Why just twist the knife in the wound when you can insert a jackhammer? The prospect of soon being able to govern the country does not change Pierre Poilievre.
With the delicate subject of drugs, he relays all the fears, both those that are justified and those that are based on invented facts. It is not always subtle, but it works.
To understand this, a brief detour through the pandemic is useful. The same injunction was repeated on TV by politicians, experts and other commentators: we must “listen to science”. This aggravated the impression among part of the population that the “elites” – for want of a better word – believed they held the truth and were dictating to others how to behave by administering a remedy from which they left others to suffer the worst side effects.
A similar phenomenon is happening with the opioid crisis. Maison Benoît-Labre, a homeless shelter that also serves as a supervised consumption site in Montreal, is a good example. It is located right next to an elementary school and a daycare, with the cohabitation issues that entails.
According to a public health cost-benefit analysis, this could be seen as a lesser evil. Despite the drawbacks, the Maison Benoît-Labre saves lives. And even if it were desirable to move this centre, it would be difficult to find a site in the city that is not located near places frequented by children.
“What about us?” the neighboring residents will answer. “Why do we have to endure this? Why don’t doctors and politicians set up these centers next to their homes, just to see?”
Experts are not immune to ideological currents. Not so long ago, they placed great hope in the decriminalization of drugs.
The reasoning: users are not criminals. They are sick people, and instead of punishing them, they must be treated.
It’s hard to be against this approach. But it’s not easy to implement. In the United States, the very progressive City of Portland backed down after betting on decriminalization. British Columbia, which had also asked for and obtained decriminalization from the federal government for small quantities of drugs, backed down. Too much tolerance had led to a feeling of impunity among users, and insecurity among other citizens.
Perhaps unrealistic hopes were raised with decriminalization. It was not an end in itself. Rather, it was a means to redirect efforts towards care. However, the services were not there, because of the precariousness of our health systems and the lack of housing.
Still, that doesn’t excuse everything. A survey in the coastal province found that 39 per cent of nurses had been exposed to weapons on the job. Health care workers at at least one hospital, in Quesnel, have even been asked not to confiscate bladed weapons shorter than 10 centimetres.
British Columbia began criminalizing public drug use again this year. Quebec adopted a similar regime last year. It decriminalizes cases under certain conditions—not using at work, while driving, in possession of a weapon or while disturbing public safety—a criterion that gives police officers wide latitude.
There is a sense that authorities are still looking for the right approach – or the least damaging one – based on the constraints of reality. For example, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police was in favour of British Columbia’s approach in 2020 before changing its mind.
And in Montreal, the city council voted unanimously for decriminalization. Mayor Valérie Plante has not yet followed through, however, because by her own admission, the conditions are not right. That is an understatement.
The Conservatives have plenty of material to criticize with these failures. But they go much further by fueling the confusion between decriminalization and legalization. They claim that Justin Trudeau wants to legalize crack, fentanyl and cocaine, which is false.
The issue is not simple. For example, we must distinguish between supply centres, which provide a drug of known origin, and supervised injection sites, which offer a safe place to consume. Supply is criticized because it is associated with an increase in opioids in circulation, particularly because of users who resell their stock.
The left can drift into technocratic policies where cost-benefit analysis is done far from the field. But the right often wanders in the other direction. It confines itself to the defense of unattainable principles like prohibition.
There are 39 supervised injection sites in Canada, with 10 more awaiting approval. Even if the “science” shows their usefulness, that doesn’t excuse the lack of consideration given to local residents.
But conversely, if the Conservatives take power, they will have to answer practical questions like these: Where will you find a place in the city away from families to send drug users? If you can’t find that, where will these people go?
Obviously, people are sick of moralizing and out-of-touch politicians. But even if they fire them, it won’t magically make the problems that no one has yet been able to solve disappear.