Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre failed to convince the House of Commons to condemn the Liberal government’s approach to tackling drug addiction.
In a vote of 209 to 113 on Monday, MPs rejected a motion put forward by Mr Poilievre. This targeted the federal government’s harm reduction policies, but focused primarily on its decision to fund the provision of pharmaceutical alternatives to certain illicit drugs.
The government has quoted experts who say a toxic drug supply is one of the main reasons so many Canadians die from unintentional overdoses, and that access to other drugs as a substitute saves lives.
Since becoming Tory leader last fall, Mr Poilievre has criticized the approach as fueling addiction instead of providing treatment and argues it has led to wider access to dangerous drugs by users. Poilievre has proposed reallocating money used to fund the supply of safe products to treatment.
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett argued to MPs that Mr Poilievre’s criticisms were not based on evidence, with her office adding in a written statement that Health Canada was unaware that substitute drugs are “flooding the streets”.
“It is incredibly irresponsible and dehumanizing for people who use drugs that Pierre Poilievre is asserting false information about safer supply and attempting to create barriers to accessing life-saving harm reduction services as part of of the current crisis,” a spokeswoman said in a statement from Mr.me Bennett.
The government takes reports of embezzlement “very seriously,” it read. M’s officeme Bennett also pointed out that the British Columbia Coroners Service, which studied drug toxicity deaths from 2012 to 2022 in the province, concluded that there was “no indication that the supply prescribed drug contributes to illicit drug-related deaths”.
“The Conservatives want to take us back to the failed ideology of Harper-era drug policy and the war on drugs that has proven ineffective, costly, deadly and deeply stigmatizing,” the minister’s office added.
A coalition of groups advocating for drug users in British Columbia and those whose loved ones have died of opioid-related overdoses released a statement on Monday expressing concern about hydromorphone, one of the alternatives drugs that Mr. Poilievre called problematic.
The joint statement from organizations including the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users says such orders “help many of us reduce or eliminate our addiction to illicit drugs.”
“If we are cut off from the world, our risks will increase. »