Controversial Manitoba facility for people with disabilities shuttered after nearly 4-year wait

A controversial Manitoba facility for people with intellectual disabilities closed its doors Tuesday, after the last resident officially moved out, advocates say.

The more than century-old Manitoba Developmental Centre in Portage la Prairie was at the centre of a class-action lawsuit over alleged abuses. The suit was settled for $17 million in compensation last year.

The Manitoba government had announced in January 2021 that the centre, one of Canada's last large institutional facilities, would close after its remaining 133 residents were moved to community living over the following three years.

Although it took a bit longer for that to happen, one advocate says the long-awaited closure comes as a relief.

"People should be living in the community, and you know, enjoying every other aspect of life that any of us enjoy," said Debra Roach, whose sister Christine lived at the facility in the 1970s when she was 10 and 11 years old.

Their parents eventually brought Christine home after her behaviour appeared off during a visit, Roach recalled. Her sister had been rocking back and forth on a hallway floor, staring into space, she said.

Roach says she only fully learned about her sister's experiences a few years ago. Christine's records showed that she had been sexually assaulted by male residents at the centre, Roach alleged.

"It was a horrible thing to learn," said Roach, who is also a board member of Community Living Manitoba. "They were supposed to be monitored and watched."

Although Christine died in 2020, Roach says she believes her sister would have been happy to hear of the centre's closure.

Freedom, independence

One of the organizations that has long called for the Manitoba Developmental Centre's closure, New Directions, has been helping former residents transition into community living.

The centre's closure means they can now enjoy more freedom and independence in their day-to-day lives, from what and when they're going to eat to whom they're going to befriend and visit, the non-profit's CEO, Jennifer Frain, told CBC News.

Residents can also now have pets, she added.

"Those choices were denied to them in the institutions."

Frain says the push to close the centre came as people across North America changed their minds about institutionalizing people with intellectual disabilities.

"For many decades, people who bore a child who had a disability were told that they should hand their child over to the experts to take care of their child, because they knew how to do that, and we know that over time, the institutions became places that were not doing great care of people at all," Frain said.

Last year, then premier Heather Stefanson apologized in the legislature to former residents of the Manitoba Developmental Centre as part of the class-action settlement.

Although the province dragged its feet for decades to close the centre, Frain said, it set an "ambitious" goal in 2021 of finding new homes for everyone at the facility within three years.

Since then, New Directions and other organizations have navigated renovations of new homes and pandemic supply chain issues to open multiple facilities that meet the residents' needs.

Frain says her non-profit could use more government support, but overall the organization is much better situated in the community to support residents with occupational therapists, psychologists and specialized medical care than the centre was.

The non-profit's next challenge will be to help clients age in place, instead of going to personal care homes, Frain says.

"We'll all be vigilant around recognizing that institutions are never a good answer for people in terms of a living situation," Frain said.

"The convenience of the professionals to have everybody in one space is not the right way to go, and in fact, people have a right to live the lives that they want."

Meanwhile, the province says it's been working with the centre's staff to find them new jobs. Some have accepted positions in the community or with the public service, while others have retired, a government spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Staff still on site are preparing for the facility's final closure, expected on Dec. 31, the spokesperson said, and no decisions have been made on the building's future.