Leader of the Conservative Party Pierre Poilievre speaks in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, on March 28.BLAIR GABLE/Reuters
Pierre Poilievre is exploiting the drug crisis for political gain and “capitalizing on people’s suffering” by making videos featuring homeless people afflicted by drugs in Vancouver, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks says.
Ms. Saks, who was appointed to the role in the cabinet shuffle last month, said in an interview the Conservative Leader’s video treated the addicts as “props.”
In a YouTube video filmed in Vancouver last year, the Conservative Leader attacked the federally funded policy of providing pharmaceutical-grade drugs to addicts as alternatives to toxic street drugs. Mr. Poilievre was filmed in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with closeups of needles discarded on the street and also against the backdrop of a tented encampment on a Vancouver beach inhabited by addicts.
He argued Ottawa’s “safe supply” approach was fuelling an addictions crisis and spoke of “a deliberate policy by woke Liberal and NDP governments to provide taxpayer-funded drugs to flood our streets with easy access to these poisons.” The video reinforced his “Canada-is-broken” narrative, which has been central to the Conservative bid for public support.
“He walked through the Downtown Eastside capitalizing on people’s suffering,” Ms. Saks said in the interview.
Before being elected as an MP in 2020, Ms. Saks was director of Trauma Practice for Healthy Communities, an Ontario charity focusing on mental health. She said Mr. Poilievre’s video sets back efforts to remove the stigma of drug addiction and treat it as a public-health problem.
“Using someone who is struggling with substance abuse as a prop to generate a narrative of stigma that we have spent in the country over a decade pushing back against … to literally take us backwards by decades to capitalize on human suffering to me is just – it’s egregious.”
Drug addiction, affordable-housing shortages and rising crime have moved up the political agenda in the past year to become hotly debated issues in Ottawa, with the Conservatives accusing the Liberals of failing to do enough.
Deaths from illicit drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among 10- to 18-year-olds, according to data released in June by the BC Centre for Disease Control. Since 2016, illicit drugs have been the leading cause of death in B.C. among 19- to 39-year-olds.
Ms. Saks, a single mother with two teenage daughters, said tackling the toxic drug supply and preventing more deaths are urgent priorities and she would relentlessly use every resource at her disposal “to protect people.”
“As a mother, I would say … every death of a young person is tragic – it’s absolutely heartbreaking,” she said.
Ms. Saks was speaking days after visiting Vancouver to spend time with outreach teams working with addicts - whom she paid tribute to - in her first field trip since being promoted to cabinet. In a pilot program, Vancouver has decriminalized the use of small amounts of illicit drugs, including cocaine, crack and fentanyl, a very potent opioid linked to the upsurge of fatal overdoses in B.C.
One of the decisions Ms. Saks is currently considering is whether to extend the decriminalization pilot to other cities, including Toronto, which have applied for exemptions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
She said the B.C. pilot is “constantly being monitored and evaluated” both federally and at a provincial level and she is currently reviewing the other applications.
She said it would be easy to make drug policy based on “gut instinct,” but she was approaching it through both a public-health and public-safety lens. It is important not to make policy that would discourage drug-dependent Canadians to get help, she said.
“We can choose to have a human-centred and patient-centred approach to this … or we can fall prey to the fear and stigma,” she said.
Asked what the federal government is doing to help address visible drug addiction and mental illness on the streets of Canadian cities including the capital, Ms. Saks said there “isn’t a silver bullet” the government can employ.
She said the problem required a “whole of government response” with support for her provincial counterparts as well as those working on the front lines. The solution includes transitional housing and a network of support, as well as law enforcement pursuing drug traffickers, she said.
“At this moment, the toxic drug supply is what we need to get a handle on as quickly as possible so that we are saving the lives of those who may be exposed to it,” she said. “We are ready to use every tool and resource we have to combat this. We certainly know the urgency of it and we are ready to throw everything we have at this to save lives.”