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Vaccine inequality may have an economic impact, says report

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A report by Vaccine inequality may have an economic impact, says report (msn.com)tVaccine inequality may have an economic impact, says report (msn.com)he International Chamber of Commerce says that developed countries will still be hit hard by COVID-19 if poorer countries don't get better access to vaccines.

Government stuck on 'narrow' approach to tackling wealth inequality, economist says

© Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, pictured here in November 2020, kicked off consultations this week for her first budget.

The government is barely scratching the surface when it comes to using its taxation tools to fight against wealth inequality, according to an economist frequently cited by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland before her political career.

Freeland's updated mandate letter, published earlier this month, directs her to "identify additional ways to tax extreme wealth inequality." But so far, that seems limited to "very gingerly" closing some stock option loopholes, Miles Corak said in an interview on CBC Radio's The House.

If the government wants to make substantial efforts to reduce wealth inequality and its "corrosive" effects on social mobility, Corak told host Chris Hall, the first place to start is to stick with the taxation principle of "a dollar is a dollar" and treat income and capital gains the same way. Currently, only half of capital gains — the increase in value of investments, such as stocks — qualify as taxable income.

"That's a huge benefit to the well-to-do," Corak said. "That is the elephant in the room."

Corak, a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is best known for his work contributing to the "Great Gatsby curve" — a chart showing the relationship between inequality and lack of social mobility. That research was frequently referred to by Freeland in her former career as a journalist and author.

Government approaches leave much off the table: Corak

But as the deputy prime minister begins consultations ahead of her first budget as Canada's finance minister, Corak said the government's actions may not be living up to the economic inequality challenge Freeland described seven years ago before entering politics. It depends, he said, on how the government interprets its own promises around taxing extreme wealth inequality and making the rich pay their "fair share."

If the budget "just focuses on a very narrow interpretation of those phrases, I think a good deal will be left off the table in a way that Minister Freeland, the author, might somehow regret," Corak said.

The idea of closing stock option loopholes and even beefing up enforcement by the Canada Revenue Agency is not as significant as the wealth tax proposed by the federal NDP or debated in the United States, Corak said.

To truly attack wealth inequality he said, more ambitious action is needed, including eliminating the taxation gap between capital gains and income, and implementing something like an inheritance tax.

The economist said Freeland was an informed observer of the challenges facing many Canadians, and she was a principled person sincerely acting to benefit Canadians.

"But she's also a capable politician," he said. "And sometimes in politics, where you stand depends upon where you sit. And she sits in the seat of the minister of finance."

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Freeland says consultations launched to help rebuild Canada's economy post-COVID-19 (msn.com)

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Provinces sitting on millions in unspent federal pandemic spending, report says

OTTAWA — A new report on billions of dollars the federal government has sent to provinces to help safely reopen the economy suggests much of the money is sitting unused.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Today's report also suggests that federal efforts to stretch the financial impact of those dollars is falling short as many provinces have bucked cost-matching requests.

The analysis by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says six out of 10 provinces haven't spent all the money the federal government has sent their way, including for things like personal protective equipment.

Author David Macdonald says some of the money may yet be spent, but notes the longer it remains unspent, the less likely it ever will be spent.

Macdonald's analysis is based on a review of provincial and federal spending announcements, reconciling duplications, as well as provincial spending documents.

Federal and provincial governments are allocating hundreds of billions in direct spending and liquidity support to help workers, families, front-line workers and businesses make it through the pandemic.

The federal treasury has managed the lion's share of COVID-19 spending — accounting for about $8 in every $10 of aid, according to the federal Finance Department's math.

"They are the ones spending the money, they're the ones creating the funds and to a large degree setting the agenda of where they would like those funds to go," Macdonald said.

Included in the spending is $24 billion the federal Liberals sent to provinces in the fall under the "safe restart" agreement that was supposed to help make it safer for daycares, schools and businesses to reopen.

The report notes that money is sitting idle from a fund aimed at topping up the wages of workers deemed essential like those in long-term care facilities and grocery stores. Provincial governments were supposed to chip in for part of the top-up.

Macdonald says six out of 10 provinces haven't used the money available to them, with Alberta leaving the most on the table by far at almost $336 million.

He also says some return-to-class money hasn't been spent, particularly in Quebec.

Other provinces like Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick appear to have ignored a federal request to match funding to cash-strapped municipalities, Macdonald says.

