Landon Webb to fight Incompetent Persons Act in Nova Scotia

A man declared mentally incompetent under a Nova Scotia law that a legal expert says is "ripe for attack under the charter" of rightshas left Alberta to try to havehis status overturned and fight to change the legislation.

"I want to fight my case. I want to win," saidLandon Webb, 25, who voluntarily left the Kings Regional Rehabilitation Centre in Waterville, N.S., in October to find work in Western Canada.

"I don't want to just do it for myself, but for my son, my girlfriend, and for all the other people who have their rights stripped away and violated."

Webbfound himself the subject ofseveral police alerts this year that said he had gone missing. His parents claimhe functions at the level of a 10-year-old boy, and wereupset when he discharged himself from the rehabilitation centre, where treatment is voluntary.

Webbtold CBC News that he should be free to set his own course, and opposes theIncompetentPersonsAct.

"I feel that no one should have the right over someone else. I'm a person, a human being, not some piece of property. I should have my voice heard. I should be able to choose where I live, not have someone else choose it for me," he said last week as he prepared to leave Alberta.

• Listen to Webb:'I am person, a human being, not some piece of property'
• Read the Incompetent Persons Act

He called his treatment discriminatory and upsetting.

"To see that I was all over the news with the intellectual level of a 10 to 12-year-old, and to see all the comments people make about me? It's very upsetting, to say the least."

He said he spoke to police in Edmonton to show he was safe and not in danger. But he has sincereturnedto Nova Scotia,and said he intends to overturn the mentally incompetent declaration.

"I'm not saying they were wrong at the time deeming me incompetent, but now that I've grown up and grown older, I expect I can prove my competency to the courts," he said, adding that thetesting requiredto do that costs thousands of dollars.

Law contravenes charter, scholar says

Sheila Wildeman teaches law at Dalhousie University's Schulich School of Law and is theassociate director of the Health Law Institute.

On Tuesday, she said Nova Scotia's incompetency act is unique in Canada. She also said the global standard makes Nova Scotia a "laggard" in Canada, she said.

"The act is at odds with modern principles of legal capacity. All of this goes to the act's arbitrariness, its overbreadth, its contravention of Section 7of the charter that protects liberty.

"What I'd like to hear is the [Nova Scotia]minister of justice, DianaWhalen, on how the government justifies this type of legislation remaining on the books in 2015."

Nova Scotia is one of the last jurisdictions in Canada to offer a "global" declaration of incompetence, she said, and the law wouldn't likely survive a legal challenge.

Section 7of the Charter of Rights and Freedomsguarantees "everyone has the right to life, libertyand the security of the person."

Under the act, parents or guardians must get affidavits from two physicians saying thatperson can be declared incompetent.

They must prove "mental infirmity" that makes that personunable to manage his or her own affairs.

She said the statement of global incapacity removes individuals' right to handle their ownfinances, and choose where to live, what to wear and even manage their own grooming.

'Ripe' for a legal challenge

Wildeman is"perplexed" at how you could prove such a comprehensive decision in the first place.

"That's really at the heart of the problems with the act that I think in part Landon Webb is getting at," she said. "The standard itself is ripe for attack under the charter."

But Wildeman saidthe act "empties your decisions of legal authority," and if the person receives close oversight from family members, the family or guardian could deny him or heraccess to health recordsor get a lawyer.

Thatmakes it hard to build a case against the declaration. Such people can apply to end the guardianship order, but Wildeman is unaware if that would ever happen.