The B.C. government invested considerable time Tuesday explaining to community leaders the steps it has taken to address the opioid crisis and the public safety issues tied to it.
For a good number of those listening, those steps have not been enough.
B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth Tuesday (Sept. 17) used a panel session at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities 2024 Convention to highlight what he called the "deeply intertwined" work of his ministry and the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions headed by Jennifer Whiteside.
Almost 300 UBCM attendees listened to Farnworth praise the work of the Vancouver Police Department and other emergency service providers in responding to the attack on Sept. 4 that killed Dave Laporte and injured another individual.
"Premier Eby and I our government are continuing to fight crime and keep people safe," he said. "We hear your concerns as local governments, we hear residents and business concerns and we know that people want and deserve to feel safe in their communities."
Farnworth spelled out steps taken by Whitehead's ministry as well as his own, ranging from the opening of new treatment beds and Foundry centres for youth on the mental health and addiction side, to tougher steps against organized crime and the hiring of additional police officers.
He also reminded the audience about Sunday's announcement by Premier David Eby on providing more involuntary care for people requiring that care, and called on the federal government to better police ports to prevent opioid ingredients from entering B.C. in the first place.
But Milo Macdonald, a panelist and former RCMP detachment head and undercover police officer now serving as Chief Administrative Officer of the City of Fort St. John did not hold back in his criticism of government's approach.
"I think we have created a policy environment that has made organized crime enforcement very challenging," he said.
Macdonald acknowledged changes to decriminalization announced last fall and Sunday's announcement around involuntary care as positive steps. But he questioned the effectiveness of the changes and the timing of the announcement, noting that the current government had two years worth of time to bring in those measures around involuntary care.
He called decriminalization a "massive policy failure" and questioned whether the measures described by Farnworth are making a difference.
"The number of beds, the number of dollars, the number of arrests...those are relatively inconsequential by comparison to the scope of the problem."
"You have to acknowledge that they are taking a step in the right direction, even if it's not a far enough step...ultimately, we have to accept the sincerity of all participants that are genuinely trying."
The port enforcement appeal from Farnworth — who left the panel because of meeting obligations with municipal delegates — drew support from both Macdonald, and a current police officer participating in the panel, Inspector Phil Heard, Chair of the B.C. Association of Chief of Policy Drug Advisory Committee.
Heard said the opioid crisis is the leading cause of death for all persons aged 10 to 59, and is "changing the face of policing and all first responding".
"I would say it (the opioid crisis) underlies all major public safety issues that we see in communities across B.C.," he said. "The second major issue that we face...is on-going gang conflict that we see (causing) violence in our communities. Unquestionably, that is driven by competition for control over illicit drug market."
Lastly, the opioid crisis fuels property crime, the leading category of crime in almost all communities, Heard added.
Police, along with other first responders, are now also increasingly offering medical care, a development that is causing burn-out among them and driving up costs and creating challenges for municipalities struggling to keep up.
Coun. Deb Haggard of Port Alberni said her community is starting to lose firefighters to other professions for the first time in its history.
"They just can't do the job anymore and both RCMP and firefighters are suffering from compassion fatigue."
Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas agreed with Haggard's assessment and pointed to a study by his municipality that pegged the additional costs of the opioid crisis to municipal services at $20 million over three years. Dyas also warned of growing public anger.
"(The) public trust that we have is eroding with regards to the social license that these individuals have in the costs (associated) with the businesses and the effects they are having on the communities, but at the same time, there is still a great amount of compassion."
Dyas also used the occasion to praise the province's announcement around involuntary care, adding that he would like to see more of it in other parts of the province.
"I think they (recent announcements) are a great start," he said. "It's something that was needed...and now we just have to continue to make sure that they unfold properly, so that we can deliver upon them."
Audience members also heard from Mark Lysyshyn, deputy chief medical health officer with Vancouver Coastal Health. While overdose mortality rates are the highest they have ever been for the past three to four years, he said they have stabilized.
"They are not continuing to go up and that's because we know certain things are working," he said, pointing to the widespread use of Naloxone.
He also called for steps to reduce the supply as part of a broader, collective response to the problem that should not be reduced to playing harm reduction measures off against treatment measures. These services do not compete against each other, he said.
He later added that substitution therapies or pharmaceutical alternatives also address "all of the major (crime) problems" identified earlier because they reduce the reliance on the illicit drug market and with it the need to commit property crimes. He also pointed to the effectiveness of supervised consumption sites and overdose prevention sites.
More than 14,000 deaths have been linked to opioids since 2016 when government, had declared the prevalence of toxic drugs a public health emergency.