There is no immediate explanation for why, but Macdonald says it was possible that the federal government decided to give smaller provinces a break on the cost-matching requirements to ease the strain on their own finances.

He notes that larger provinces did pony up matching dollars.

Combined, the underspending and lack of cost-matching raise questions for the government about its plan to spend between $70 billion and $100 billion over three years to prod an economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Macdonald says the stimulus bump from the planned spending could be diminished if provinces don't spend money sent to them, or don't match funding when asked.

That may require the Liberals to put tight rules on forthcoming spending, he says.

"If provinces aren't willing to go along, there may well be provinces that would be left out of, say, new federal spending on child care and new federal spending on long-term care if they're unwilling to go along with federal priorities or federal standards," he said.

"Otherwise, the provinces are clearly going to call the federal bluff."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2021.

Jordan Press, The Canadian Press

'Thank god for Canada': Harriet Tubman on the US$20 bill is a triumph for the Great White North

© Provided by National Post Portrait of Harriet Tubman taken just after the end of the U.S. Civil War.

The new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has fast-tracked efforts to feature famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the US$20 bill, a change that was first announced in 2016. Below, an updated version of a post first published in 2016 arguing the Canadian case for why there could be no greater figure on the world’s most circulated banknote.

If Canada could have hoped for anyone on a United States Treasury Note, it would have to be Harriet Tubman.

Here was a woman who lived in Canada, who risked her life to turn people into Canadians and stands as a testament that when it came to basic human freedom, the so-called “land of liberty” couldn’t hold a candle to a cold, agrarian British colony. “I wouldn’t trust Uncle Sam with my people no longer, I brought ’em all clear off to Canada,” Tubman told her biographer in 1869.

Tubman will be taking the place of seventh president Andrew Jackson, one of four men featured on U.S. money who owned slaves — and a president who ironically hated central banking.

“We’re ecstatic that we can call her one of our own,” said Rochelle Bush, historian for Tubman’s former church in St. Catharines, Ont. Between the 1851 passage of the Fugitive Slave Act and the opening shots of the Civil War 10 years later, Tubman was a well-known attendee at the Salem Chapel British Methodist Episcopal Church.

That is, when she wasn’t slipping back over the border to smuggle more people to Canada via the Underground Railroad. In total, Tubman freed roughly 300 former slaves by bringing them to Canadian soil, and hundreds of their descendants remain in the country to this day. Within Tubman’s own family tree, in fact, Bush estimates there are roughly 100 descendants living in Ontario and British Columbia.

As Bush noted, it’s a further testament to Canada that some of these Tubman descendants look black, while others look white. “Thank god for Canada; interracial marriage was accepted,” she said. In several former slave states, meanwhile, interracial marriage would not be legalized until 50 years after Tubman’s death.

Canada’s history is not free of chattel slavery. Notably, James McGill, the founder of McGill University, owned black household slaves. But as a component part of the British Empire, Canada was subject to London’s 1834 effective abolition of the practice , which occurred a full 31 years before slavery was completely abolished in the U.S.

Nevertheless, U.S. history has long been unusually coy about pointing out where the Underground Railroad actually ended. Often, textbooks will merely say that slaves were fleeing “north.” While early passengers on the Underground Railroad were initially able to stop their journey in the free Northern states, that ended in 1850 with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, a notoriously coercive measure that made it a crime for Northerners to shelter escaped slaves, even if they lived in a state where slavery had already been rendered illegal. From that point forward, the Underground Railroad had to be extended beyond U.S. borders into British territory

.

Tubman has already been adopted as a figure important to Canadian history. She was briefly in the running to feature on Canada’s $10 bill, and has been named by Parks Canada as a person of national historic significance. Saint Catharines is also home to the Harriet Tubman Public School, complete with a life-sized bronze statue of Tubman.

Kathleen Powell, manager of the St. Catharines Museum, similarly touted that “someone from St. Catharines” would be on a U.S. banknote (which, incidentally, currently costs CDN$25.40).

The honour will soon make Tubman among the most recognizable visages in the world, up there with Albert Einstein and the ubiquitous portrait of Mao Zedong. United States currency is used well beyond the country’s borders, and greenbacks remain the official or unofficial means of monetary exchange in several Central American countries and unstable corners of Africa. And among this vast array of international transactions, it’s the $20 that changes hands the most.

