Poilievre is ‘open’ to idea of involuntary drug treatment for addicts, but has doubts

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OTTAWA – Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he was open to, but still unconvinced by, the idea of compelling drug addicts into treatment as proposed by the Alberta government.

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Asked by a reporter on Thursday if he would support a national strategy that used forced intervention to compel drug users into treatment under certain conditions, Poilievre said he wasn’t sure but was open to exploring it.

“I need to study it more. I need to understand how it would work. I want everybody who’s on drugs to be in treatment and rehab to get off drugs. What I haven’t been able to figure out is, if someone doesn’t want to be rehabilitated, can you require them to be? I don’t know,” he said during a press conference in London, Ont.

“I don’t know if you can take someone off the street that has not committed a prison offence and successfully rehabilitate them. If we can, I’m open to it, but I’d need to see more evidence at this point,” he added.

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But imposing involuntary drug treatment on addicts raises a host of serious and concerning civil liberties issues and is likely unconstitutional, according to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA).

Poilievre is a vocal critic of “safer supply” strategies deployed by certain health centres, including one in London, that offer safe supply of certain opioids to drug users at high risk of an overdose.

During the Thursday press conference, Poilievre promised to cut any federal funding for “safer supply” initiatives and activists that promote them if he is elected prime minister.

“We will cut that back. There’ll be no more money for any of them. All the money is going to go into treatment and recovery services, detox, counselling, group therapy, sweat lodges for First Nations, physical exercise, job placement, transitional housing,” he said.

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“This is how we’re going to bring our loved ones home drug free.”

On July 15, London Police chief Thai Truong said diverted safe supply drugs were “fuelling the drug trade” by being resold illegally into the community and being used “as currency in exchange for fentanyl.”

The police force’s deputy chief Paul Bastien said so far in 2024, police had seized over 12,000 tablets of an opioid called hydromorphone, almost all of which were likely diverted from safer supply programs.

Earlier this month, the Conservative leader promised to close certain supervised consumption sites as well that are in proximity to schools, playgrounds and “anywhere else that they endanger the public and take lives.”

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Activists as well as the federal government have argued that both supervised consumption sites and safer supply strategies save lives, an assertion Poilievre regularly questions.

Health Canada says 8,049 people died of an apparent opioid overdose last year, a six per cent increase from the previous year.

Another opponent to safer supply programs is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. The 2023 mandate letter for the province’s Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams called for him to develop a separate “Alberta model” for combatting the opioid epidemic.

Part of that plan includes developing “compassionate intervention legislation.” The proposal, which is expected to be tabled in legislation in the fall, would allow a family member, doctor or police officer to petition a family court for an order to compel a drug addict into treatment.

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But final details of the program remain a mystery until the legislation is tabled.

A potential mandatory involuntary drug treatment program in Alberta or even nationally is “deeply troubling,” says the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s (CCLA) fundamental freedoms program director Anaïs Bussières McNicoll.

“This suggestion of forcing treatment and detention on people who are not charged with any crime is deeply troubling,” she said.

“Substance abuse is, of course, an alarming and pressing epidemic, but forcing people into treatment facilities against their will is potentially unconstitutional and unlawful,” she added.

Depending on what Alberta ends up proposing, she said there’s the potential for several Charter of Rights and Freedoms breaches, including the rights to life, liberty, and security of the person and not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.

“Our understanding is that research shows that compelling people into treatments without their consent is counterproductive and harmful,” Bussières McNicoll added.

Poilievre also called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reconvene Parliament to debate the federal government’s bail regime and opioid epidemic strategies.

Trudeau is currently on a two-week summer vacation.

cnardi@postmedia.com

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