David Eby

A head shot of a grey haired man sitting at a desk between two flags.

Peterborough Mayor advocates for involuntary mental health treatment, local experts disagree

October 3, 2024 by Edward Sweeney

Mayor of Peterborough, Jeff Leal, referenced a B.C. policy change to mental health treatment twice in September during Peterborough City Council meetings, raising concerns from local experts involved in mental health and drug addiction treatment.

On Sept. 15, B.C. Premier, David Eby, announced that the province would be expanding involuntary treatment for those experiencing mental health and addiction issues. Leal expressed support for the idea, saying “If I was providing advice to the government of Ontario, I would bring in involuntary warrants fairly quickly,” says Leal. “That is the only pathway for their survival.”

CFFF requested comment twice from Leal but did not receive a response, and also talked to two mental health experts to ask what their perspective on the idea is.

Peterborough’s Medical Officer of Health, and Peterborough Public Health CEO, Dr. Thomas Piggott, writes that there is evidence of “involuntary treatment for substance use disorders” causing “harm.”

Carolyn King, Safer Supply Program Coordinator with the Peterborough 360 Degree Nurse Practitioner Led Clinic, shares a similar stance to Piggott, advocating for “voluntary treatment” models.

MLA for Abbotsford South, Bruce Banman, stands at a microphone in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia to deliever a Mother's Day speech. He has grey hair, parted to the side, glasses, a grey beard. He is wearing a charcoal-coloured suit jacket, a light blue button-down shirt, and a navy blue tie. This is a screencapture from the BC legislatures video feed, and because of that, Banman's name, riding, and political affiliation, Conservative BC, are watermarked as part of the image.

Abbotsford South MLA Banman refutes anti-abortion ‘dog whistle’ accusation from NDP

May 17, 2024 by Mike McCulloch

Bruce Banman, MLA for Abbotsford South, said it wasn’t his “intention” to use anti-abortion rhetoric in a message in the legislature last week ahead of Mother’s Day.

“Moms are the embodiment of love, strength, and sacrifice. From the moment of conception through the journey of pregnancy and childbirth, and throughout the myriad of challenges and triumphs that follow, mothers serve as the nurturing force that sustains life and shapes the future,” the member of the Conservative Party of British Columbia said in his speech. The NDP government’s parliamentary secretary of gender equity and Chilliwack Kent MLA Kelli Paddon shared this section of Banman’s comment on social media afterwards. She told CIVL Radio that she wants to know where all BC Conservative candidates stand on a woman’s right to choose. Meanwhile, Banman affirmed that “it is a woman’s body and a woman’s choice,” and accused the NDP of politicizing Mother’s Day.

a large group of up to 200 students are standing on a soccer field.

Local principal looks at the realities of cell phones in schools

March 6, 2024 by Pamela Haasen

In a push to tackle online abuse, the liberal government has introduced new legislation called “The Online Harms Act”/Bill C-63, which proposes stricter sentences, new regulatory bodies, and changes to existing laws pertaining to internet usage.

This new proposed federal bill was announced shortly after BC’s Premier David Eby announced a stricter approach to the use of cell phones by students in classrooms in the province. That initiative was announced in late January of this year and is slated to be implemented across the province by next September.

Jaksun Grice is the Principal at Houston Secondary School who says that cell phone use in schools has changed drastically in his time as an educator.

Principal Grice said that while an initiative to get kids off their phones in school is a good idea on paper, he has yet to see what supports will come with this new responsibility for educators and school staff.

A woman standing in front of a wall of CDs wearing a black top and blue jean jacket.

Premier Eby rejects calls for non-prescribed safe supply

January 26, 2024 by Mick Sweetman

B.C.’s Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe announced on Wednesday that 2,511 people in the province died from unregulated drugs in 2023, including 112 people in Nanaimo.

Unregulated drugs are now the leading cause of death for people aged 10 to 59 in British Columbia, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural disease combined.

“This week, I lost three people that were close to me,” said Beverley Plane is the executive secretary for the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users. “But last month, I also lost three people that I knew very closely and it’s devastating.”

Lapointe repeated her call for the province to introduce a non-prescribed option for safer supply saying that the current prescription-based program can’t be scaled up fast enough to meet the demand.

During a press conference on Thursday, Premier David Eby rejected the call for the province to provide a non-prescribed option for safe supply.

Photo of a playground strucutre with blue slides

Nanaimo mayor calls decriminalization a ‘failure’

September 15, 2023 by Mick Sweetman

Health Canada exempts playgrounds, splash pads and skateparks from drug decriminalization in B.C.