“There’s more $20 bills than human beings out there,” said Douglas Mudd, director of the Edward C. Rochette Money Museum in Colorado. The choice of Tubman is of sort of a no-brainer, said Mudd. In her 90 years, Tubman ran the gamut of United States history; a former slave, an abolitionist, a Civil War hero and an early suffragist. And, like any archetypal American hero, she always carried a gun. “In one person, she covers a number of different bases,” he said.

And, unlike a lot of the more political choices for U.S. money, support for Tubman is definitively nonpartisan. The conservative National Review, for one, praised the addition of a “gun-toting, Jesus-loving spy” in place of “overheated pompous populist” Andrew Jackson.

Appearing on a U.S. treasury note has a way of thrusting people into immortality. Alexander Hamilton was an influential Secretary of the Treasury, to be sure, but it was likely his face on the $10 bill that kept his legend strong centuries after his death. It was the prospect of taking Hamilton off the money, in fact, that inspired a revival in the Founding Father’s life story, including the hit Broadway musical Hamilton.

Canadians, of course, have a bad habit of smugly talking up their country in the presence of Americans, but Bush said it’s entirely fine now to “proclaim it to everybody” that the woman on the $20 bill appreciated Canada’s policy of not forcing those of African heritage to work for free.

Of course, in addition to former slaves, Canada also took in the people who had once owned them.

After the Civil War, in which Tubman served as a valuable Union spy and armed scout, British North America accepted many exiled Southerners from the defeated Confederacy, including Confederate president Jefferson Davis . “Canada was the gateway to freedom,” said Bush, “not only for freedom-seekers (the name for Underground Railroad refugees) but for Confederates as well.”

Union wants meat-plant workers on early COVID-19 vaccine list

CALGARY — The president of a union representing employees at some of the largest meat-packing plants in the country says there needs to be a discussion about making the COVID-19 vaccine more readily available to essential workers

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Thomas Hesse of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 says he realizes there's a shortage of the vaccine right now. But once that is remedied, he says, workers at large operations such as the Cargill meat-packing plant in High River, Alta., and the JBS Canada plant in Brooks, Alta., shouldn't have to wait too long.

"In the coming months at some point someone's going to make a decision about who gets the vaccination. Will there be a priority? Will there be any prioritization of any so-called essential workers?" he asked in an interview with The Canadian Press.

The two plants, which together normally process about 70 per cent of Canada's beef supply, were hot spots for COVID-19 outbreaks last spring.

Cargill's plant, south of Calgary, shut down for two weeks in April because of an outbreak that initially affected 350 of its 2,200 workers. Eventually nearly half the workers contracted the novel coronavirus and two employees died.

COVID-19 forced JBS to reduce its production to a single shift a day for a month, which added to a backlog of cattle at feedlots. The plants brought in safety measures that included temperature testing, physical distancing, and cleaning and sanitizing before they returned to normal operations.

Packing-plant employees are still at risk, Hesse said.

"In a Cargill or a JBS or other manufacturing facility in Alberta, there'll be a couple of thousand workers in a big box still working in relative proximity," he said.

"These are essential workers. They're at higher risk. This is clearly an occupational disease. Many of them want to have access to a safe vaccine."

Hesse said the union plans to hold a town-hall meeting Sunday to hear members views and what to do if getting a vaccination becomes a condition of employment.

An official with Cargill said the company is working with health authorities and medical experts to make sure its employees have access to vaccines when they become available without jeopardizing the priority being given to health-care workers

"We will prioritize our front-line workers whenever we can, as they continue to work tirelessly to keep our food system going strong," said Daniel Sullivan in an email.

"Because we know vaccines don't work without vaccinations, we also will join local health authorities in promoting the importance of vaccination among our employees."

JBS USA said it will offer all its employees a $100 bonus, including those in Brooks, if they get vaccinated in the future.

"Our goal is to remove any barriers to vaccination and incentivize our team members to protect themselves, their families and their co-workers," said CEO Andre Nogueira.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2021

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Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

Canada's Richest 44 People Add $53.6B In Wealth As 20% Of Low-Income Jobs Vanish

UBI, LIVING WAGE, &  WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK

FOR THE 99%

© Provided by HuffPost Canada

Canada is facing the spectre of “the greatest rise in inequality on record” as investors’ portfolios soar in value while hundreds of thousands of people join the ranks of the unemployed, anti-poverty group Oxfam Canada says in a new report.

