Advocates hope rookie minister acts quickly to tackle a wave of overdose deaths

Ya'ara Saks, Canada's new minister of mental health and addictions, inherits a complex portfolio and an opioid crisis that has only gotten worse in almost every year since 2016.

Advocates and addictions experts say they would like to see the new minister take a holistic approach to the crisis and act swiftly to champion and expand harm reduction policies.

More than 36,000 people in Canada died of opioid overdoses between 2016 and 2022 — roughly 20 people per day in 2022 alone.

Saks is a relatively new MP — she was elected in a 2020 by-election. She's taking over a relatively new file that was created in 2021. This is her first ministerial position.

Saks said she was "honoured" to be appointed minister and vowed to tackle the crisis.

"We will use every tool at our disposal to work with our partners to deliver services when and where they are needed to end this crisis," she said, in a statement to CBC.

Dr. Paxton Bach, an addictions specialist and co-medical director of the B.C. Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU), said he hopes to Saks will be a "strong and outspoken advocate for the type of system change that we need in order to turn the tide." 

While Bach says some progress has been made, more needs to be done at every level of government.

"Collectively, we are all clearly failing. We are failing because the numbers continue to get worse," he said. He called on Saks to bring various levels of government and community groups together to address the crisis.

In January, the B.C. government was granted an exemption from Ottawa allowing it to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs for a three-year period. The aim of the pilot project is to reduce drug-related arrests and direct people toward health supports.

The exemption "is a first step, but the fact that you can be criminalized elsewhere in the country … makes no sense to me," said Janet Butler McPhee, co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network.

Toronto made a similar request to decriminalize simple possession in January 2022; it has yet to be approved. In May, the city revised its request and asked for a model that goes further than the one in B.C.

Saks will now be responsible for overseeing Toronto's request — and possibly others. A briefing note prepared for the previous minister last year suggests another 55 municipalities have expressed interest in decriminalization.

Butler-McPhee says that while she hopes to see decriminalization extended to other jurisdictions, it's only one piece of the puzzle.