HELP NEEDED TO STOP FLOW OF FENTANYL FROM CHINA: GOODALE

Canada needs international help in staunching the flow of fentanyl from China, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Thursday after meeting with B.C. Premier Christy Clark about the country’s escalating opioid epidemic. Goodale, Health Minister Jane Philpott and Clark’s B.C. delegation met in Ottawa ahead of a two-day summit that will bring together medical professionals and experts. “The world has to take this seriously, just as we are taking it seriously,” Goodale said outside the Commons. Last spring, B.C. became the first province in Canada to declare a public health emergency following a dramatic spike in overdose deaths related to the use of drugs such as fentanyl. It’s vital the federal government takes additional action to crack down on the import of fentanyl from China, Clark said. “British Columbia has been the front line of it,” she said. “We are the closest to China so we have really been dealing with it unfolding locally, but ... as it moves across the country, we can’t deal with it on a province-to-province basis. It has to be a national strategy.”