The country’s 44 billionaires ― as listed by Forbes magazine ― have collectively added $63.5 billion in wealth since stock and bond markets began recovering in March of 2020, Oxfam found.

Worldwide, the ultra-rich have recovered from the pandemic’s economic shock, Oxfam said, but for the world’s poor, the group estimates recovery will take a decade.

Canadians at the lower end of the economic ladder are facing a major challenge to their wealth, with employment in Canada down by 636,000 jobs since the pandemic began, and another 488,000 people working less than half their usual hours, according to Statistics Canada.

In a recent report, economists at CIBC found one in five lower-income jobs in Canada had disappeared over the past year, while the country added almost 350,000 higher-income jobs at the same time.

“Women and marginalized racial and ethnic groups are bearing the brunt of this crisis,” said Diana Sarosi, director of policy and campaigns for Oxfam Canada.

“They are more likely to be pushed into poverty, go hungry or be excluded from healthcare. And yet, they are more likely to work frontline jobs that increase their exposure to the virus.”

Oxfam is calling for countries around the world to institute an emergency one-per-cent “excess profit” tax, an idea Canada’s New Democratic Party has also championed.

If it was levied on just the 32 global corporations that saw the largest profit increase amid the pandemic, Oxfam says it would have raised US$104 billion (C$132 billion) in 2020. That would be enough to cover pandemic unemployment benefits and child support in all lower- and middle-income countries, or nearly enough to cover the European Union’s aid to the unemployed, the group said.

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Singh Says Conservative Premiers 'Completely Failed People' On Paid Sick Days

Canada isn’t faring quite as badly as some other countries, Sarosi said, but it stands out in a bad way on sick leave policies.

Only two provinces ― Quebec and Prince Edward Island ― had mandatory sick leave days for workers prior to emergency measures put in place during the pandemic, though many employers offered some number of paid sick days.




The federal government introduced a Canada Sickness Recovery Benefit (CSRB) last fall, offering $500 per week for up to two weeks, but some health agencies said that’s not enough on its own to make a difference, as it pays less than a full-time minimum wage job and doesn’t address job security issues for workers who take time off.
Growing gender gap

Sarosi is particularly concerned about a growing gender gap in the pandemic, noting women ― and disproportionately women of color and those with disabilities ― are taking the brunt of the economic hit. She notes 70 per cent of the job losses in the pandemic have been among women, largely because they were concentrated in the low-wage industries that got hit hardest.



She says reforming Canada’s child care industry should be a major part of the reforms, noting that women, in particular, were thrust into new caregiver roles during the pandemic.

“Child care was unaffordable for families before the crisis hit, and now it’s even worse,” she told HuffPost Canada.

“In European countries, women have access to affordable child care and here it’s just completely left to market forces.”

Quebec’s subsidized child care model is one Canada could emulate, Sarosi said. The program, which costs parents between $7.30 and $20 per day, has been lauded by policy experts who say it’s the reason why a higher share of women in Quebec are in the workforce, compared to other provinces.

“It really is an investment. All the money that has been put in the system has been recuperated through increased tax revenue so the system paid for itself,” Sarosi said.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost Canad

Opioid overdose deaths occur less often in areas with more cannabis retail storefronts, study shows

© Provided by National Post Canada legalized cannabis use in 2018 and since then, licensed cannabis retail outlets, called dispensaries, have been popping up with regularity.

The more legal cannabis dispensaries a region has the fewer opioid deaths they suffered, according to a detailed new study published in a top-tier medical journal. Most sharply reduced were deaths from fentanyl overdoses.

In areas with one legal storefront cannabis dispensary, opioid death rates were an estimated 17 per cent lower than average. In areas with two dispensaries, there was an estimated 21 per cent reduction in mortality rates, the study found.

The results — based on U.S. data — suggest marijuana use as an alternative to opioids in pain management could improve health prospects.

What the study doesn’t do, however, is specifically declare a direct cause of lower opioid death rates.

“Our findings suggest that higher storefront cannabis dispensary counts are associated with reduced opioid-related mortality rates at the county level,” the authors write. “While the associations documented cannot be assumed to be causal, they suggest a potential association between increased prevalence of medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries and reduced opioid-related mortality rates.”

The study by Greta Hsu, at the University of California, Davis, and Balázs Kovács, at Yale University, was published this week in The BMJ, a respected medical journal previous known as the British Medical Journal.

