LILLEY: Pierre Poilievre slams 'insane' Liberal drug policy

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Pierre Poilievre has injected drugs into the federal election campaign. The Conservative leader was in Toronto on Sunday morning, reacting to a recent court decision keeping drug injection sites near schools and daycares open, despite provincial legislation.

Last December, the Ford government in Ontario passed the Community Care and Recovery Act that banned drug consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and daycares. The ban was supposed to see 10 sites close, with nine of them converted to treatment and recovery centres dedicated to helping addicts kick their habits instead of just managing them.

A group of activists, though, took the province to court saying the move violated their Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person and their equality rights. An injunction allowing the sites to continue offering drug consumption services was issued last Friday.

“This and the Liberal policy behind it are a bloody outrage,” Poilievre said in response to the court order.

“The Sec. 7 Charter rights of children should come first. Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person means that kids should not be walking around stepping on dirty needles or at risk that an erratic fentanyl addict might lash out and kill a child. What about the Charter rights of the beautiful mother who was hit by a stray bullet coming out of a so-called safe consumption site in Toronto just a year ago?” Poilievre asked.

Well, in a world run by activists, those rights don’t matter as much as the rights of people struggling with addiction to get government-funded drugs, needles and a clean place to shoot up, snort or smoke their stash.

The South Riverdale Community Health Centre (SRCHC) — the location of that shooting Poilievre mentioned, the one that took the life of Karolina Huebner-Makurat — is one of the locations that was offering drug consumption site services. Thanks to the Liberal government in Ottawa, it had also become a site for so-called “safer supply” where government-funded opioid pills are handed out.

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It was for that reason that drug dealers were hanging out, fighting over turf and engaging in a shootout over customers. One of the workers at the SRCHC helping provide those services, Khalila Mohammed, pleaded guilty last December to being an accessory to the shooting after helping Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim escape after the event.

Seems they were in a romantic relationship.

This facility didn’t just employ radicals like Mohammed, it was run by radicals who believed they shouldn’t be offering treatment or rehabilitation. The centre’s website even informed users that there was, “No judgement, no expectations and no desire for people to stop using drugs.”

We were sold on these places that they were a way to help get people into treatment. The activists never believed that; it was a line to get the rest of us to go along.

Now, the province is looking to focus on treatment and the activists are fighting them in court.

Justice John Callaghan’s ruling won’t be made for some time, he needs to weigh the Charter arguments before him, he said. In the meantime, we can continue to have drug shooting galleries next to schools and daycares.

“When I’m prime minister, this Liberal insanity will end,” Poilievre said. “We will put the resources into treatment and recovery so that we can provide rehabilitation, counselling, detox, and we can lift the people up who are struggling with addiction.”

He went on to say that under a Mark Carney Liberal government, the insanity will continue.

Poilievre noted supporters of radical drug policy — either in Carney’s cabinet, like Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, or running for the Liberals, like Gregor Robertson, the former mayor of Vancouver who pushed for many of the policies that led to British Columbia having the worst opioid addiction crisis in North America.

These policies need to end; we need to focus on treatment and recovery. That is what Poilievre says a new Conservative government will do.