Gaslighting severity of safe supply trafficking is BC NDP failure of duty

Hi everyone,

You may have heard this week about the bombshell leaked BC Ministry of Health document that reveals a monumentally different view of safe supply trafficking than the BC NDP have thus far publicly admitted.

Here, hot of the Northern Beat press, is my take…

Fran

After years of attacking and gaslighting critics for calling out the dangers of “safe supply,” BC NDP government officials found themselves hoisted by their own petard when a leaked Ministry of Health document revealed system-wide corruption spanning from prescribers to organized crime, involving potentially millions of pills trafficked across B.C., Canada and internationally.

The leaked government document reveals public-funded drugs are being trafficked out-of-province and country, as well as allegations of fraud involving more than 60 B.C. pharmacies. No details were given on where or how many of the 20 million safe supply prescribed pills and patches paid for by the B.C. government over the past four years were trafficked.

Peppered with questions from reporters in a hastily called scrum the day the document was made public by the Opposition BC Conservatives, B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne said the document related to a special investigations unit that was “stood up” sometime before the election to look into safe supply drug diversion involving pharmacies.

According to Osborne and other sources, the leaked PharmaCare PowerPoint document outlined some of the unit’s investigative findings into diversion involving pharmacies, even though the document also referenced assisted living residences, doctors, pharmacists, gang members and organized crime on a slide entitled “Participants Involved.”

The document was presented to various police officers at several locations between late 2024 and early 2025 and was apparently intended to inform them about safe supply, how it is being diverted, and by whom. It references diversion activities at the pharmacy level involving illegal incentives to patients, falsified dispensing fee billings and dial-a-dope type drug delivery among other schemes. All of which amounts to “a web of public and private abuse,” said one source familiar with aspects of the investigation.

Osborne skirted requests by reporters to provide more specifics about diversion citing concerns about maintaining the integrity of the investigation.

When questioned how – after government officials have denied and downplayed diversion for years – they suddenly learned safe supply was being diverted nationally and internationally, Osborne sidestepped the question.

As far as who knew about this and when, and what government did about it, she said they’d become aware of “it” last year. The “it” turned out to mean a very selective aspect of drug diversion her government has finally conceded might be happening.

“We’re taking action on the allegations [regarding] pharmacists that are allegedly diverting supply to people,” Osborne said.

“That’s why we took action right away… That’s why … we have stood up this independent Special Investigations unit in order to take the action of investigating these pharmacists.

“These are bad actors that have no place in the system. They have no place in the harms that they’re doing to people this way.”

Osborne also said wrongdoers will be prosecuted.

One source who saw the briefing and spoke off-the-record said it was encouraging to see the problem being investigated, but questioned the likelihood of it resulting in any criminal convictions given the inexperience of the justice system and inadequate oversight within the healthcare system.

Whatever the eventual outcome, it does appear government is attempting to scapegoat pharmacies to deflect from the litany of other failings in the program: from the false premise it’s a medically sound treatment, to the patients selling their safe supply drugs for street fentanyl, to the RCMP acknowledgment a year ago that it’s now a part of the organized crime business model.

‘This isn’t about bad pharmacies’

“The NDP wants to drive the public’s focus to … a failure of pharmacies,” said BC Conservative MLA Elenore Sturko. “This isn’t about bad pharmacies. It’s about bad policies and a dangerous ideology.”

Sturko, the former BC United Opposition Addictions critic, has been doggedly rattling the government’s cage on safe supply harms since first raising the topic in Question Period on Feb. 9, 2023.

“I want bad pharmacists punished too [but]… we can’t forget the victims here are actually people with addiction and young people who have died of fentanyl overdoses that started off by experimenting with dillies and other diverted safe supply,” Sturko said, echoing reports from dozens of addictions physicians across Canada.

Judging by Osborne’s comments, any NDP-initiated investigation will be narrowly fixed on pharmacists.

This makes sense politically. Keep everyone’s eyes on the rotten-apple pharmacists, maybe the junk-science safe supply policy and the government’s years of inaction on the file will get a pass.

It could also give the BC NDP a soft back door to make changes to a bad program, while appearing to take strong action and mete out tough consequences.

This could calm the public, while mitigating fallout among the party’s most hardcore safe supply adherents, i.e., those obsessed with “personal agency,” defined as an active drug user’s right to consume drugs of any kind and quantity. The most vehement among them – including some key senior public health officials – don’t believe in the goal of abstinence or recovery, and will oppose any reduction in access to safe supply drugs, because free-flowing publicly funded drugs represent a stepping stone to their ultimate goal of legalizing all drugs.

