Ya’ara Saks, Canada’s new minister of mental health and addictions, inherits a complex portfolio and an opioid crisis that has only gotten worse almost every year since 2016.
Lawyers and experts say they would like to see the new minister take a holistic approach to the crisis and act swiftly to protect and expand harm reduction policies.
More than 36,000 people in Canada died from opioid overdoses between 2016 and 2022 — roughly 20 people a day in 2022 alone.
Saks is a relatively young MP — she was elected in the short 2020 elections. It is taking over a relatively new file that was created in 2021. This is his first ministerial position.
Saks said she was “honoured” to be appointed minister and vowed to tackle the crisis.
“We will use every tool at our disposal to work with our partners to deliver services when and where they are needed to end this crisis,” she said in a statement to CBC.
Dr. Paxton Bach, an addiction specialist and co-medical director of the B Center. C. on Substance Use (BCCSU), said it hopes Saks will be a “strong and open advocate for the kind of system change we need in order to turn the tide.”
While Bach says some progress has been made, more needs to be done at every level of government.
“Collectively, we are all clearly failing. We are failing because the numbers continue to get worse, ” he said. He called on Saks to bring together different levels of government and community groups to address the crisis.
In January, the government of B. C. she was granted an exemption from Ottapora allowing her to decriminalise possession of small amounts of the drug for a period of three years. The goal of the pilot project is to reduce drug-related arrests and steer people towards health support.
Exclusion ” is a first step, but the fact that you can be criminalized elsewhere in the country … it doesn’t make sense to me,” said Janet Butler McPhee, co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network.
Toronto made a similar request to decriminalize simple possession in January 2022; it has not yet been approved. In May, the city revised its application and he wanted a model that goes further than the one in B. C.
Saks will now be responsible for overseeing Toronto’s demand — and possibly others. A informative note prepared for the previous minister last year suggests that 55 other municipalities have expressed interest in decriminalization.
Butler-McPhee says that while she hopes to see decriminalization extended to other jurisdictions, it’s only one piece of the puzzle.
“We need someone who understands that it’s not just going to be a magic silver bullet,” she said. “It’s a whole set of things that have to happen and those things have to happen quickly.”
Budget sets aside millions to address crisis
Advocates have pushed for an expansion of harm reduction projects such as secure supply and supervised consumption sites.
The federal spring budget committed nearly $ 360 million over the next five years to address the opioid crisis, including $ 144 million for community-led projects such as safe places of consumption and safe supply programs. Another $ 4.6 million has been earmarked for Health Canada to “improve” the authorization of new safe drug consumption and control sites.
Safe supply programs are intended to offer people who use drugs an alternative to toxic street products which can be linked to deadly opioids like fentanyl. Of the more than 7,300 overdose deaths that occurred last year, 81 percent involved fentanyl, according to data from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Guy Felicella, a clinical peer adviser for BCCSU, says he would like to see new secure supply programs that are less bureaucratic and allow people access without a prescription.
“We cannot describe our way out of this crisis,” he said. “We need another way out of the medical system.”
Petra Schulz, co-founder of the advocacy group Moms Stop the Harm, agrees with Felicella.
“We need programs that are outside the medicalized system. So, non-medical secure supply through compassion clubs or other models,” she said.
Saks’s appointment comes as conservatives have attacked the federal Liberals ‘ response to overdose deaths.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has claimed that secure supply and consumption policies only contribute to the crisis. In May, he filed a motion calling on the government to ban all programs that provide non-toxic drugs to those suffering from addictions and instead redirect funding to treatment services.
Bach says that while more money should be invested in treatment, it should not be seen as a compromise with harm reduction.
“If we are having that debate, then we are already lost. We are already out of the course, ” he said.
“We need to invest in this whole spectrum of care for people who use substances. It’s critical. Anything else, any other discussion is a distraction from the system we need to build.”
Saks says she intends to work across party lines to address the crisis.
“I firmly believe this issue is nonpartisan, and I intend to build bridges to help Canadians,” she said in a statement.
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