AG knocks secrecy, poor planning in B.C.'s response to opioid crisis

Premier accepts report's criticism, asserts that more needs to be done

The B.C. government has failed to ensure provincewide access to overdose prevention and supervised consumption sites and has withheld key information on the prescribed safer-supply program from the public, a report from the auditor general says.

The continuing overdose emergency is killing an average of seven people a day, yet Auditor General Michael Pickup found “significant deficiencies” in the delivery of both key government responses to the toxic drug crisis.

The findings are likely to reignite debate over where it's acceptable for people to use hard drugs, especially after the intense public backlash last month by Richmond residents after councillors in that city floated the idea of a stand-alone supervised consumption site.

The proposal sparked protests outside of city hall and earned a rebuke from federal Conservative

Leader Pierre Poilievre, who said politicians were “pushing drugs on the Chinese community.”

However, Vancouver Coastal Health made it clear such a site is not an option in the community.

Vancouver is also closing an overdose prevention site in Yaletown this month after the city said it would not renew the lease for operators Vancouver Coastal Health and Raincity Housing. The overdose prevention site was at the centre of a lawsuit by a Yaletown resident who alleged the site on Seymour Street has turned the area into “a centre point for crime and public disorder.” The B.C. NDP has stressed people should be using their drugs in supervised consumption sites, which is why last fall it passed a law that bans drug use in almost all public spaces.

However, Bill 34 is not in force and is the subject of a constitutional challenge from the Harm Reduction Nurses Association.

The auditor general's report criticized the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions and the Ministry of Health for failing to ensure “effective provincewide implementation of overdose prevention and supervised consumption services by the health authorities.”

There were 46 overdose prevention sites in the province as of December 2023. Pickup did not say how many more such sites must be added to serve the needs of the estimated 100,000 British Columbians with an opioid use disorder. But he did raise concerns about inadequate standards to ensure overdose prevention sites are accessible and offer high-quality care.

Speaking to reporters during an unrelated news conference Tuesday, Premier David Eby said he welcomes Pickup's advice and the key takeaway is that more needs to be done to ensure that harm-reduction services “try to get between predatory drug dealers and individuals struggling with addiction, (through) prescribed alternatives and overdose prevention sites.”

Eby said Pickup is “not saying stop the program, he's not saying the program doesn't work. He says he wants more of it in every part of the province.”

Eby acknowledged it's a challenge to deliver health care in rural parts of B.C.

The report also examined the NDP government's prescribed safer-supply program. That program supplies some drug users with prescribed opioid alternatives to toxic street drugs, which Opposition critics have said amounts to handing out “taxpayer-funded addictive drugs.”

Pickup said fewer than 5,000 people had access to the prescribed safer supply as of last June, while 225,000 people use drugs and could be at risk of a fatal overdose. The government has not kept its promise to publicly report on the performance of the prescribed opioid program, he found.

An internal dashboard with statistics on the program — including new clients per month and total clients per month broken down by health authority, drug class, sex, and age group — has not been made public despite the ministries promising that information would be released in September 2022.

Eby said the government is committed to releasing information on the safer-supply program, but he would not say when.

B.C. United's addictions critic, Elenore Sturko, said the report highlights the government's incompetence in responding to the overdose crisis, particularly in light of last week's news that a drug bust by Prince George RCMP resulted in the seizure of morphine and hydromorphone, two drugs that are part of the safer-supply program.

“The government was supposed to make sure that there was a proper framework in place so that there wouldn't be an explosion of unintended consequences,” Sturko said. “Where we find ourselves with both the supervised consumption sites and with the prescribed alternatives programs is that it seems in some cases like the cure is worse than the disease.”

Brittany Graham, executive director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, said drug policy is becoming more of a wedge issue, which means the nuances of where to locate overdose prevention sites and how to expand access to prescribed opioid alternatives “are lost to rhetoric, fear, stigma and discrimination.”

Graham said most communities in the province do not have overdose prevention services and municipal governments are “pushing against” having such sites.