A Trudeau cabinet minister told reporters Friday that her government is “saving lives” through their efforts on harm reduction. Drug overdoses have killed more than 32,000 people since 2016, when “safe supply” became official policy.
“I am not here to do anything more than emphasize that we are saving lives through health care support and services,” claimed Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks.
“It is to help people in a space [where] they [are treated with] dignity in their most vulnerable moments,” she said, suggesting provinces “don’t have” the resources to address addiction and mental health concerns.
Since April 2016, drug overdoses have killed nearly 14,000 people in British Columbia, and over 32,000 people nationwide. Health Canada blamed fentanyl for the overwhelming majority (76%) of those deaths.
A Health Canada response to a parliamentary inquiry unveiled the Trudeau government would spend $27 million funding 22 “safe supply” sites this year across B.C. and Ontario.
All sites require an exemption to the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act granted by Health Canada.
The Public Health Agency granted British Columbia a subsection 56(1) exemption on January 31, 2023 for three years under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to decriminalize people who possessed up to 2.5 grams of heroin, crack, cocaine, fentanyl, MDMA and meth.
Minister Saks earlier claimed criticism of the policy is rooted in “stigma and fear” from the Official Opposition.
Her office previously did not cite any data to explain the increase in overdose deaths. “This is an extremely complex health crisis,” said the note Criticism That The Exemption Is Leading To More Overdose Deaths.
“Provinces across the country using a variety of strategies are also experiencing significant and tragic increases in overdose deaths,” it reads.
Minister Saks did not waste time Friday taking aim at the Official Opposition on harm reduction. “At this point in time, the Leader of the [Official] Opposition isn’t talking about policy,” she told reporters.
“He has contemplated his own perspectives based on a very polarized and a ‘lack of evidence based view’ of what we know works in a continuum of care for those who are struggling with substance use,” the minister added.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on March 8: “At first I thought it was just sort of a naïve Utopianism that was driving this idea of giving out free drugs and decriminalizing these poisons. But now the evidence is so clear that it has been a nightmare.”
The Commons last May 29 upheld the “safe supply” policy by a 209 to 113 vote. Poilievre sponsored a counter-motion to “redirect all funds from … hard drug programs to addiction treatment and recovery programs” that did not pass.
The Trudeau government has committed more than $1 billion to address overdose fatalities since 2017, according to a December 2023 update detailing federal actions. This included more than $359.2 million allocated in Budget 2023 over five years for the renewed Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy (CDSS).
“You have to ask yourself, what is motivating this policy?” Poilievre posed at the time.
B.C. Premier David Eby, once an advocate for drug decriminalization, walked back his support for federal “safe supply” after heralding complaints of public disorder.
According to in-house Privy Council research, most Canadians oppose the policy. “Participants were mostly negative,” said a 2023 report Continuous Qualitative Data Collection Of Canadians’ Views.
Asked about opioid addiction, British Columbians in federal focus groups called it a major worry.
From February 1, 2023, to May 7, 2024, overdose deaths totalled 3,313 on the West Coast, reported Blacklock’s Reporter. That surpassed the 2,843 deaths recorded in the 15 months before decriminalization, a 16.5% increase.
Ontario announced new zoning restrictions in August that would likely force the closure of 10 safe injection sites in the province next April, including five in Toronto.
At least 523 Torontonians fatally overdosed on opioids last year, a 74% increase from 301 deaths in 2019.
Meanwhile, opioid deaths in Alberta have reached pre-pandemic lows, according to provincial data on opioid-related fatalities.
“We’ve made no bones about the fact that we don’t believe there is such a thing as ‘safe supply.’ We certainly don’t want to go down the path of British Columbia,” Premier Danielle Smith told reporters on April 17.
The Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction told True North it has engaged with communities to assess the impacts of consumption sites.
Smith iterated support for a recovery-based approach in response to a question from Rebel News last April.
“Is it about a federal government whose ideology is different from yours?” a reporter asked her at the time. She replied: “We know that the federal government’s approach is completely at odds with ours.”
