Say what you will about Prime Minister Harper and his government. They’re nothing if not persistent.
Vancouver’s pioneering safe injection facility Insite earned its annual exemption form the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to continue offering harm reduction services for people addicted to heroin this week.
But that exemption is going to be a lot harder to achieve in the future, thanks to Parliament’s passing of Bill C-2, which aims to put more stumbling blocks in the way of Insite and any other facility using the same methods.
This after the 2011 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that the health minister unduly denying access to life-saving harm reduction measures would amount to a violation of Canadians’ charter right to security of the person.
By this point, the government has been well briefed by experts in addiction, public health and crime reduction that Insite save lives, stems the spread of disease and provides a meaningful first step out of addiction.
Our government has made the ideological value judgment that those goals are less important than sending the message that drugs are bad. And they aren’t shy about using Insite as a bogeyman to help them in their party fundraising.
The trouble is, other than setting its course for yet another expensive and embarrassing loss in the courts, the government is demonstrating it is willing to risk the lives of those who depend on the service. They deserve compassion, not further denunciation.