A Richmond, B.C., city councillor says politics have obscured policy in the wake of a heated debate over a motion to explore the possibility of a safe drug consumption site in the city.
After two days of at times raucous hearings, councillors voted 7-2 on Tuesday in favour of the motion, which would ask staff to analyze the pros and cons of a consumption site, collaborate with Vancouver Coastal Health to explore the idea for the city’s hospital and launch a consultation process.
On Wednesday, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) released a statement saying it had no plans to move forward with a “stand-alone” safe consumption site in the city. The health authority said Richmond didn’t have “a significant concentration of people at-risk.”
One of the two councillors who proposed the motion told Global News on Thursday he was caught off guard by VCH’s position, alleging politics were at play.
Kash Heed, a Richmond city councillor and former BC Liberal public safety minister, said VCH had previously indicated support for the idea of a consumption site and had written an “encouraging” letter in the days prior to the vote.
That letter expresses support for Richmond’s motion but stops short of pledging a consumption site, instead backing “the recommended analysis in order to identify a range of solutions that may be appropriate to our local context.”
“I am rather surprised by that because the conversation we had with the medical doctor last summer was quite the opposite, where in fact she said we could look at it,” Heed said.
“Now we have the premier who is perpetuating this based on his own political interests. He’s putting politics well before people who are dying.”
The BC NDP hold three of the four provincial seats in Richmond — a city that had until recently voted solidly BC Liberal (now BC United).
Heed called VCH’s response a “flip-flop,” suggesting it had caved to political pressure as the NDP seeks to hold onto those seats in the October provincial election.
“We’re in an election year in B.C. and there’s always going to be those that use discussions like this one way or another for their own political interest,” Premier David Eby said.
“The goal for me and our government is straightforward: keep people alive and give them the opportunity to get into treatment to rebuild their lives.”
Eby said his government follows the advice of experts and that he’d heard from VCH that “the population of people who use drugs in Richmond is quite scattered.”
“People will not typically travel large distances to use one of these sites, so the solutions for Richmond will look quite different,” he said.
Meanwhile, Vancouver Coastal Health insists there was no political interference in its position, and that Richmond simply does not meet the criteria for a consumption site.
“We’ve been consistently monitoring the data in Richmond and all the other neighbourhoods to determine whether these services are needed,” said Dr. Patricia Daly, VCH chief medical health officer.
“If we felt they were needed, a stand-alone site was needed, we would have established it.”
At least 26 people died after taking toxic drugs in Richmond last year.
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