Three former patients of private rehab Muskoka Recovery have filed a $40-million lawsuit against the facility and its owners.
The owners and staff of Muskoka “have deliberately and systemically misled, lured, financially exploited, abused and endangered vulnerable people seeking treatment at the facility,” according to a statement of claim filed in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice. The suit alleges that people trying to get off drugs were given the same drugs they were addicted to and that, in one case, the rehab’s owners told a suicidal patient “only weak people kill themselves.”
In 2024, Muskoka Recovery was the subject of a Star investigation revealing that while the facility promised 24/7 medical care and qualified therapists in a setting of “affordable luxury,” none of that care existed.
The three former patients who filed the suit are asking a court to certify it as a class action, meaning that others who had similar allegations could join the suit. They are alleging fraudulent misrepresentation and breach of contract.
Owners Ewa Ricci, Ralph Canonaco, and clinical director Damien did not respond to questions from the Star about the newly filed lawsuit and have not yet filed a statement of defence.
Domenic Saverino, a lawyer for the defendants, emailed the Star saying: “My clients will vehemently defend this action and will only present their Defence and position in the court proceedings.”
“Our unwavering priority has been the well-being of our clients and their loved ones as they
Previously, Ricci sent a statement to the Star regarding last year’s investigation into complaints by former patients. “Muskoka Recovery treats the recent complaints and allegations against our centre with the utmost seriousness. Our unwavering priority has been the well-being of our clients and their loved ones as they navigate mental health challenges, including substance use disorders,” she said.
Meanwhile, the husband of a 44-year-old mother of four who died at the facility said Monday that he is hoping the province will launch an inquest into her death.
“It’s in the public interest,” said the husband, Fred. (In this story and the previous series, the Star has agreed to use first names of patients and their families in some situations, to protect their confidentiality as they are discussing personal medical information).
His wife, Dawn, suffered from a rare disease that caused debilitating pain in her side. She’d turned to opioid painkillers and alcohol for relief. The couple chose Muskoka — paying $38,000 up front — and were comforted by promises that it had a “doctor on staff.” It didn’t. Dawn died two weeks after her arrival on Jan. 10, 2024. The Star’s investigation found she was not being regularly monitored and had been given only half her daily seizure medication.
In the new lawsuit, the lead representative plaintiff is Kimberly Smith, a “married mother of three who has struggled with mental health issues such as depression and suicide ideation.” Smith was not part of the Star’s original series, which included interviews with 11 former clients and three family members of clients. Smith, from Innisfil, and other former patients reached out to the Star after the series was published, adding their accounts of being improperly treated at Muskoka Recovery. Smith’s claim says she paid $64,000 for her time at the facility.
The pool at Muskoka Recovery.
Muskoka Recovery/FacebookIn comments made prior to the suit being launched, Smith said she entered Muskoka Recovery in the hope that it would help her turn her life around. It was unsuccessful, she said.
“I have trauma from attending this facility,” she said. Muskoka Recovery is not subject to any government regulation; Smith said that has to change.
“Private facilities need to be accredited and monitored regularly. We need the government to step in and regulate these facilities. Too many lives are being ruined for the sake of money.”
The lawyers representing Smith and the other plaintiffs are Joel Rochon and Golnaz Nayerahmadi from the pc28firm Rochon Genova.
The lawsuit notes that Muskoka Recovery markets itself as a “luxury, medical recovery centre for mental health and addiction rehabilitation.” The lawsuit concludes: “In reality, Muskoka Recovery lacks even the most basic professional oversight, and employs unlicensed and unqualified individuals.”
According to the claim, Smith went there for mental health counselling, not for addiction recovery. During her 64 days at the facility in Ontario’s cottage country, Smith said she was “not supervised or attended to by qualified professionals.” The claim states that she was given the “wrong doses of medication and was verbally berated and abused for her negative reaction to these drugs.”
Part two of a two-part investigation into the “Wild West” of private addiction treatment centres
In its investigation, the Star has separately reported that Muskoka Recovery stockpiled drugs in a basement room and that patients said they were given them without prescription. A woman described as a nurse, Christine Iskandar, was in charge of the medication and handed it out. The Star discovered that Iskandar was not a nurse and was subject to a College of Nurses warning that she was claiming she was a nurse.
The lawsuit alleges that “Iskandar frequently provided inconsistent and, in some cases, incorrect doses of prescribed medications, creating dangerous health risks.” Iskandar did not respond to the Star’s request to comment on these allegations.
In her claim, Smith said that as a result of her time at Muskoka Recovery, she emerged in worse shape, required hospitalization, and lost income. She said she is traumatized after being “verbally and physically abused by staff, including unwanted sexual advances and touching by her purported therapist.”
Smith does not name the therapist in her claim. The Star found that nobody at Muskoka Recovery was licensed to legally practice psychotherapy. In the case of Damien , the clinical director, he had recently been found guilty of professional misconduct by the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers for having sex with a client from another addiction rehab clinic where he had worked.
At Muskoka Recovery, the Star discovered that he was partying with a female staff member (who was a former patient of Muskoka) in the rehab’s hot tub while a patient was undergoing the sometimes dangerous “detox phase” of their recovery. (According to Muskoka Rehab documents, clients are to be “medically supervised” at all times.)
The second plaintiff in the lawsuit is Matt Collins, a 36-year-old from Ottawa who has struggled with mental health since he was a child, including suicidal thoughts. His parents paid $48,900 — funded by a loan that they are still paying back — in the hopes that Muskoka Recovery’s promise of a “behavioural modification course” would help, the lawsuit states. He was promised an individual treatment plan, individual sessions with a psychotherapist, and staff that included doctors and nurses. The lawsuit states that he was there for two months in late 2022 and “never received the treatment and therapy he was promised.” In addition, the lawsuit claims that the treatment sessions he did receive (none of the staff were licensed to perform the treatment) included “crude conversations about sex.”
He alleges he was “berated and belittled for experiencing suicidal thoughts and told by (owners) Ralph and Ewa that only weak people kill themselves.”
The third plaintiff is a 58-year-old woman who sent her daughter to Muskoka following an overdose incident in late 2021. The mother — who asked that her name not be used — paid $19,000 through a loan that she is still repaying. She alleges her daughter was frequently left unsupervised, received no treatment and was “exposed to the very drugs” she was trying to get away from.
The next step in the lawsuit will be a hearing to determine if this qualifies as a class action. No date has been set.