It follows a Canadian study published this week that found legalizing cannabis led to a “marked decline” in the volume of opioids prescribed across Canada.

The Canadian study, published in Applied Health Economics and Health Policy journal, concludes that “easier access to cannabis for pain may reduce opioid use for both public and private drug plans.”

Another Canadian study, published last month and based on a large prospective examination of Canadian medical cannabis patients, found cannabis use significantly reduced the use of prescription opioids.

Published in the journal Pain Medicine, the Canadian academics concluded: “The high rate of cannabis use for chronic pain and the subsequent reductions in opioid use suggest that cannabis may play a harm reduction role in the opioid overdose crisis, potentially improving the quality of life of patients and overall public health.”

The BMJ study focusses on the extreme outcomes of opioid use.

“This association holds for both medical and recreational dispensaries, and appears particularly strong for deaths associated with synthetic (non-methadone) opioids, which include the highly potent synthetic opioid fentanyl and its analogs,” the study says.

“This study highlights the importance of considering the complex supply side of related drug markets and how this shapes opioid use and misuse.”

Canada legalized cannabis use in 2018 and since then, licensed cannabis retail outlets, called dispensaries, have been popping up with regularity. Although cannabis remains illegal under U.S. federal law, an increasing number of U.S. states have legalized its use and sale, some for recreational use but more frequently for medical use.

Deaths from overdoses of opioids — a class of drugs that include heroin, prescription pain relievers such as oxycodone, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, a particularly powerful pain killer — have risen sharply in many countries, including Canada. Fentanyl, in particular, has caused wide alarm.

The researchers, using U.S. data, said highly addictive opioids represent more than two thirds of all U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2018. According to Canadian government data, there were 17,602 apparent opioid-related overdose deaths in Canada between January 2016 and June 2020.

Researchers have looked at what impact cannabis dispensaries have on the use, abuse and impact of other drugs in the past, and have returned with mixed results.

In response, the two U.S. researchers drilled down to a more local level to compare data in U.S. counties that actually have dispensaries, rather than look at statewide or nation-wide data.

Their study also took into account how many dispensaries were operating in each county, probing how the count of cannabis dispensaries relates to opioid deaths.

Their data set spanned from 2014 to 2018, the first year that structured data on dispensaries was available, and ending with the most recent period for detailed health statistics.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | Twitter: AD_Humphreys

Vancouver, Feds Take Next Step Towards Decriminalizing Illicit Drug Possession

© Provided by HuffPost Canada A view of Crab Park at Portside and the downtown Vancouver skyline, looking west, in Vancouver on Oct. 10, 2020.


OTTAWA — The City of Vancouver has received a signal from the federal government to start formal discussions around its plan to decriminalize simple possession of illicit drugs.

In a statement Wednesday, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart called the step “another hopeful and critical milestone on the path towards fully embracing a health-focussed approach to substance use” in the city.

“This news comes at a time when the overdose crisis in our city has never been worse, with a person-a-day still needlessly dying due to poison drugs,” Stewart said.

“While 2020 looks to be the deadliest year on record for overdoses, I am hopeful that this news from Ottawa can mean that 2021 will be different.”

He thanked federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu for her “positive response” to the request..

Though the municipal and federal governments have started formal discussions, Kennedy’s spokesperson told HuffPost Canada there’s no set timeline for how long the process will take.

“The mayor wants them to begin [as soon as possible],” said Alvin Singh.

He explained the first step will be to create an initial framework proposal with consultation from Vancouver Coastal Health, the Vancouver Police Department, community groups and advocates, and individuals with lived experiences.

“Then, we’ll be able to go back and forth with Health Canada,” Singh said. “So sadly, not a lot of detail for timing, but we want it to happen quickly and there is a lot of expertise in Vancouver that will allow us to move towards a framework proposal in short order.”

In a Monday email obtained by HuffPost, Hajdu told Kennedy she is “committed to our continued work to identify options that respond to the local needs of the City of Vancouver.”

She also expressed optimism the partnership will address racial disparities such as the disproportionate representation of racialized people in the criminal justice system

“Recent statistics show that the rate of Indigenous adults admitted to federal custody was six times higher than the rate of non-Indigenous adults, while the rate for Black inmates was two times higher than for non-Black inmates,” the email read.

The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the impacts of the opioid crisis, and we cannot forget how it has impacted thousands of families in communities across Canada.Cole Davidson, spokesperson for Health Minister Patty Hajdu

HuffPost asked Health Canada for more details about the expected timeline for discussions. A spokesperson for the health minister did not provide additional details.

