Three B.C. city councils asked to seek recriminalization of drugs

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Three Metro Vancouver city councillors have united to call on the province to end its “failed” drug decriminalization experiment.

They’re adding to the voices of municipal politicians and opposition MLAs who are frustrated with rampant public drug use and urging Premier David Eby to follow Oregon’s lead and reverse course on decriminalization of hard drugs.

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Councillors Linda Annis of Surrey, Daniel Fontaine of New Westminster, and Alexa Loo of Richmond, say they will bring motions to their councils that would call on the B.C. NDP government to scrap the three-year experiment that started on Jan. 31, 2023.

The three councillors hired a public relations firm, using their own money, and on Monday put out a joint press release that stated: “Legalizing deadly drugs has killed users, hurt neighbourhoods, and damaged B.C. communities.”

“People are just completely tired of having to seeing such a lack of investment in terms of things like drug rehabilitation, drug treatment, mental health,” Fontaine told Postmedia News on Monday. “You can’t put this type of decriminalization in without those supports. And in fact, I would argue, given what we’ve seen in Oregon, and now what we’re seeing in British Columbia, those supports should come in first.”

In the face of public backlash, Oregon recriminalized hard drugs on April 1, only three years after the state removed penalties for drug possession.

Fontaine said “the police are completely handcuffed” when dealing with open drug use, which is making people feel unsafe.

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This was confirmed last week by Fiona Wilson, deputy chief of the Vancouver police and president of the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police, who told a House of Commons’ health committee that because of decriminalization, police have no authority to address problematic drug use.

Fontaine said he knows he will have support from fellow opposition councillor Paul Minhas to table the motion which will be likely be debated at the May 6 council meeting.

Annis said the three councillors united to “demonstrate that it’s not unique to one city, it’s a provincial wide problem. We’ve been hearing time and time again from residents and concerned citizens that this problem is getting worse.”

Annis, an opposition councillor, said she’s confident another Surrey councillor will second the motion, in which case it will be debated at council on May 27.

In an opinion piece published in The Vancouver Sun, Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto and Chilliwack Mayor Ken Popove expressed their disappointment in the B.C. Supreme Court ruling on suspending the law passed by the B.C. NDP in November in an effort to ban open drug use in most public spaces, including sports fields, beaches or skate parks and within six metres of building entrances.

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That law has not come into force and is facing a constitutional challenge.

Alto and Popove, who co-chair the B.C. Urban Mayors Caucus — an informal collective of mayors from 16 of the largest cities in B.C. — did not call for an end to decriminalization, stressing that the toxic drug crisis is a health care issue.

However, they said “without accessible, barrier-free support and resources for people who use drugs, we are once again left with no way to regulate drug use, and safety, in public spaces. As a result, local governments are left to pick up the pieces and the costs of these challenges.”

During a visit to Victoria on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicated the federal government is not going to step in and cut short the decriminalization experiment.

“We’re going to continue working thoughtfully with B.C. as they manage the way this program unfolds,” he told reporters during an appearance at the University of Victoria.

B.C.’s minister of mental health and addictions will meet with her federal counterpart Ya’ara Saks in Vancouver on Friday to talk about how the province’s drug decriminalization experiment is working.

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Her office said the pair will discuss decriminalization, Indigenous supports, child and youth mental health funding, the toxic drugs crisis and treatment and recovery.

kderosa@postmedia.com

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