Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Conservative Critic for Mental Health & Addictions Claire Rattée As new witnessed-consumption rules for BC’s prescribed safer supply program takes effect December 30, Conservative Critic for Mental Health, Addictions and Housing Supports Claire Rattée says the change confirms the NDP government ignored years of warnings and allowed a failed policy experiment to continue long after its harms were clear. “ As of today, the NDP is quietly admitting what families, front-line workers, and the Opposition have been saying all along: handing out take-home opioids without supervision was reckles s,” said Rattée. “ The government is acting now because the consequences became impossible to deny .” The shift ends the widespread take-home model that was expanded during the pandemic and maintained long after concerns about diversion emerged. It follows leaked internal law-enforcement documents showing a significant proportion of prescribed opioids were being diverted, including thr...

Sometimes writing columns about stuff that happens in this country is, if you’ll forgive the cliché, a little like shooting fish in a barrel.  We’ve collectively normalized so much sincere and well-meaning insanity, that inevitably people in positions of power and authority are going to say things that sound indistinguishable from a carnival circus organ. And the only thing I have to do in response is to make note of how far out to sea on the tides of madness we’ve drifted ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

... over several weeks, Felix allowed journalists from the fifth estate inside their life to help understand the impact a safe drug supply had for someone addicted to illicit drugs — and how that changed when their access to that supply was cut off in 2023 and they turned to fentanyl to stave off withdrawal symptoms. The fifth estate obtained internal Health Canada reports that reveal the federal government was advised by its own experts to expand access to a greater range of safe and regulated drugs for people across Canada but that instead, at the height of the opioid overdose crisis, the government’s support for safe supply programs was watered down and eventually ended in March ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Dozens of safer supply pilot programs lost federal funding earlier this year and Ottawa says there are no plans to re-up its financial support. Starting in 2020, Health Canada provided financial backing to 31 programs across the country that offered "prescribed alternative" opioids to people with addictions. The overdose crisis has rocked Canada over much of the past decade. Health Canada reports that more than 52,000 people have died of an apparent opioid overdose since 2016 ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A scathing new study by a Canadian addictions physician concludes that ideologically driven “social justice” governments have worsened the country’s fentanyl crisis by aggressively funding and promoting so-called “safer supply” programs—despite a lack of evidence they save lives. Instead, as mounting proof showed that thousands of government-distributed opioid tablets—as potent as heroin—were being diverted into the black market by organized crime, Health Canada, public health officials, and sympathetic media outlets continued to defend the controversial programs and attack critics. Even as violent incidents emerged—including a shooting outside a Toronto safer supply clinic—the study notes that some advocates called for medical professionals to be removed from program oversight entirely ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The BC government does not know how many people are using unwitnessed safe supply drugs, three months after promising to end the practice to reduce diversion into the hands of organized crime. The Ministry of Health confirmed it currently has no accurate way to know how many safe supply prescriptions are taken away from a pharmacy for use, called unwitnessed consumption, and therefore no way to chart progress on fulfilling its goal towards witnessed-only usage. Instead, the government is scrambling to figure out a way to track the issue, almost four years after making the changes that allowed unwitnessed safe supply, and following a February declaration from the minister that practice would be ending ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A top official in Solicitor General Garry Begg’s office has ordered an RCMP investigation into how Opposition Conservative MLA Elenore Sturko obtained leaked internal government documents, the disclosure of which embarrassed the BC NDP government and forced it to roll back its safe supply prescription drug policies. Director of police services, Glen Lewis, made the extraordinary move by invoking a little-used section of the Police Act, which allowed him to order the investigation on the grounds he suspected a police officer may have been involved in the leak and the release of information could impact ongoing investigations ... ... Sturko slammed the investigation, saying the NDP government is using the RCMP to intimidate its critics, as well as conduct a witch-hunt for a whistleblower who should be protected for going public with information of such importance that it forced a policy change ... CLICK HERE for the full story

T his week on The Bureau, we examine one of the most urgent and politically charged stories in Canada: the crisis surrounding government-issued “safer supply.” I’m joined by Adam Zivo, the investigative reporter who broke many of the key stories exposing the unintended—and often devastating—consequences of Canada’s drug policy experiment. Together, we unpack how federal and provincial “safer supply” programs, originally designed as harm-reduction tools, have instead become conduits for organized crime. In some regions, like London, Ontario—where fentanyl once had little presence—the program has triggered an influx of potent opioids and fueled new criminal markets. We’ll explore what’s really happening on the ground, why this issue matters in Canada’s federal election on Monday, and which political parties are pledging to reverse course—or maintain the status quo, even as overdose deaths surge and fentanyl floods our streets ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Dr. Michael Lester, a Toronto-based addiction physician with 30 years of experience, says Canada’s “safer supply” programs are “inherently dangerous” and causing “dystopian” community harms due to widespread fraud. These programs claim to reduce overdoses and deaths by distributing free addictive drugs—typically 8-milligram tablets of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin—to dissuade addicts from consuming riskier street substances. Yet experts across Canada say recipients regularly divert (sell or trade) their safer supply on the black market to acquire stronger illicit drugs, which then fuels addiction and organized crime ... CLICK HERE for the full story

If you’re ever in trouble for royally screwing up at work, try this neat trick: Don’t admit you did anything wrong, just look your boss straight in the eye and tell them you are taking bold action to strengthen your role while providing yourself more tools to crack down on bad actors in your workplace. Oops — sorry, didn’t mean to get you fired. Turns out that special mixture of impertinent gall and stubborn blamelessness doesn’t work so well in the real world. Politicians, though, operate in a different kind of world ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

