Social Policy in Ontario

With the recent passage into law of Bill C-37, the government of Canada has taken a huge step forward in addressing the opioid crisis, acting on a stated commitment to harm reduction as a key pillar of Canada’s drug policy.

The new law will make it easier to open and operate safer consumption services in Canada without risk of criminal prosecution under Canada’s drug laws. Bill C-37 streamlines the application and renewal process and adds new requirements for transparency, including requiring written reasons if the minister denies an application — facilitating a challenge to that decision in court if need be.

But curbing the rapidly rising death toll from the ongoing opioid overdose crisis devastating communities across the country remains a paramount concern. Changing the text of the statute must be matched by immediate action: it is now up to the provinces and territories to implement this law without delay. Every day that passes means the body count rises, and more lives needlessly lost.

Provincial and territorial governments need to act now on some important fronts. First, they must ensure that funding is immediately available for safer consumption services and increase access to treatment for opioid use disorder. Without committed funding to actually administer these life-saving services, the new law will be nothing more than words on paper and people who use drugs in Canada will continue to die.

The numbers don’t lie: 412 people died in Ontario in the first six months of 2016, up 11 per cent from 2015, while in B.C., recent statistics indicate that overdose deaths increased by 66 per cent from early 2016 to early 2017. The opioid crisis has killed at least 2,300 people across the country just last year — more people have died from opioid overdose than any infectious epidemic in Canada.

There was an urgent need to pass Bill C-37, and now there’s an urgent need to ensure its implementation is not bound up in bureaucratic red tape.

At the same time, provincial and territorial health authorities must not impose, in the context of funding such services, unduly burdensome operational requirements that effectively delay their scaleup. As the ongoing opioid crisis illustrates, such bureaucratic delays are deadly.

In addition to safer consumption services, there is a pressing need to expand access to treatment options for people with problematic substance use, including medication-assisted treatment, such as the prescription of methadone, buprenorphine, hydromorphone and diacetylmorphine for those with opioid dependence.