Opinion: The NDP has been increasingly cagey about forcing people with addictions into treatment, the Liberals have found
VICTORIA — For the first question period of the year, the Opposition tried to pin down the New Democrats on their latest stand regarding involuntary treatment in some cases of mental health or substance abuse.
B.C. Liberal Leader Kevin Falcon supports legislation to allow involuntary treatment “at safe, modernized, compassionate facilities” for youth and adults “at risk of harm to themselves or others” as a “last-ditch” measure.
Sign up to know what's really happening by reading daily editorials and commentary by British Columbia's opinion leaders
Thanks for signing up!
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of Vancouver Sun Informed Opinion will soon be in your inbox.
The New Democrats have suggested involuntary care in the past.
But try as Falcon might Tuesday, he couldn’t get the New Democrats to acknowledge their previous stance — or, rather stances, since they have been all over the map.
The key exchange pitted Falcon against Jennifer Whiteside, the new minister of mental health and addictions in the David Eby cabinet.
Falcon: “Will someone in the government clarify your position? Do you support involuntary treatment for vulnerable youth and adults that are at risk to themselves and others?”
Whiteside: “We know that there are tools under the Mental Health Act that physicians use when it comes to the question of involuntary care.”
The Liberals tried the several more times but got no further.
Whiteside repeated the government’s current view that there is no need for new legislative measures to protect overdose victims from themselves.
Three years ago, the John Horgan NDP government introduced legislation that would have allowed up to seven days detention in treatment facilities for youth who’d overdosed. The legislation, Bill 22 of the 2020 session, was criticized as counterproductive by advocates for youth, Indigenous leaders, civil libertarians and others.
The Greens, then in a power-sharing arrangement with the NDP, refused to support the bill, effectively depriving the government of the votes necessary for passage. The New Democrats withdrew the bill. “A pause,” said Horgan, indicating it would be back before too long.
A few weeks later, the premier had his revenge. He repudiated the power-sharing agreement with the Greens and called a snap election, blaming the growing “instability” in the legislature.
As evidence, Horgan cited the Green refusal to support the Bill 22 provision that would have allowed involuntary detention of young overdose victims.
“That was really the deciding issue for me,” he told reporters on the day he called the election. “I’ve talked to parents who’ve lost children. That’s what we were seeking and it wasn’t accepted. That’s the pity and that’s my frustration.”
When Horgan won the decisive majority he was seeking, it seemed a good bet that a new version of Bill 22 would be back on the legislative agenda.
For a time, Horgan maintained he had every intention of enacting the involuntary care measure for that was, to hear him tell it, a key reason for calling the election. It never materialized before he announced his own retirement in mid-2022.
Then suddenly involuntary care was back on the political agenda, courtesy of David Eby in his bid to succeed Horgan.
“When someone overdoses twice a day and they show up in the emergency ward for the second time — a second overdose in the same day — the idea that we release that person back out into the street to overdose a third time or die or have a profound brain injury or just come back to the emergency room again seems very bizarre,” Eby told Katie DeRosa of Postmedia in one of his first pronouncements as a candidate.
“We need to have better interventions and that could include — and should include — involuntary care to make sure they at least have a chance.”
The call drew a blast from his former associates at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
Eby didn’t back down: “I fundamentally disagree with the idea that it is respectful of someone’s liberty and human rights to release them into the street to die of an overdose.”
The legislation would be constitutional, Eby insisted, and workable with the right precautions.
“The key is going to be intervening with the people who are the sickest or in the greatest distress and are consuming the most resources.”
Once safely ensconced in the premier’s office, he began to voice second thoughts. In a year-end interview with Rob Shaw of CHEK News, Eby walked back his call for involuntary care.
“I’m not an expert in this area,” he told Shaw. “So, working with physicians, working with experts in addiction and mental health about h ow we intervene and break that cycle for that person is going to be vital.”
His diminished view was reflected in the mandate letter for Whiteside, who was directed to: “Assess and expand supports for people who are causing detrimental harm to themselves and others as a result of mental health or substance use … while upholding the rights of all British Columbians.”
After all the hedging, first under Horgan, then Eby, that’s not necessarily the last word from the New Democrats.
But for now, only the B.C. Liberals are promising new legislation to allow involuntary treatment of youths and adults who are at risk of harming themselves and others.
vpalmer@postmedia.com
Support our journalism: Our in-depth journalism is possible thanks to the support of our subscribers. For just $3.50 per week, you can get unlimited, ad-lite access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | The Province.
-
Daphne Bramham: B.C. stressed harm reduction, not treatment, and leads Canada in opioid death rate
-
Ian Mulgrew: Why B.C.'s decriminalization experiment won't stop the drug deaths and misery