Conservatives target supervised consumption sites, NDP promises rent control
Pierre Poilievre announces $1B for recovery; Jagmeet Singh ties housing funds to new rules protecting renters
A Conservative government would prevent any new supervised consumption sites from opening, while making it harder for existing sites to operate, leader Pierre Poilievre announced Sunday, as he provided greater detail into his approach to a form of harm reduction he has repeatedly condemned.
Poilievre was in New Westminster, B.C., to announce a Conservative government would divert funding from supervised consumption sites and commit $1 billion to fund addictions care for 50,000 people. He said the money would develop new recovery options, such as detox facilities, treatment centres and sweat lodges, and support organizations with a "proven record" of success.
Organizations and interest groups "contributing to and complicit in the distribution of high-powered opioids and the harm-production programs" will be cut off from federal funding, Poilievre said.
"We've lost 50,000 people to overdoses. The least we can do is, in their honour, save 50,000 more."
He said Canada needs a different approach to recovery than supervised consumption sites, which he has decried as "drug dens" responsible for the current crisis. The Liberals and NDP have defended the sites for attending to overdoses and saving lives.
"Let's be clear: these drug consumption sites do not work," Poilievre said.
His government would prevent any new supervised consumption sites from being located within 500 metres of schools, daycares, playgrounds, parks or seniors' homes, he pledged.
Poilievre is vowing to suspend the approval of new supervised consumption sites until "clear evidence demonstrates they support recovery," according to a party statement. It is unclear what evidence the Conservatives would rely on, as Poilievre has disagreed with harm-reduction advocates who say there's proof these facilities have saved lives.
The Conservatives would also end the temporary exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that authorized supervised consumption sites to open without requiring approval from the provincial government.
Some facilities will stay open
However, Poilievre stopped short of saying all facilities would close. Last summer, he vowed to remove all federal funding for prescribed alternative drug programs and redirect that money into drug treatment.
On Sunday, Poilievre said existing sites that aren't close to community gathering places could still operate, so long as they follow new oversight rules.
"There should be a small number in limited cases that are open, where they welcome drug users in, they immediately offer them a path to recovery, give them a connection to a recovery program, offer them counselling on how to break their dependence and start their lives again."
If elected, the Conservatives would require supervised consumption sites to check the health cards of all users and have licensed medical staff on-site at all times. The facilities must focus on connecting users with treatment and have the support of nearby businesses and first responders. They must also adhere to cleanliness standards and ensure needles in the surrounding area are removed.
Each facility would face annual reviews. Any centre that doesn't meet the federal standards would have 30 days to comply or be shut down.
As it stands, Poilievre said consumption sites have been a "total disaster" in British Columbia, and the Liberals have refused to change course.
"British Columbia has been the ground zero for this massive deadly Liberal failure," he said.
While Poilievre was speaking at a convention centre in New Westminster, Peter Julian, who's held the riding for the NDP since 2004, was campaigning outside the building in the rain.
Julian said supervised consumption sites are one tool to help people recover from their addictions.
He said Poilievre's "idea that we take away safe supply means the possibility of more people dying from toxic drugs. It's simply an agenda that I think people reject."
NDP wants new conditions on housing money
Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was on the East Coast Sunday to announce a government under his leadership would only provide federal home-building money to cities and towns that have strict rent controls.
He said he has no qualms wading into rent control, a matter of provincial jurisdiction, because the housing shortage is a "national crisis."
"I could look for excuses all day long," Singh said from Halifax, where the median rent of the oldest apartments increased by more than 40 per cent in the last four years.
"I think a leader is not one who looks for excuses, it's someone who looks for solutions.… We can absolutely find ways to protect people at the federal level."
Under the NDP's plan, access to federal housing funding would be tied to rent controls and the banning of certain practices that turf people from their homes, such as fixed-term leases, renovictions and demovictions.
These new conditions would be an extension of the stipulations placed on the Liberal government's Housing Accelerator Fund, which provides money to local governments that streamline land-use planning and development approvals in order to build more homes.
The NDP plans to keep that fund, while the Conservatives promised to cut it to partially fund its promise to eliminate the GST from sales of new homes costing less than $1.3 million.
Singh said national rent controls will ensure Ottawa isn't helping build homes that only address the lack of affordable options in the short term.
"Why would we invest in building homes that are affordable if then, in a couple of years, those homes are no longer affordable? That would be a bad investment," he said.
Some examples of rent control by the provinces could include new rules on rent increases, bans on above-guideline rent hikes and changes to new unit exemptions, the party said in a news release.
Singh also pledged to bring rent controls to federally regulated housing, such as military housing and homes on federally owned land, and to ban rent price-fixing.
His party's candidate in the Halifax riding is Lisa Roberts, a former Nova Scotia MLA who served as the NDP's housing critic.
After she became a MLA in 2016, Roberts recalls for the first time seeing a person sleeping in a tent in the constituency. Rent controls will help to prevent those outcomes, she said.
"It's been really quite dramatic over the past eight years how prevalent visible, persistent homelessness has become," she said.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney has no policy announcements scheduled on Sunday, but he's meeting with people in Victoria tonight.
Earlier in the day, he spoke with United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer regarding the "United States' unjustified global trade actions and the need to reinforce our trade relationships with reliable partners," according to a news release from the Prime Minister's Office.
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With files from Olivia Stefanovich