The New Democrats halted the free and easy distribution of safer-supply drugs this week after two years of denying that the drugs were being diverted to an illicit market overseen by organized crime. Henceforth, safer-supply drugs can only be consumed under the direct supervision of health-care professionals, ending the open-air markets that flourished outside the entrances to legitimate pharmacies across the province ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Conservative Party of B.C. MLAs scored a significant win Wednesday even before they opened their mouths to start the inaugural question period in the new parliament. NDP Health Minister Josie Osborne announced a significant curtailment of the safe supply policy for dealing with opioid addiction and it looks to be in direct response to concerns the Opposition started raising two years ago. After repeatedly discounting questions about whether hard drugs prescribed to protect people from deadly street supply were being diverted to the black market, the government finally fully acknowledged it is a significant problem ... CLICK HERE for the full story

“ One dad I met with early on ,” says B.C. MLA Elenore Sturko, “ talked to me about his young teen daughter. She died of a fentanyl overdose, and when they cleaned out her room afterwards, they found a bunch of diverted safe supplies, still in the capsule bottles with other people’s prescriptions, the name of the prescribing doctor, the name of the pharmacy ” ... ... For Elenore, a former RCMP officer and now member of the BC legislature representing the citizens of Surrey-Cloverdale, BC’s experimental policy is a massive failure. “ They were marketed as safe supply ,” she says in a recent conversation. “ Don’t worry. These are clean drugs. It’s government drugs. Nothing can happen to you. They quickly became dependent, and when that was no longer meeting their needs, they transitioned to fentanyl. Some of those people died of fentanyl overdoses " ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The New Democrats were put on the defensive last year by mounting evidence that government-approved safer supply drugs were being diverted to the illicit market. “More BC detachments report having seized suspected safe supply drugs,” read a March 2024 headline in the Northern Beat online news service, summarizing evidence from the RCMP in Prince George, Campbell River and Nanaimo. Reporter Fran Yanor later expanded the list to five detachments after she herself witnessed drug transactions outside pharmacies in Victoria and Duncan. The shocking details of what was happening emerged from a search warrant obtained by reporter Jason Proctor of the CBC. He disclosed how Prince George RCMP spent 10 days in March “mounting a surveillance operation on a woman who stood outside a downtown pharmacy each morning trading illicit drugs for safer supply medication ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A leaked audit that revealed that the diversion of opioids prescribed through the province’s safer supply program is raising concerns among local addiction experts ... ... On Wednesday, a leaked briefing distributed by the opposition BC Conservatives revealed the BC Ministry of Health has been investigating an alleged scheme involving incentives offered by dozens of pharmacies to patients, doctors and housing providers, and that prescribed drugs were being trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally. According to the document that was originally prepared for police, more than 60 pharmacies have offered incentives to encourage doctors and patients to use their services as a way to maximize their dispensing fees, which are valued at approximately $11,000 a patient per year. Additionally, some community housing staff have allegedly directed tenants to specific pharmacies ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A confidential investigation by British Columbia’s Ministry of Health, Financial Operations and Audit Branch has uncovered explosive allegations of fraud, abuse, and organized crime infiltration within PharmaCare’s prescribed opioid alternatives program. Internal audit findings, obtained by The Bureau , suggest that millions of taxpayer dollars are being diverted into illicit drug trafficking networks rather than serving harm reduction efforts. The leaked documents include photographs from vehicle searches that show collections of fentanyl patches and Dilaudid (hydromorphone) apparently packaged for resale after being stolen from the taxpayer-funded “safer supply” program ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A leaked presentation obtained by the Conservative Caucus of British Columbia (BC) confirms a worst-case scenario in David Eby’s dangerous “safe supply” experiment: Taxpayer-funded "safe supply" drugs are flooding the streets, enriching organized crime,  in some cases with diversion fraudulently facilitated by pharmacies and medical professionals. The presentation, reported to have been delivered to law enforcement in British Columbia by the provincial Ministry of Health, states that " a significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors & pharmacists in BC are not being consumed by their intended recipients " and that " prescribed alternatives are trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally ." " British Columbia was singled out as a source of illegal opioid trafficking by the American President ,” said Elenore Sturko, Critic for Solicitor General and Public Safety. “ Canada now has a 30-day reprieve fr...

  The ongoing debate surrounding British Columbia’s approach to drug addiction treatment, particularly its emphasis on harm reduction, has become increasingly contentious. While proponents of harm reduction argue  it aims to minimize the negative consequences of drug use without necessarily requiring abstinence—through measures like safe injection sites and the provision of safe supply drugs such as prescription heroin— this strategy is clearly falling short. The alarming statistics speak for themselves with overdose deaths in B.C. skyrocketing from around 200 per year in the early 2000s to over 2,500 in 2023. This troubling trend suggests harm reduction alone is not sufficient to address the growing opioid crisis. Despite the extensive implementation of harm reduction policies, the continued rise in overdose deaths indicates these measures may not adequately tackle the root causes of addiction or provide a clear path to recovery. The absolute failure of the so-called ‘safe ...

  This CBC story is one of the many reasons I decided to run for the Courtenay - Comox nomination under the BC Conservative banner. I am so tired of seeing members of the BC NDP, or bureaucrats from their government, tell us that these things are not happening, and that what they are doing is saving lives. I am sure that it is helping some people, but on the street, safe supply, has basically become currency for exchange, either for money or harder drugs. I have seen it in-person because this is where I worked (seriously, I know everyone being interviewed for this piece). They keep telling us that it is a complex problem. Well, you don’t apply a blanket solution to a complex problem, and you don’t do it without an end game plan ... and I don’t see an end game here. I only see more problems. Instead, I have watched as the BC NDP government of Premier David Eby throws tax dollars down the rabbit hole, in some belief that organizations like the Drugs User Liberation Front (DULF) we...