By the late 1980s, there was a growing body of knowledge about mental illness.

That's because as far back as the late 1970s, then First Lady Roslyn Carter was devoting enormous attention educating the public about this issue.

In the early 1980s, many governments were well aware of the need to strengthen mental-health services.

But that didn't prevent a Supreme Court of Canada judge from being forced to resign in 1988 because he was suffering from clinical depression.

The circumstances of Gerald Le Dain's departure from Canada's highest court was revealed in a documentary that aired this morning on CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition.

Le Dain's daughter, Caroline Burgess, called her father's treatment "cruel" and "unconscionable".

"There was never an apology," Burgess said in the documentary. "The way things were left doesn't sit right with me and it doesn't sit right with my siblings."

Burgess also declared that she wished that this never happened.

Le Dain recovered from his illness and died nearly 20 years later in 2007.

"There wasn't an enlightened kind of sense that this is treatable," Burgess maintained.

According to The Sunday Edition documentary, then chief justice Brian Dickson "pressured" Le Dain to step down less than two weeks after he was diagnosed.

Burgess revealed that she asked Pierre Trudeau, then in retirement, if he could intervene because he had appointed Le Dain to the bench.

"Trudeau said to me 'I also appointed Brian Dickson,' " she recalled.

Claire L'Heureux-Dubé was a Supreme Court of Canada justice when Le Dain became ill.

She said that she and another former justice, Bertha Wilson, opposed the decision to push Le Dain to quit while he was ill.

L'Heureux-Dubé also that Le Dain had "an exceptional mind" and "should have been given the time to get back healthy".

The Supreme Court of Canada website simply states that Le Dain "retired" after four years on the bench and makes no mention of him being forcibly removed due to mental illness.

Le Dain is best known to Canadians as the chair of a commission into the nonmedical use of drugs. In 1972 it called for the repeal of criminal sanctions for possession of marijuana.

The Le Dain Commission also recommended that people be allowed to grow cannabis for personal use.