Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre made several stops in B.C. over the weekend, including one in the Lower Mainland where he took aim at harm reduction.
While in Vancouver Sunday (April 6), Poilievre said the Conservatives will expand drug recovery programs, "creating 50,000 new opportunities for Canadians seeking freedom from addiction." He also said Conservatives will "stop federal funding for opioids, defund federal drug dens ... and comply with strict new oversight rules that focus on pathways to treatment."
The Conservatives plan includes funding treatment for 50,000 Canadians in treatment centres, "with a proven record of success at getting people off drugs," according to a news release. "To ensure the best outcomes, funding will follow results."
The plan also includes banning "drug dens" from being located within 500 metres of schools, daycares, playgrounds, parks and seniors' homes.
Poilievre pledged to crack down on the "Liberals' reckless experiments with free access to illegal drugs that allow provinces to operate drugs sites with no oversight."
Describing what he called the "lost Liberal decade," Poilievre said Canada's addiction crisis "has spiralled out of control."
He pointed to Alberta, saying the province pioneered an approach that "offers real hope" through a recovery-focused model of care. Poilievre said it has led to a nearly 40-per-cent reduction in drug-poisoning deaths since 2023.
Alberta Health Service's opioid dependency program that supports the initial and ongoing opioid agonist treatment medications and psychosocial support to people with opioid use disorder to help them to live healthy lives.
In B.C, Health Minister Josie Osborne announced in February the province would be tweaking its safe-supply program in an effort to provide safeguards to the program after acknowledging the diversion of publicly funded pharmaceutical alternatives had taken place. In B.C. the safe supply program was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic in response to the increasingly deadly opioid crisis.
More than 50,000 Canadians have died from toxic drugs since 2016, with more than 16,000 of those deaths in B.C. The province declared a public health emergency in 2016 following a sharp uptick in overdose deaths.
