Bonnie Henry too extreme for NDP
You could probably hear the groans echoing through most B.C. NDP offices last Thursday, as Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, recommended that meth should be sold in stores without a doctor’s note.
Henry released a report declaring that stores need to start stuffing their shelves with meth, cocaine and other highly addictive drugs, in order to combat the addictions crisis. The report was predictable — and rightfully — panned as bewildering, if not utterly insane.
Within hours of news of the report spreading, the NDP government rejected its recommendations. It turns out even the NDP has drawn a line it dares not cross in the face of an increasingly skeptical public and just months from a provincial election.
With a sputtering economy, rampant drug use and an affordability crisis, the NDP’S hold on power seems tenuous, especially in an era in which incumbent governments are losing elections around the world.
Polls show the B.C. Conservatives running neckand-neck with the incumbent NDP. Mainstreet Research’s latest poll even has the Conservatives ahead on Vancouver Island, which has traditionally been a blue-collar stronghold of the NDP.
Times have certainly changed. In 2020, when lockdowns began, Henry could do no wrong, and the NDP made sure to condemn anyone who suggested otherwise.
The NDP basked in her glow as a technocratic shepherd, as she recommended tightening or loosening restrictions throughout the year, with then-premier John Horgan and his cabinet happy to appear behind her during as many news conferences as possible.
In fairness to Henry, her recommendations were broadly popular among the electorate and British Columbia fared relatively well throughout much of the pandemic.
But now, Henry’s attempts to make drugs as easily available as candy has become a liability, and the NDP would probably prefer if she took a long summer vacation that extended past the October election.
It is truly remarkable how effective safe-supply evangelists have been at convincing public servants that hard drugs are no longer a problem to be dealt with, but a solution to be spread far and wide.
If Henry lived during the 19th century, she undoubtedly would have preached that single-malt whisky be supplied to First Nations, to counter the toxic effects of the moonshine being provided by fur traders, rather than banning its sale outright.
Henry’s report was made worse by its insistence on insulting the intelligence of everyone who laid eyes on it.
She had the nerve to try to push her plan as some sort of weapon against “white supremacy.” Yet there is nothing that white supremacists would enjoy more than their government keeping Indigenous people strung out on addictive drugs and dying.
Anyone can go for a walk around downtown Vancouver, Victoria or even small towns such as Terrace, to see the effects of B.C.’S current drug policy. Decriminalization and safe supply have coincided with some of the highest overdose death rates in the province’s history.
It’s not surprising that many of the report’s contributors describe themselves as a “settler” or “occupier.” Their choice of words and recommendations stand out as an unglamorous exhibition of the mental, intellectual and spiritual decline of Old Stock Canadians.
Performative self-sorting into “settlers” and “Indigenous” is just First World copycatting of the distinction between “Hutus” and “Tutsis.” The sort of language used by the report’s contributors amounts to lazy conformity at best, and patronizing narcissism at worst.
Using similar language, the report claims “prohibition in Canada is based on a history of racism, white supremacy, paternalism, colonialism, classism and human rights violations,” and attempts to connect the 19th-century association of Chinese immigrants with opium to the modern-day fentanyl crisis.
Residents of Vancouver’s historic Chinatown live adjacent to the epicentre of the city’s addictions crisis in the Downtown Eastside, and have endured random attacks from drug addicts and costly vandalism. Did the mostly white authors of the report consult Chinatown’s residents to ask whether they would feel empowered by heroin being sold in nearby stores, in addition to the street?
B.C.’S NDP government has mounted an at-leasttemporary retreat from its ruinously ambitious drug program. In April, it begged Ottawa to end drug decriminalization in the province, which resulted in open drug use in parks and school playgrounds. Ottawa granted the request the following month.
Just a year ago, the NDP looked poised to win a huge majority in October’s election. Henry’s suggestion that the province can fix the addiction crisis and cure racism with a shopping list of street drugs is the latest reason why the party is now gearing up for a tough election battle in the fall.