It's been six years since Vancouver approved a "fentanyl tax."

It's been almost six years since the Vancouver City Council approved a 0.5% property tax increase to combat the deadly drug crisis.

Earlier that year,Fentanyl flooded the streets, killing four of him per day in the month before Congress approved a tax increase, BC autopsy The department has declared a public health emergency. from poisons.

READ MORE: More than 10,000 people have died from illicit drug use since the first century BC.

Declared a public health emergency

More than five years on, the situation is as bad as or worse than in 2016, and Department of Vancouver City Council members have questioned whether the funds are being used as intended. effect.

Independent Coalition Member of Parliament. Melissa de Genova voted against the tax increase, adding another $3.5 million to the city's annual operating budget.

We weren't coordinating with the Ministry of Health, specifically Vancouver Coastal Health on this," she said Thursday.

"I still have questions, but have yet to receive an answer from city officials as to where this money is being spent."

} The initiative will unfairly punish Vancouver taxpayers who already pay taxes to the state to address what she said should be the state's responsibility, she added. 33}

Where the money goes

The City of Vancouver does not provide a full budget breakdown to date, but does provide a summary of spending Every year they were out.

In 2017, the first year the tax went into effect, $2.05 million was given to her three new firefighters. Spent on the creation of the team. Hiring a Firefighter Mental Health Her Coordinator on the Downtown East Side.

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An additional $430,000 will establish a new Community Policing Center in Strathcona and It was used to fund other CPCs within.

And $1.02 million was spent on 23 "high impact" community overdose grants.

In 2018, $2.4 million was used to permanently fund her DTES fire medical team and support local police centers.

Another $700,000 was spent building a drug detention facility for the Vancouver Police Department and another $300,000 to respond to the "opioid crisis."

$2.43 million from 2019 to 2022 funded firefighter teams and CPC, and $470,000 ($370,000 in 2019) was spent on the “Opioid Crisis Response.” An additional $890,000 per year ($590,000 in 2019) was allocated to the DTES “Incremental Microcleaning” grant.

The 'Opioid Crisis Response' category includes an increase in city officials, including outreach and support workers at DTES. $310,000, which includes $160,000 annually to operate a VPD drug containment facility.

Global News has requested a detailed budget breakdown.

Good value.

Count Green. Adrian Carr, who voted for the tax increase, said the council approved the funding after hearing from frontline workers who were pushed to their limits.

"It was brutal, especially in terms of hearing the reactions we heard from the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Team. Downtown Hall 2 was very busy with calls...the calls were intense and we needed another vehicle." It was one of those things the taxpayer was meant to fund just to respond to these emergency calls," she said.

Read More: BC Than Any Other Year Also

“As people say, this is not tax robbery. It is a specific tax."

Carr said the tax was not intended to solve the drug crisis, but would affect every major West Coast city and virtually every community in B.C. said that

But better City Council. Sarah Kirby Jung, who was not on the council when the tax was approved, said neither a description of the funding nor an assessment of its effectiveness had been submitted to the council during her most recent term.

``We all agree that there are some important problems and challenges in our city that need to be addressed. Instead, we often need to be bold and take a new approach: being honest about the old and where we see results and where we don't," she said.

"Congress needs to know how the money is being spent and what the results are."

Meanwhile, B.C.'s drug crisis continues to rage, claiming more than 10,000 lives since 2016.

Her June, the most recent month for which data are available, resulted in 146 deaths in British Columbia. Suspicious Toxic Drugs — equivalent to 4.8 per day.

— Using files from Lumina Daya

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