In the legislature today, David Eby again signalled his position against taking action on the toxic drug crisis.
The Premier stated that the BC NDP, “did leave some specific areas where we hope people take advantage of services, where they go without fear of arrest. One is…at home. If someone has an overdose, that they can call an ambulance without worrying that there might be criminal consequences for that" in his request to the federal government to amend "decrim" to criminalize public drug use.
While the impact of the federal Good Samaritan Act has been mixed — it is positive that people should, by law, not be arrested during a paramedic overdose response.
But if someone experiences an overdose by illicit fentanyl they will not have the capability to call an ambulance. It is likely they will die.
This is congruent with how the Eby BC NDP have approached the eight year long provincial public health emergency, in which his party has governed over thousands of drug toxicity deaths.
Eby’s seeming political exploitation ofthe lives of people who access the illicit drug market has ramped up since the fall of 2023, when his party introduced Bill 34 in an attempt to increase police power to displace people who police officers believe have consumed an illicit substance essentially from all public spaces, as well as the defunding and targeting of the Drug User Liberation Front.
Eby appears to be exposing his own disregard for the public health emergency - and the healthcare system, which is already overburdened, including frontline and emergency responders, who have been burnt out and overworked throughout the emergency.
As the Eby-led BC NDP continue in this political direction and the supply continues to shift and become more complex, the public will continue to be negatively impacted, whether they use unregulated substances or not.