OTTAWA — The federal government would be more sensitive to the fentanyl-overdose crisis if the people were dying on Parliament Hill’s doorstep instead of in distant B.C., provincial Health Minister Terry Lake said Wednesday.
“If Ontario was experiencing it to same extent we are, there would be more recognition” of the need for greater action, Lake told the Vancouver Sun on the eve of a meeting here Thursday between top federal officials and a B.C. delegation that includes Lake, Premier Christy Clark and three parents of fentanyl victims.
Lake said the inclusion in the B.C. delegation of the parents and a paramedic is part of a strategy he and Clark agreed was needed to send Ottawa a powerful emotional message.
“I don’t think they’re insensitive, but they need to be more sensitive,” said Lake, who will meet with federal Health Minister Jane Philpott, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Liberal MP Bill Blair, a former Toronto police chief.
B.C. wants the RCMP to devote far more resources to stopping the trade in the illegal narcotic, which is typically mixed with street drugs, especially cocaine, because it is cheap.
“I mean, could you imagine if 60 people were being killed each month by terrorists or by anthrax coming into the country,” Lake said.
“I don’t want to sound alarmist, but these are everyday people that are dying because of fentanyl being imported into Canada, mostly from China. People think they’re doing a recreational drug. They’re not what we would consider criminals.”
Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.’s medical health officer, said a record-number of fatal overdoses have officials in several cities across the province urging the federal government to approve facilities where drug use is supervised and overdoses can be reversed.
The B.C. Coroners Service released figures Wednesday showing there were 622 fatal overdoses from illicit drugs between January and October, compared with 397 during the same period last year.
Fentanyl was detected in about 60 per cent of all illicit drug deaths between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, triple the number during the same months in 2015.
The number of drug overdoses has surged in Victoria, where the coroners service said 51 people have fatally overdosed so far this year, nearly triple the 18 who died after taking illicit drugs during the same period last year.
— With files from the Canadian Press
