Poilievre Open to Involuntary Treatment for Drug Addiction, Wants to ‘Study it More’

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to the media during a press conference in Montreal, on July 12, 2024. (The Canadian Press/Christinne Muschi)

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he is exploring a policy similar to Alberta’s proposed approach of forced intervention for drug addiction in certain circumstances, saying he would need to study the issue further before coming to a decision.

“I need to study it more. I need to understand how it would work,” Mr. Poilievre said when asked about the policy during a July 25 press conference.

“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?”

The Conservative leader said he would like to see evidence “for and against” the proposed policy before making a judgment.

“I don’t know if you can take someone off the street who 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 said.

Introduced last spring, the Alberta UCP government’s Compassionate Intervention Act proposes allowing family members, doctors, or police officers to petition a family court for a treatment order when someone “is a danger to themselves or others” due to active drug addiction. That order would, in some cases, require the person to enter into treatment for their addiction.

“If someone is in imminent danger of causing harm to themselves or others, we will do whatever we can to save their life and help them get better, but that begins with getting them out of harm’s way,” said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in a statement introducing the act. “We need to ensure Albertans don’t have to worry about random acts of violence when they’re walking down the street or taking transit. This is about saving lives and keeping our communities safe.”

The statement says the act aims to address “untreated mental health issues” at the root of the drug crisis, while curbing the “social disorder and out of control violence” linked to “drug-fuelled crime.”

Alberta NDP Mental Health and Addictions Critic Janet Eremenko accused the UCP in a statement of refusing to consider harm reduction measures and pushing forward with a “forced treatment approach, which evidence shows is not effective” while leaving out “significant details” in a related mandate letter.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has also floated the idea of using the charter’s notwithstanding clause to implement similar legislation in his province, which would allow authorities to force certain people into drug treatment programs. While that bill was originally scheduled to be introduced in May, the government has delayed the plan.

The notwithstanding clause, or Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, gives provincial parliaments the power to override certain parts of the charter through the passage of a law. Some legal scholars have raised concerns about the notwithstanding clause’s increased usage by premiers.

Mr. Poilievre has previously referenced the potential use of the clause to tackle crime, saying in April that he would tackle crime by using “whatever tools the Constitution allows me to use to make them constitutional.”

Poilievre Questions Safer Supply

During the press conference, Mr. Poilievre criticized the federal government’s drug policies, in particular the “safer supply” pilot projects in the cities Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria. The policies, which have been in place since 2020, provide prescribed opioids as an alternative to the illegal drug supply that drug users would otherwise access.

While supporters of safer supply say the drugs have saved lives and prevented the spread of HIV, its opponents have pointed to people using them as currency to obtain more potent drugs. Two RCMP drug busts from February and April also found safer supply opioids in bulk.

Mr. Poilievre accused the Liberal government of “giving out drugs, taxpayer-funded opioids, that are ending up in the hands of kids.” He also brought up a recently released memo where federal Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks said the government was considering “national decriminalization,” as part of “all tools at our disposal to address this crisis.”

While Health Canada granted B.C. a three-year exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to allow it to decriminalize small amounts of illicit drugs in 2023, Ms. Saks refused a similar request from Toronto Public Health in May. British Columbia reversed course just over a year into the pilot project, recriminalizing possession of illicit drugs in public following mounting public backlash and “disorder” in the province.

The Epoch Times reached out to Ms. Saks for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has defended B.C.’s decriminalization policies, saying it puts the onus on a “public health response” to address the overdose crisis. “We’re going to continue to take an approach grounded in public health, not criminal justice, for people living with addictions,” he told reporters in May.

Mr. Poilievre has proposed supporting drug prevention and substance abuse programs, ending funding for safe supply programs, and increasing the penalties for serious drug trafficking offences. Mr. Poilievre also raised a proposal by Conservative MP Tracy Gray that would see Canadians jailed for drug-related offences have drug treatment as part of their sentencing.

“The judge could say, ‘while you’re in prison, you’re required to be drug-free, and we’re going to provide you with high-quality treatment behind bars,’” he said. “That makes sense to me, because they’re already going to be in prison anyway. They might as well be cleaning up their body and their souls, and their addictions.”