Damage control and a rigged investigation

So far, the handling of the leaked document presents like a classic Eby-government damage control op.

Deny, deny, deny. Then, when the media spotlight is turned elsewhere, implement the most minimal of correctives with the least fanfare, while shirking the bulk of responsibility and blame. Ignoring public safety concerns for 10 months before passing weak legislation (later successfully challenged in court) to limit public drug use, feigning a tough stance against illegal trafficking by drug user groups after years of complicit support, and the premier’s whisper-quiet reversal on putting tracer chemicals in safe supply drugs were all textbook.

Later, if the public catches on, as it just did thanks to the leaked presentation to police, government officials will make the spurious claim they acted promptly on this disturbing matter.

As far as Osborne’s “investigation” goes, we don’t know the terms of reference, who the investigators are, what will be examined, or what goals government has defined for its outcome. But we can be certain a Ministry of Health-led investigation will not delve into the fundamental failures of its own policy-making.

And it certainly won’t scrutinize the perils of blanket-implementing – and wanting to expand – an unproven “health” program with horrific risks to the public and no medical science justification behind it. Because, despite all the studies safe supply advocates wave around (largely self-report surveys of drug users), there is no scientific proof the program does what it was originally designed to do – prevent people from using fentanyl and stop them from dying.

Addictions doctors have pointed out the harms of the program since 2021. In 2022 the scientifically-renowned Stanford-Lancet Commission on the North American opioid crisis specifically warned against unwitnessed safe supply and “converting the system to unmonitored, long-term prescriptions on a take-home basis.”

Public needs answers, not more spin

Nine years under a state of emergency with more than 16,000 people dead of overdose; five years after this “safe” drug program was unleashed on the B.C. public; two years of denying criticisms and denigrating critics while people were dying; a year after Alberta (politely) demanded the BC NDP rein in drug diversion; Eby and company are falling back on the same tired crisis-management playbook – deflect, prevaricate, and the godfather of them all, gaslight.

“In order to do these investigations in the best way possible – they cannot be compromised by leaking information. And from a confidential internal document from former RCMP officers to police officers, today it is just appalling that this would be done by the opposition,” said Osborne.

Good try, minister.

A document doesn’t deserve the impenetrable cloak of government secrecy just because the blockbusting information within is scandalous to the administration and the comms team hasn’t yet worked out a spin strategy that recasts the BC NDP as heroes saving the day.

Remarkably, the subterfuge and stonewalling doesn’t end there.

In response to follow-up queries about the nature of the national and international-level diversion, Osborne’s office responded with this inane statement:

“As this is an active investigation, we can’t speak to the specifics of any alleged activities. Once the investigations are completed, we will follow through and enforce the law to its fullest extent on any actions that are proven true.”

Actually, the public deserved to have this information years ago. And they most certainly must know it now.

Not just because this very expensive, years-long, experimental program is failing by every sensible metric. But because every day this government pretends their corrupted sinkhole of a program is working, resources are not going toward building services that could help people recover.

Meanwhile, every day, more British Columbians die.

‘There’s no bringing back someone’s kid that died’

“I brought this up in the B.C. legislature in [February] 2023 and they did nothing but deny, deny, deny, and then downplay, while the public’s risk was increasing,” said Sturko.

“We go from 577,000 pills in [the first] six months, to all of a sudden, in a two-year period, over 20 million pills and patches – outrageous.”

“All while the public health officer says the solution is more, more, more.”

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has downplayed the prevalence of diversion and mused it “is not good or bad or right or wrong.” She recommended an expansion of safe supply and testified to a federal parliamentary committee that she supports legalizing all drugs.

Conservatives want the B.C. government to end the safe supply program, fire Henry, and launch a full public inquiry.

“There’s no bringing back someone’s kid that died, and that’s why we need total transparency on what happened here, so that we don’t end up in the same situation again in the future,” said Sturko.

But the problem didn’t start and end with bad pharmacies, she said. It started with bad policy and a dangerous ideology.

“And the fact that the same people who got us in this trouble are now the ones being tasked with doing the investigation makes me extremely skeptical, and that’s why we need the public inquiry.”

Agreed.

Enough with the behind-closed-doors faux investigations. The BC government has a duty to protect its citizens and needs to get serious about stopping diversion, or get out of the way and launch an inquiry.

Because all this disgraceful gaslighting by the NDP has left the public dangerously in the dark.