Thoughts on BC Politics and More

On Tuesday morning, Barrie Mayor Alex Nutall declared a state of emergency aimed at addressing encampments across the city, pointing to growing safety concerns, damage to municipal property, and the ongoing toll of the opioid crisis. “Barrie residents have had enough,” Nuttall stated, adding the city would support those seeking help but would not allow encampments to continue on public property. The mayor said the City would “reclaim” its streets, park and public spaces ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Politicians and non-profit leaders responded this week to a national story pointing to Pandora Avenue in Victoria as one of the largest open-air drug markets in Western Canada. The Globe and Mail feature on fentanyl — the opioid responsible for most drug deaths in BC — painted the 900-block of Pandora as stinking of urine and littered with trash, lined with semi-unconscious people and shuttered businesses, and so marked by violence and chaos that area condo owners can’t sell their way out. In response to that portrayal of the underbelly of postcard-perfect Victoria — twice voted Condé Nast’s No. 1 small city in the world — BC Conservative Leader John Rustad in question period Monday demanded treatment-focused housing that “bans these deadly drugs and restores law and order to communities like Victoria" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

“Radical harm reduction activists have removed hope from the equation, replacing treatment, recovery, and a real future, with a system that enables ongoing use" ~~ Gwen O’Mahony The opioid crisis in British Columbia has claimed far too many lives, but the loss of my sister hurt me the most. Shortly after I began as a BC Conservative candidate in the provincial election last year, my sister, Tina, overdosed. The toxicology report revealed a concoction of both physician-prescribed and street drugs, but we knew it was the fentanyl that killed her. Losing a loved one is an unimaginable pain. With an overdose, it’s not just the finality of death that’s heartbreaking, but the years of soul-crushing addiction that preceded it ... CLICK HERE for the full story

British Columbia has officially been in a public health emergency since April 2016 due to the opioid crisis that is devastating families and communities across the province. Since then more than 5,600 British Columbians have died from an illicit drug overdose. It is both tragic and unacceptable. The opioid crisis is a health crisis, and needs to be treated as such. Stigmatization has made this problem even worse and in 2019 Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s provincial health officer, released a report with a single recommendation to decriminalize the people who use drugs in our province . This week Premier John Horgan announced that he is sending a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asking him to take steps toward decriminalization through amendments to federal legislation. However, as Dr. Henry pointed out there are actions the provincial government could take. Unfortunately, the provincial government has not captured the urgency Dr. Henry implored them to take on t...

BC Liberal Critic for Mental Health and Addictions Jane Thornthwaite is speaking out about the barriers increasingly faced by British Columbians seeking access to addiction treatment. “ Every week I hear from parents around this province who are desperate to get their children into addiction treatment but are facing more barriers than ever before ,” says Thornthwaite.  “ Countless British Columbians struggling with addiction are being left out in the cold as this government fails to adequately fund treatment facilities that we know save lives .” Pam Rader, whose son has struggled with addiction over many years, has described the difficulties she’s faced in her attempts to get her son into a publicly-funded addiction treatment centre bed. The current wait list to get a referral from Interior Health Services is one to three months, which is then followed by another months-long wait list for an actual treatment bed. Rader fears that her son is more likely to...

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has little understanding of additions or politics. What she is proposing is to enable addicts to carry on feeding their addictions. Health care is a provincial jurisdiction. Any plan to reduce addictions must have a provincial buy-in to work. The first step is to create the treatment infrastructure that allows immediate treatment of addictions for the duration necessary to be effective. The treatment facilities currently in place cannot meet the demand and program duration is limited due to inadequate funding. Decriminalizing drugs does not address those issues. We don’t have an “opioid crisis”. That is political doublespeak that avoids the fact that overdose deaths are caused by unscrupulous drug dealers who add synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, to other drugs with devastating results, and that we have a substance abuse epidemic.

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” — Winston Churchill Once upon a time in French Indochina, administrators in Saigon decided to do something about a rat problem that was developing in the city. Their solution was to put a bounty on rats, to be claimed by anyone who could produce a rat tail (since the shelf life of entire dead rats was presumably quite short). Strangely, a few months after the bounty was introduced, the number of rats in Saigon actually increased, although it was remarked that many of the rats were now without tails. Upon investigation it turned out that enterprising Vietnamese had heard about the bounty and turned their talents to creating rat farms on the outskirts of the city, where rats were bred, de-tailed, and set free. What had been conceived as a measure to reduce the number of rats, actually had the opposite effect. So, it is with harm reduction and half-measures at opioid treatment . ...