Starting on Monday, the possession of illicit drugs will be illegal within 15 metres of playgrounds, spray pads, wading pools and skate parks across British Columbia.

Health Canada’s new exemptions to the federal drug decriminalization pilot project in the province are in addition to K to 12 school properties and licenced childcare centres where possession was never decriminalized.

According to data released by the province, the number of criminal offences for possession fell by 76 per cent compared to the previous four-year average after decriminalization took effect.

Premier David Eby says that these new regulations give police tools they need to help keep communities safe, and that people who use drugs in public should do so at an overdose prevention site.

“The idea that we would give police this tool to say not in this place, you’re in the wrong place. Here’s a place you can go, here’s an overdose prevention site that is set up, that is funded, that has as a nurse, that is where you’ll be safe from overdosing.”

Eby says that his government plans to introduce comprehensive legislation around the issue in the fall.

Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog says that he welcomes the steps taken by Health Canada, but says that decriminalization has been a policy failure.

“I’m not satisfied the decriminalization approach taken in British Columbia, by way of formal policy, has been successful or helpful,” said Krog. “We’re not seeing reductions in deaths, we’re not seeing any strong public support for it. I would argue, in most respects, it has been a failure.”

Krog says that the new restrictions are welcome as a city bylaw on public drug use would be ineffective as the city lacks the power to enforce them.

“We can pass bylaws till the cows come home, but they will have no practical impact on people who choose to consume drugs wherever we may choose to prohibit it,” he said.

Nanaimo city councillor Ian Thorpe, says while he welcomes the new restrictions he would like to see a broader prohibition on drugs in public spaces.

“I want to make boundaries clear where this behaviour should not be happening and should not be allowed and suggest other places, safe injection sites so on, no problem,” he said. But in public spaces, where people are interacting with the public and their families, I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Heather McDonald, who works as an overnight peer outreach worker with Nightkeepers, says that the current overdose prevention site on Albert Street just doesn’t have the capacity for everyone who uses drugs in the city.

“There are a great deal of people who need support,” she said. “Basically, it’s just much too small for the number of people that are needing help in Nanaimo.”

McDonald says that there is a need for more overdose prevention sites in different areas of the city including in the north end.

“There’s a need for help all across Nanaimo, we generally work in the downtown core with Nightkeepers. But we also service the encampments, which are quite spread out around town.”

Coun. Paul Manly would also like to see overdose prevention sites established outside of the downtown core.

“I think we need sites in different parts of town, because clearly as city council we get emails from people in different parts of town that are saying that they’re witnessing open drug use, from Hammond Bay, all the way to South End,” he said. “When you concentrate all the services in one area of town, it creates problems. So you need to provide services in different parts of town where these issues are occurring.”

Coun. Janice Perrino calls the new changes a great first step but would like to see drugs banned in all city parks, not just within 15 meters of a playground.

“All of our parks, all of our recreation areas have to be addressed because that’s where people congregate, that’s where children go,” she said. “We need to make sure that all of these areas are safe as well. It’s just simply inappropriate for people to be doing drugs in any of these areas.”

Perrino says she would also like to see people using drugs limited to supervised consumption sites.

“What would be sufficient for me is to have these drugs administered in an obviously a closed selected area, a city consumption site,” she said. “That’s where it should be at all times.”

Thorpe says that his support of new overdose prevention sites in the city would hinge on the specifics.

“It would depend on the parameters and how they’re set up and how they’re run and how they impact the neighbourhoods that they might be located in,” he said.

A permanent supervised consumption site in Nanaimo would require site-specific approval by city council. The overdose prevention site in the city operates under the authority of the public health emergency declared by the province in 2016.

Coun. Ben Gesselbract, says that while he supports the new restrictions on possession the big issue is a lack of on-demand detox and treatment spaces available in the city.

“When somebody is in the middle of a crisis and wants medical support to get off whatever substance they’re using, they’ve got to wait a month to get into that,” he said. “That’s completely unacceptable.

Coun. Hilary Eastmure says that while she supports the new amendments to the decriminalization pilot, it won’t address many residents’ concerns about public drug use.

“They’re not using on playgrounds, or at splash parks,” she said. “They’re using it in our downtown, outside the library and in public spaces,” she said.

Eastmure says that despite that, she doesn’t support the idea of a city bylaw as discussed at the city council meeting on Monday.

“it’s almost impossible to enforce and you’re enforcing against people who wouldn’t have the ability to pay a fine if that was the result of the bylaws,” she said. “So I still hope that we can continue the conversation about the need for safe supply, for more supervised consumption sites and for more appropriate housing and supports for the people who need it.”