercising their civil rights. The Curateur public will be responsible for recognizing assistants and for registering them in a public register for a maximum of three years. This recognition of the assistant will enable them to act on the person’s behalf in dealing with all organizations, companies and professionals with whom they are in contact. The assistant may, among other things, send them information or collect information from them.

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  Temporary representation will allow the court to authorize a person to perform a specific act on behalf of an incapable person. A temporary representative may, for example, represent an incapable person in renouncing a succession. This protective measure is meant to avoid unnecessarily instituting a tutorship.

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  The mandatary will be required to make an inventory of the incapable person’s property and render accounts to the person designated in the protection mandate. If necessary, the Curateur public may be designated to receive the accounts.

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  The Curateur public will have to be given 15 days’ notice before the transmission of property or the payment of an indemnity to a minor. The Curateur public will continue to oversee the administration of the minor’s property by the dative tutors, regardless of the value of the patrimony. The oversight threshold for parents and suppletive tutors will be increased to $40,000 or more.

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  The tutorship will become the sole protective supervision regime for incapable persons. However, the current advisors to persons of full age will remain in their role and continue to fulfil their obligations until the protective supervision regime is terminated or amended.

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  At all times, the wishes and preferences of the incapable person must be taken into account in the decisions made by legal representatives. Insofar as possible, the incapable person must participate in decisions concerning them.

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