“Substance use is a health issue, not a moral one,” Cole Davidson, Hajdu’s spokesperson, said in an email. “The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the impacts of the opioid crisis, and we cannot forget how it has impacted thousands of families in communities across Canada. We have lost too many Canadians to overdoses and all levels of government must redouble efforts to save lives.

“Our approach has focused on harm reduction, including supporting the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act, funding programs to divert people who use drugs from the criminal justice system, and enhancing access to safe consumption sites, safer supply, and expanded treatment options.”

MORE ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THE OPIOID CRISIS

© Provided by HuffPost Canada

The development comes seven months after British Columbia Premier John Horgan wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asking the federal government to decriminalize personal possession of all psychoactive substances to help eliminate the stigma around drug use.

Advocates have urged politicians to give more attention to the issue given the alarming number of overdose-related deaths linked to the opioid crisis.

Vancouver city councillors unanimously passed a motion in November to ask the federal government to decriminalize small, personal possession of illicit drugs.

The motion called it a “necessary next step to reduce the stigma associated with substance use and encourage people at risk to access lifesaving harm reduction and treatment services.” That month, the city reported 329 overdose deaths in the year to date.
Vancouver following process that led to InSite approval

The City of Vancouver is seeking a federal exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which would allow substance use to be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal justice one.

It traces the same steps the city took to obtain a federal exemption to provisions of the act related to trafficking in 2003. That exemption, granted under Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government, allowed Vancouver to open North America’s first supervised injection site, InSite, in the Downtown Eastside.

Advocates fought for the opening of the facility to reduce needle-sharing and overdose deaths seen in the ’90s. Drug policy experts credited a changed political environment in 2002 and the community activism connections of a newly elected mayor as conduits to the opening of InSite.

There are signs of that sea change happening on the issue of decriminalizing simple possession of illicit drugs. Following in Vancouver’s footsteps, Montreal city council passed a motion Tuesday to ask the federal government to decriminalize simple drug possession.

© Provided by HuffPost Canada Montréal, Québec, Canada, January 4, 2016. -- Montreal is seen from Mount Royal (mont Royal) when the night is coming. 

(Photo by Thierry Tronnel/Corbis via Getty Images)

The current federal government has previously signalled that they have “no plans” to decriminalize illicit drugs, despite the issue being ranked as a top policy item by grassroots members of the Liberal Party at the party’s 2018 convention.
Police chiefs back push to decriminalize simple possession

Last year, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) released a report asking for substance use to be recognized as a public health issue.

The consensus from police chiefs is that criminally charging substance users with simple possession of illicit drugs won’t save lives.

But decriminalizing illicit drugs is only one piece of the puzzle, the report said, adding that ensuring and monitoring safe supply is another.

“While decriminalization can reduce some harms for people who use drugs, they are still dependent on an illegal market where the contents and strength of drugs are unknown,” states the CACP report.

“The unregulated drug supply in Canada has become toxic, leading to overdoses and death. Determining how best to regulate all drugs would be complicated and take time.”

In August, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada marked a shift by issuing a new directive for federal prosecutors to only focus on the “most serious cases raising public safety concerns for prosecution and to otherwise pursue suitable alternative measures and diversion from the criminal justice system for simple possession cases.”

The deaths of more than 17,600 people between January 2016 and June 2020 have been linked to apparent opioid toxicity, according to government data. A majority of these deaths have been accidental and linked to fentanyl.

It’s been nearly five years since a spike in opioid-related overdose deaths in B.C. prompted the province to declare a public health emergency in April 2016.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost Canada.

Canada considering drug decriminalization to fight overdose crisis

By Anna Mehler Paperny

© Reuters/JESSE WINTER A man injects street drugs in an alley in Vancouver

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's federal government is considering decriminalization of the possession of opioids and other illicit drugs in its efforts to tackle a spiraling overdose crisis, a government official said this week, even as data show the number of charges rising.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is facing pressure to rein in drug overdoses, though it has previously downplayed decriminalization.

Vancouver has asked the federal government to exempt the city from part of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs within city boundaries. A spokesman for Health Minister Patty Hajdu said on Wednesday that decriminalization was under consideration and that discussions with Vancouver were under way but would not comment further

That could subject people caught with small amounts of drugs to fines or mandatory treatment.

