In their words: B.C. leaders on mental health and addiction crisis

British Columbia’s provincial election is just one day away.

The province’s deadly drug and mental health crises have been a pivotal campaign issue in the election and will prove to be a major challenge for whoever forms government.

We asked each of the major party leaders how they would handle this challenging file.

4:38 B.C. party leaders on addressing housing and affordability

BC Conservative Leader John Rustad

You have previously said you would eliminate all supervised consumption sites. That position seems to have changed. Explain to voters what your plan is in this area.

Let’s take a look and just see what has happened here with safe supply and decriminalization, what is going on in B.C. Last year over 5,700 people across Canada died from an overdose. In British Columbia, it was more than 2,500 people. Close to half of the total deaths in the country are happening right here in B.C., so clearly what we are doing is not working.

This is why we want to have a very significant focus on recovery, everything from doctor-prescribed treatment to short-term treatment and recovery to longer-term recovery to compassionate involuntary recovery … we need to build that out.

So the role of consumption sites should be to shift them to being recovery intake sites. There should be zero tolerance for crime and for other things, and where you have these next to a playground, or a school, daycare, those need to be shut down right away. They are not safe in those communities.

There are many drug users who don’t trust the system or police, who have been left behind and who are struggling the most. Why would they come to a supervised consumption site if they believe they will be locked up?

Seven people a day are dying in B.C. More than any other province in this country. There is a monument up in Campbell River which has 12,000 blue flags, one for every boy and man who has died and more being added every month, what we are doing is not working, clearly. We need to get people into recovery.

Highlights from the BC Conservative Party platform on mental health and addiction include:

• Appoint an addiction specialist to oversee provincial drug crisis response.
• End B.C. decriminalization pilot project.
• End provincial “safer supply” of drugs.
• Continue some overdose prevention sites as a “temporary emergency measure” but shut down sites that refuse to abide by “strict standards of conduct.”
• Expand use of supervised drug consumption sites for intake into treatment.
• Fund abstinence-based treatment and recovery, cut wait times for voluntary drug treatment, and remove financial barriers to detox.
• Review the Mental Health Act and involuntary care system to increase involuntary care in secure facilities.
• Build “secure housing units” to treat people who pose a high risk to themselves or others.
• Repurpose and redevelop Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam. The property is currently subject of a land claim by the Kwiwkitlem First Nation.
• Identify rural interior communities switch greatest unmet needs for mental health.
• Integrate mental health response into 911 system.
• Expand peer-assisted care teams.
• Set wait time limits for treatment on severe mental health conditions.

5:34 B.C. party leaders on how they would manage the economy

BC NDP Leader David Eby

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Seven people are dying every day in B.C. due to toxic drugs. Your opponents argue that the problem has only gotten worse under decriminalization. What will you do differently if re-elected to address this?

It’s such a devastating issue. I am sure the people at home if they haven’t experienced it directly, they know someone who has been affected by the toxic drug crisis.

The ability for people to come forward and ask for help and be able to access that help is so vital in the early stages when they are dealing with addiction, so that has been a big focus for us. Expanding treatment beds, a phone number you can call and get connected to a physician or a nurse who is an expert in addictions to support your care, connect you with treatment as well. Because people don’t know how to take that first step.

But when it comes to saving people’s lives and keeping them alive so they have that chance to get into treatment, we have been willing to try different things including decriminalization. It didn’t work the way we wanted it to, so we had to change course. And we are going to have to try different things to address this crisis, and we are willing to do that. And when we see something working somewhere else we are going to bring it in to British Columbia, and we are not going to hesitate.

B.C. currently lacks good measures to track whether these interventions are working. Would your government need to do a better job of tracking that, to standardize our treatment for mental health and addiction issues?

There is a lot of opportunity for us to ensure we are tracking what works and what doesn’t. When I hired Dr. (Daniel) Vigo, who is an expert in psychiatry, one of the first pieces of work he did was assemble a big database around people struggling with mental health issues, addiction and brain injury, so we could actually see what the path was they were taking through the care system, what was making difference in terms of emergency room visits, time in prison, police contacts. By understanding how people move through the system, what is working, what is interrupting it, we can take steps that are actually based on evidence.

Highlights from the BC NDP platform on mental health and addiction include:

• Publicly funded, individually tailored treatment and support accessible through a single phone number provincewide.
• Expand access to recovery homes, First Nations treatment centres and at-home addiction treatment services
• Build a second Red Fish Healing Centre and additional satellite facilities to expand the number of mental health and substance use disorder beds.
• Expand use of involuntary care for people with brain injuries, severe mental health and addiction issues.
• Build an addiction treatment centre for construction workers.
• Ensure every B.C. school has a mental health counsellor
• $50 million Community Mental Health Resilience fund for community-based mental health organizations.
• Quadruple number of Foundry Centres for Youth to provide mental health, addiction, physical and sexual health services.
• Fast-track expansion of civilian-led crisis response teams for mental health calls to 911.

4:28 B.C. party leaders on their vision for the healthcare system

BC Green Leader Sonia Furstenau

Do people feel safe in your community, and are you worried about the impact government decision-making has had on the way people feel safe in their communities?

Most people I talk to would like to see homelessness solved, would like to see the government doing its job to make sure that people aren’t falling into that depth of poverty, would like to see a response to the drug poisoning crisis that matches the devastation, we have lost more than 15,000 people in B.C. to a toxic drug supply.

And then I listen to the mayors … just recently a number of island mayors came out to the province and said look, we have a successful model in Duncan, a model I have been a champion of for in the legislature for years now, The Village. And The Village has demonstrated that to solve homelessness it’s not just about, ‘There’s a place for you to sleep and good luck.’

It’s about integrating connection, belonging, services, getting people access to health-care, to mental health-care, getting people a sense of purpose, employment, and its been so successful in Duncan, not only for the people who are no longer homeless and have moved into other forms of housing, some market housing, some transitional housing and employment, it has been so successful for the neighbourhood that has seen an 18 per cent decline in crime rates.

So when we have a model like that that is working so well, why is the provincial government not hesitating to simply focus on, ‘Hey this works,’ we are going to support communities all over B.C. to solve this problem.

Highlights from the BC Green platform on mental health and addictions include:

• Require all public hospitals to include spaces for safe supervised drug consumption
• Continue expansion of supervised consumption services, evaluate mobile overdose prevention services
• Work to achieve 24-hour access to overdose prevention sites
• Increase funding for drug-checking services
• Expand the range of substances available through prescribed safer supply
• Expand the prescription of diacetylmorphine to people with severe addictions
• Work towards demedicalized, regulated supply of drugs as an alternative to toxic street supply
• Mandate evidence-based, age-appropriate information on drug use in schools
• Integrate mental health into 911 service
• Double crisis line funding from $2.5 million to $5 million
• Expand peer-assisted care team programs
• Expand mental health support to first responders and overdose workers
• Launch all-party review of Mental Health Act
• Create an independent Office of the Mental Health Advocate to provide oversight of services.