Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to the media during a press conference in Montreal on July 12.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Canadians can see why drug policy has become a big political issue. The opioids epidemic is tragic and visible. People suffering from life-altering addiction can be seen in numbers on the streets. In 2023, 8,049 people died from opioid overdoses in Canada.
British Columbia retreated from its experiment with broad decriminalization. So has Oregon. But the tough criminal penalties of the war on drugs failed before that. Drug policies in Canada need a rethink.
Into all that has walked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, with some legitimate criticisms of current policies, caustic language and now, an outright fabrication. He has opposed current safe-supply policies, called for better public-safety vetting of safe-consumption sites, proposed more treatment – and made up nonsense about a secret Liberal memo proposing to legalize heroin and crack.
It’s an example of what might be the most maddening thing about Mr. Poilievre, effectively the leading candidate to run this country. He will take even his serious public-policy positions on critical – even life or death – issues, and wrap them in falsehoods to wield it as a political attack.
The latest case is Mr. Poilievre’s assertion that a secret Liberal government memo revealed hidden plans to legalize hard drugs.
“It showed a secret scheme to legalize crack, heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs. Which if Trudeau and the NDP are re-elected, will be as easy to get in your neighbourhood as a candy bar at a corner store,” Mr. Poilievre said at press conference in London, Ont., on Thursday.
But there was no secret memo. The document in question was publicly available on a government website. It wasn’t a memo about legalizing drugs, it was talking points for Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks for an appearance at the House of Commons health committee.
Bureaucrats had drafted suggested answers to questions on 40 topics, including “national decriminalization” and the answer it suggested for that was the boilerplate the minister usually offers to such questions: The federal government is willing to work with local jurisdictions that have a “comprehensive plan,” including law enforcement and social supports, to decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs.
The Liberals approved a major exemption to criminal drug law in B.C. – withdrawn this year at the province’s request – rejected such an exemption in Toronto and provided smaller exceptions for safe-consumption sites in many communities.
John Ibbitson: Pierre Poilievre makes his case for dismantling what the Trudeau government has built
Lawrence Martin: What’s there to fear about Pierre Poilievre?
Decriminalization can mean a lot of things, from an everything-goes policy to minor sentences to narrow exceptions for safe-consumption sites. Mr. Poilievre has called for closing such sites when they are near schools – he held a press conference to call for the closing of one in Montreal – but not all.
But it is certainly true that the Liberals are in a muddle over drug policy. They don’t know where they stand on decriminalization. Some of the things they believed were the golden ticket have failed. They need to be roused.
In an interview, Keith Humphreys of Stanford University Medical School said it’s no secret why policies such as the aborted decriminalization projects in B.C. and Oregon failed politically: They didn’t tend to the legitimate concerns, including safety fears, of people who don’t take drugs.
Dr. Humphreys, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama White House who chaired the Stanford-Lancet Commission on the North American Opioids Crisis, noted that the commission also advised against the safe-supply policies – which prescribe drugs to individuals so they aren’t killed by risky street drugs – that Mr. Poilievre has sharply criticized.
The opioids epidemic was launched with the flood of Oxycontin into the prescription-drug market in the 1990s, he noted, so an expanded supply of legally produced, consistent-quality drugs is not the answer now.
“Of course, it’s better if people don’t die,” Dr. Humphreys said. “For people who are already advanced addicted, it lowers their risk. But if for each one of them you addict two or three more people, you are pushing the problem down the road.”
And Dr. Humphreys also agrees that a major priority of drug policy should be expanding treatment programs that are now in short supply across North America.
The thing is, Mr. Poilievre’s pledge to divert current funding to treatment won’t be enough. The opioids crisis mostly falls to provinces, which pay for health care, and local jurisdictions, which manage public health and social services.
You’d think an aspiring prime minister would want to use the force of his arguments to change minds. Instead, he is undermining his own credibility with a meme about a secret memo on an issue that couldn’t be more serious.