Canada's opioid toxicity death rate for the first half of 2020, 14.6 per 100,000, was the highest since national data began to be collected in 2016, according to the federal government.

The number of people charged with drug possession of non-cocaine, non-heroin drugs in Canada more than tripled to 13,725 in the past decade to 2019, according to Statistics Canada. The number of people charged with heroin possession almost quintupled, to 1,043.

"The idea that we're kind of becoming more tolerant isn't borne out by the data," said Neil Boyd, director of the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted illicit drug supply chains, making for a more toxic supply; it has also lessened supports and driven people to use alone, health advocates say.

Health Canada's move to discuss decriminalization "comes at a time when the overdose crisis in our city has never been worse," Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart said in a statement Wednesday.

Many health experts argue decriminalization would encourage drug users to use in safer spaces where they can access medical care.

Trudeau dismissed decriminalization last year, telling the Canadian Broadcasting Corp it was not a "silver bullet."

Portugal decriminalized illicit drug possession and consumption in 2001. In the 2020 election Oregon voted to decriminalize.

This week Montreal's city council also voted to support decriminalization. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police came out in support of the move last summer.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Calls to decriminalize drugs grow louder during pandemic
VIDEO Duration: 07:47 
Advocates in British Columbia have long been calling on the federal government to decriminalize drugs, yet action has been slow. Decriminalization means those who are found with small amounts of drugs would no longer face criminal charges, something advocates say would reduce the death toll of the worsening opioid crisis.

Opioid deaths highlight need to decriminalize hard-drug possession, police chiefs say

TORONTO — The scourge of overdose deaths underscores the need for Canada to decriminalize simple possession of hard drugs, the head of the national chiefs of police association said on Thursday

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

In urging action, Bryan Larkin noted that overdose deaths are outpacing those from the COVID-19 pandemic and homicides in British Columbia and likely Ontario.

"Over the last six years, 18,000 Canadians have lost their lives to drug addiction," Larkin said. "If 18,000 people lost their lives in traffic collisions, our country and our communities would not accept that. There would be outcry."

Larkin, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, made his comments at a virtual forum called "Policing 2021." The issue of decriminalization — as was the case with cannabis — is "polarizing" both within society and within police ranks, he said.

Like many others, Larkin said he was raised to believe "drugs are bad and people who use drugs are criminals." But criminalization, he said, has disproportionately affected the marginalized and people of colour, and there's now an awareness that addictions are a mental health issue.

"Nobody wakes up wanting actually to have an addiction," said Larkin, chief of Waterloo Regional Police Service. "The opioid overdose crisis in Canada doesn't discriminate."

Antje McNeely, who is Larkin's Ontario counterpart, said that changing the mindset of police officers when it comes to dealing with drug abusers was also important.

"We've been hard-wired," said McNeely, police chief in Kingston, Ont. "It is a mind change for the front line and the rest of us as well."

The national chiefs association raised eyebrows last year when it first began advocating for decriminalization of possession. Discussions on the topic were spurred by the legalization of cannabis and the mounting opioid death toll now exacerbated by the pandemic.

In response, the federal government has been looking at Canada's drug policy, with a view to reducing opioid-related deaths during the pandemic. Prosecutors were instructed last year to prosecute only the most serious drug-possession offences.

Larkin, who said he has been encouraged by Ottawa's response, noted the nexus between addictions and mental health, saying more than 10 people kill themselves each day in Canada. That is not something police can fix, he said.

Peter Sloly, chief of the Ottawa Police Service, agreed police need to become a "diminishing" element when it comes to dealing with people in mental health crises.

While police will always have some role in such responses, there needs to be a different model that takes in social services, education and the health-care sector, he said.

"We've been not just the last resort, but often the first resort on these types of incidents," Sloly told the forum. "We've become a bit of a Swiss Army knife."

Sloly cited a program in Eugene, Ore., where up to 90 per cent of mental health calls are handled without hard police intervention. Such changes take years to implement successfully and he warned against moving too quickly.

"There's a group of people out there who believe that police should have nothing to do with mental health services," Sloley said. "I just don't think it is practical."

The chiefs also acknowledged systemic racism in policing but said the issue was no longer being swept under the rug. At the same time, Sloly said simply addressing the issue within police services won't fix the wider problem.

"We're still going to have the conditions that produce crime and victimization, marginalization and discrimination," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2021

Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press