Despite all the shouting, the opioid crisis continues to defy simple answers

The debate in Parliament about British Columbia's experience with drug decriminalization was already operating at extremes before Pierre Poilievre used the term "wacko."

During question period on Monday, the Conservative leader said the Liberal government had unleashed "drugs, disorder, death and destruction." Other Conservative MPs said the Liberals were pursuing a "horrific" and "radical" experiment.

"Will the prime minister prioritize recovery and stop killing Canadians with his radical ideology?" Conservative MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay asked.

Health Minister Mark Holland stood and suggested partisanship should be put aside in the face of an epidemic of opioid addiction and overdose deaths. When the minister sat down, Conservative MP Todd Doherty stood up to claim the prime minister's "extremist drug policies" had "turned our neighbourhoods into war zones."

On Tuesday — shortly before he was ejected from the House of Commons — Poilievre suggested that the increase in overdose deaths in B.C. in recent years can somehow be laid at Justin Trudeau's feet.

"Will the prime minister reverse his extremist policies and the death they bring?" the Conservative leader asked.

The approximate cause of this rancour is a decision the B.C. government announced five days ago.

In November 2022, at B.C.'s request, the federal government granted the province an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to decriminalize the personal possession of some hard drugs — part of a three-year "pilot project" aimed at fighting the opioid epidemic. That change went into effect in January 2023.

Last Friday, apparently in response to concerns about open drug use and public disorder, B.C. asked the federal government to amend the exemption in order to ban the consumption of drugs in public spaces and hospitals. 

One conclusion to be drawn from that partial recalibration might be that the scourge of opioid addiction continues to defy simple answers. But all such nuance is in danger of being drowned out by the shouting.

The Conservatives are resolutely opposed to decriminalization — both the existing exemption for B.C. and the pending request for an exemption from the City of Toronto. They also oppose British Columbia's use of "safer supply" programs, which prescribe drugs as medication to those addicted to opioids as a safer alternative to potentially toxic drugs that might be purchased on the street.

To support their case, the Conservatives recently pointed to comments made by two senior law enforcement officials during a meeting of the House of Commons health committee. 

Those officers, testifying two weeks before B.C. moved to change its drug policy, did raise concerns about public drug use. Fiona Wilson, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department, also suggested that public consumption was a source of concern for the Vancouver Police before the exemption was sought.

But those officials also didn't seem eager for a full return to criminalization.