Victoria, BC / Lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) Territory – Sonia Furstenau, leader of the BC Greens, is echoing a statement by Federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks in saying BC should focus on expanding voluntary care before it considers involuntary care. David Eby recently flip-flopped on the issue of involuntary care, adopting John Rustad’s position in contravention of widespread evidence on its potential to do harm to people suffering from substance use disorders.
“The BC Greens are the only party listening to experts, while David Eby is listening to John Rustad, and John Rustad is getting his guidance from memes,” said Furstenau.
“As we saw in the debate, John Rustad is more interested in using this crisis for political campaign theatre, rather than actually fixing it. David Eby should know better, but he is showing he will abandon the advice of experts to chase John Rustad’s senseless policies. We need a compassionate, evidence-based response to this terrible crisis. Six people are dying every day in B.C. We can’t afford to make this tragedy worse.
“BC already detains 20,000 people under the Mental Health Act a year – more than any other province. It isn’t working. We need to listen to the Chief Coroner and the Representative for Children and Youth when they warn that involuntary treatment puts vulnerable people at greater risk of an overdose.”
Furstenau was endorsed by former Chief Coroner Lisa LaPointe and Moms Stop the Harm founder Leslie McBain for having the only toxic drug crisis plan that is based on evidence. The BC Greens’ plan includes a focus on education and prevention, harm reduction and regulated treatment and recovery programs.
Minister Saks made the remarks at a recent press conference where she urged provincial and local governments to utilize the $150 million in emergency funding to address the toxic drug crisis.
“And before we talk about involuntary or voluntary treatment, I would like to see them utilize and access the robust $200 billion worth of health care agreements that have been signed across the country to dedicate resources to this…I would encourage B.C. or any other jurisdiction to, first and foremost, before they contemplate whether it is voluntary or involuntary, that they need the actual treatment services in place — which currently they don’t have,” Minister Saks said.
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