Rising Tensions Around Drug Decriminalization Could Be an NDP Sore Spot in 2024 BC Election

B.C. Premier David Eby speaks during a news conference in Vancouver on Feb. 5, 2023. Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press

British Columbia’s drug decriminalization pilot is set to expire in 2026, but it may end well before that depending on how the provincial general election goes this fall.

While the ruling NDP remains fairly committed to the pilot that began about a year ago, B.C. United Leader Kevin Falcon and B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad have both vowed to take strong action against the pilot if elected.

Frustrations over decriminalization in the province have been stoked by a Dec. 29 court injunction halting a ban on drug-use in playgrounds and certain other public spaces. Since the decriminalization pilot began on Jan. 31, 2023, municipal leaders and citizens across the province—even in small towns—have decried a rise in public drug use, particularly around children.

Others, however, have held fast to the province’s strong harm-reduction approach, opposing any limits on drug use and saying all stigma must be removed so that people don’t use drugs alone, which they say makes overdose more likely. B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson favoured this view in the recent injunction.

The injunction expires in March, by which time the NDP will have to either propose revised legislation or abandon the limits on public drug use all together. How Premier David Eby’s government reacts to the injunction could have big political implications, says David Leis, vice-president at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy think tank.

“It puts the current government in a difficult quandary, because they have been instrumental in pushing for the so-called ’safe drug-use' strategy,” Mr. Leis told The Epoch Times. “It will be very hard for them to back away from this policy.”

With the election slated for October, “this type of decision couldn’t have come at a worse time [for the NDP],” he said.

The B.C. NDP is also facing renewed criticism on drug policy after journalist Adam Zivo recently revealed that the provincial government is planning to make “safe supply” fentanyl tablets available to both adults and minors, without parental consent.

The political ground is shifting, with a rise in the province’s Conservative party and a widening split in the ruling NDP’s voter base, says Mr. Leis and other analysts that The Epoch Times interviewed. While housing and affordability are likely to figure big in campaigns this year, drug and addiction policy won’t be far behind and may be decisive for some voters. 

Shifting Political Ground

Mr. Leis noted that the NDP is increasingly torn between its “ideological warriors” and more blue-collar voters who align with the party’s worker rights policies. The “warriors” especially champion decriminalization as well as sexual orientation, gender identity, and other equity and diversity policies.

“Blue-collar workers or working people are increasingly abandoning the NDP, and this is happening because they’re realizing that they don’t have much in common with the ideological parts of the party,” he said.

Stewart Prest, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia, agrees that Mr. Eby is in a tough position having to unite the two factions.

At best, he may strike a compromise to “keep those factions together and sufficiently satisfied, if not overjoyed, with the overall direction of the party and province,” Mr. Prest said.

The NDP is trying to cater to more moderates by supporting limits on decriminalization, Mr. Prest said, but “they would seem to be, in some sense, talking out of both sides of their mouth on the issue.”

With Conservatives rising in the polls to overtake the B.C. United opposition party, Mr. Prest says the latter is being pressured toward more conservative policy positions to win the Conservative vote. Both parties have come strongly against the decriminalization pilot and spoken in favour of a more treatment-oriented approach, such as that used in Alberta.

B.C. United’s Mr. Falcon has vowed to abandon the decriminalization pilot if elected. B.C. Conservative’s Mr. Rustad said in a Dec. 30 statement that he would use the notwithstanding clause to override court rulings that support open-air drug use in public.

BC United Leader Kevin Falcon speaks in Surrey, B.C., on April 12, 2023. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

B.C. Conservative Party leader John Rustad speaks to members of the media during a year-end availability at legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Dec. 6. The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito

B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau speaks at the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Feb. 6, 2023. The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito

B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau said in an Oct. 23 statement that her party would not support the ban on drug use in some public places. She has been a strong supporter of decriminalization, calling on the government to raise the threshold, allowing more than the current 2.5-gram possession limit on substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and opioids.

Mr. Leis summarized a slew of issues related to livability in the province that the NDP will have to address if it’s to be re-elected. Rising crime as people look to feed their drug habits is one of them.

“The ideological left doesn’t have any solutions that really address these issues that are in plain sight, whether it’s someone who’s overdosing on your house doorstep, or defecating in a playground, or the realities that [B.C. residents are seeing] their children moving out of the province because they don’t see an opportunity to find an affordable house,” he said.

‘More Fulsome Debate’

The B.C. Conservatives and B.C. United are likely to continue and even ramp up their criticism of NDP drug policy as election time approaches, and this “could open up a more fulsome debate in society over harm reduction,” says Jason Morris, a political science professor at the University of Northern British Columbia.

“I appreciate that elections are not necessarily the best place to debate policy,” Mr. Morris told The Epoch Times via email. Nonetheless, he says greater scrutiny of whether harm-reduction goals are being met is a positive outcome of the political debate.

“The issue defies any kind of easy resolution,” Mr. Prest said. “So it’s an area that certainly requires continued political attention, and hopefully it receives that beyond its role as a political football.”