B.C.’s most vexing election question: What can be done about its drug crisis?

The B.C. Green Party unveiled its drug policy platform this week, promising a more liberal approach than even the incumbent New Democrats to solving a crisis that has killed thousands of people over the last several years.
It was music to the ears of the Conservative Party.
In an election that is, by every measure, exceedingly close, there may not be an issue more divisive than the parties’ drug platforms. It offers the starkest contrast in terms of strategy between the Conservatives on the right, and the NDP and Greens on the left.
Where the public stands on the matter, however, is most important.
Illicit drugs have killed more than 15,000 people in B.C. since 2016, when the problem was declared a provincial public health emergency. In 2023, the governing New Democrats launched a three-year trial to decriminalize small amounts of some drugs – a move that had been advocated by drug experts for years. By destigmatizing drug use and keeping people out of jail, users were offered a better chance of recovering from the disease, the thinking went.
Almost from the beginning, however, the experiment ran into trouble. Users began consuming in public spaces, free from the fear of being arrested. This prompted an outcry from citizens around B.C. and demands from mayors for something to be done about it.
In April, Premier David Eby announced his government would work with Health Canada to amend the rules around the pilot program and recriminalize drug use in public spaces, including in parks, on transit, in hospitals and in downtown cores.
Fair or not, decriminalization was associated with incidents of public disorder, and the broad perception was that this disorder was on the increase as a result of the province’s liberal approach to drug use.
Enter the Conservative Party of BC and its Leader John Rustad.
There isn’t an issue that the Conservatives have emerged more strident about than drug policy. There is little question the party senses a huge opening here with voters in the Oct. 19 election. The Conservatives have come out strongly against decriminalization, saying it would end the trial as quickly as it could.
Mr. Rustad also recently announced his government would close safe consumption sites in the province and replace them with addiction-intake facilities that focused on treatment and recovery. When the Conservatives announced they would invoke involuntary treatment for some individuals, the NDP quickly followed suit, demonstrating just how sensitive and important this issue is for all of the parties.
The Conservatives have fully exploited public angst over the matter, drawing attention to measures that have prompted many to shake their heads. One of the party’s candidates on Vancouver Island, for instance, exposed vending machines installed outside hospitals there that dispensed glass pipes and injection kits. The NDP had to quickly get those removed.
Recently, the Nanaimo RCMP announced they had arrested two people for drug trafficking and possession of a prohibited firearm. Large amounts of drugs were seized, including what police believe was cocaine, fentanyl and prescription opioids. Notably, the arrests took place at an overdose-prevention site operated by the Canadian Mental Health Association.
This, of course, allowed the Conservatives to demand that these “drug dens” be shut down immediately – echoing language used by federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Which brings us back to the B.C. Greens. Normally, the views of a party regularly polling around 10-per-cent approval in public opinion surveys wouldn’t matter much. But in a close election, winning two or three seats could mean holding the balance of power.
The Greens are as diametrically opposed to the Conservatives on drug policy as they could be. Their agenda, unveiled this week, calls for a broadening of a safer supply of drugs to combat the lethal substances being sold on the street. The Greens want to see safe pharmaceutical alternatives to street drugs available to users via advocacy groups like “compassion clubs,” as well as by physicians, many of whom have refused to participate in the safer supply program.
While it’s impossible to imagine the Greens ever propping up a Conservative government, it’s easy to see them giving the NDP the help it needs to remain in power with certain demands. Would support for the Greens’ controversial drug policy be among them?
If the Conservatives get in, and introduce their radically different drug agenda, there is little doubt that some people would pay a steep price. With far fewer places to consume drugs safely, where help is available in the event of an overdose, there could well be hundreds dying on the streets and in back alleyways again.
Which isn’t a scenario anyone wants.