Frank Mahovlich vs. Larry Campbell: Huh?

The Liberal senators all took a trip to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Friday morning for a wee info session on the neighbourhood's battles with crime, drugs, poverty and addiction (not necessarily in that order).

The morning featured an odd exchange between NHL hall-of-famer Frank Mahovlich and former mayor Larry Campbell, who are of course, both now Liberal senators. See the bottom of this story for the scintillating exchange:

The federal government will never be able to shut down Vancouver’s supervised injection site, a prominent Liberal senator and former mayor pledged Friday.

“Insite will never shut down,” Senator Larry Campbell told a gathering of his federal party’s senators in Vancouver Friday.

“They’ll have to arrest me before they shut it down.”

Campbell, Vancouver’s mayor from 2002 to 2005, was hosting an information session for his Liberal senate colleagues in the city’s troubled Downtown Eastside. But the senators’ visit coincided with a round of arguments this week in B.C.’s top court that has the future of Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site, hanging in the balance.

“This is a medical issue,” Campbell told his colleagues, who are in town for this weekend’s Liberal Party convention. “The federal government has no jurisdiction – none – in this issue.”

But that’s not what the federal government believes.

The feds are seeking to overturn a B.C. Supreme Court Justice’s ruling last year that granted Insite a permanent exemption from federal drug possession and trafficking laws.

The ruling, which surprised even Insite supporters, effectively gave Insite the right to operate despite what Ottawa says.

A decision from the B.C. Court of Appeal isn’t expected for several weeks.

While the city, the province, the Vancouver Police Department and the local health authority all support Insite, the Conservative government has been openly critical of the facility.

“I think the site itself represents a failure of public policy, indeed of ethical judgment,” former Health Minister Tony Clement told the House of Commons committee on health last May.

It’s become clear there’s a huge divergence between how the federal government and Insite advocates believe drug addicts should be treated.

“Supervised injection is not medicine. It does not heal the person addicted to drugs,” Clement said last year.

Supporters, however, see Insite as a health measure on the continuum towards treatment.

“For some people, they may never stop using,” Liz Evans, a nurse and executive director of PHS Community Services Society, which co-manages Insite, told the Liberal senators Friday.

“But if they don’t get HIV, if they don’t die from overdose, then that’s their right.”
Many people who live in the group’s non-profit housing, Evans said, still actively use drugs. The difference is the tenants aren’t on the street.

While many senators appeared moved by Friday’s presentations, which included a senior police officer, an urban planner and frontline workers from the Downtown Eastside, at least one senator questioned what’s come to be known in Vancouver as a harm reduction approach.

“Switzerland tried something,” said Liberal Senator Frank Mahovlich, the Hall of Fame former NHL player.

“They had a park and every drug addict in Switzerland came to Europe, so they had to stop that.”

But Campbell disputed the senator’s assertion, calling his comments “a myth.”

“You cannot have access to that supervised injection site unless you’re from that canton,” Campbell said. “If you’re in Zurich, you can’t go to another place and the reason for that is, as we know, they need the support of families and their friends. So that’s another myth. They didn’t go to Switzerland.”

“It did happen,” Mahovlich responded.

“It didn’t happen,” Campbell countered.

“It did happen,” Mahovlich insisted. “I was told it happened.

“Another problem was in the States,” he continued. “In 1957, I joined professional hockey and I used to go to Chicago. We’d go down the streets and they’d take us by skid row.

“Well, we were there … they put a highway through it and it wasn’t skid row anymore.”

Mahovlich’s colleagues didn’t comment on the senator’s assertions.

Feds have no obligation to allow Insite users to inject safely: Lawyer

The government is under no obligation to provide drug users with a safe place to inject, a lawyer for the Attorney General of Canada argued Monday.

It was the latest shot fired during arguments in B.C.’s top court that has the future of Vancouver's supervised injection site hanging in the balance.

The federal government is arguing that a B.C. Supreme Court judge erred in granting users and staff at Insite a constitutional exemption from elements of possession and trafficking drug laws. That decision, rendered last year, gave the government until June 30 of this year to fix the apparent contradiction.

“Sixty days from now, this province is at risk of not having a trafficking law,” lawyer Robert Frater, acting for the Attorney General of Canada, argued Monday.

Last year's decision, Frater argued, erroneously found federal drug laws had to accommodate the needs of the injection drug users who use Insite.

“The government is under no obligation to provide [drug addicts] with a safer way of breaking the law,” Frater said.

Frater suggested Insite proponents’ arguments for “reasonable accommodation” for Insite users under federal drug laws were in fact the “capitulation of criminal law.”

It would be as if, Frater suggested, the laws against theft had to be adjusted to accommodate kleptomaniacs, or if laws against arson had to accommodate pyromaniacs.

“This judgment is erroneous in every step of the way,” Frater suggested.

But lawyer Joseph Arvay, acting for Insite co-managers PHS Community Services Society and two of Insite’s clients, maintained the trial judge was correct in his decision, which in effect gave Insite the legal right to operate despite what the federal government said.

“This law stands between seriously ill people and the health care services they need,” Arvay said.

“Without Insite,” he suggested, “they’re in the alleys. There is a very, very high risk that they will inject using unclean needles and unclean water.

“… There’s a serious risk [they] will acquire HIV or [Hepatitis C] and pass it on.”

Upholding the elements of Canada’s drug laws struck down by the B.C. Supreme Court last year would prohibit addicts from using Insite and expose them to risk, Arvay said.

“It is the law that … creates the risk of death or illness,” Arvay suggested. “It’s the law that stands between the addict and health care.”

In his decision last year, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Pitfield compared the treatment of Insite injection drug users to how society treats smokers or alcoholics.

“Society neither condemns the individual who chose to drink or smoke to excess, nor deprives that individual of a range of health care services,” Pitfield wrote.

“I cannot see any rational or logical reason why the approach should be different when dealing with the addiction to narcotics.”

Federal government seeks to overturn Insite ruling

The legal battle over Vancouver’s supervised injection site will continue in B.C.’s top court today.

Lawyers for the federal government are expected to seek to overturn a B.C. Supreme Court ruling last year that granted Insite, the Hastings Street injection facility, a constitutional exemption to stay open.

In effect, the ruling found that elements of federal drug laws against possession and trafficking were unconstitutional where they concerned Insite users and staff, a decision that surprised even some Insite advocates in its thoroughness.

But Insite isn’t the only health facility that will be involved in this week’s legal wrangling.

The people behind the Dr. Peter Centre, which also operates a much less publicized supervised injection service as part of its care for people living with HIV/AIDS, will act as an intervener in the proceedings.

“We understand [the case] may have implications,” said Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation.

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Dear Dr. Montaner: Our maybe having referred to your organization as a synonym for feces was deeply regrettable

RCMP Letter to the BC Centre of Excellence in HIV/AIDS
2008-10-15 14:05 PDT

Dear Dr. Montaner,

On 2008-10-08 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was made aware of a request submitted by Pivot Legal Society seeking an examination by the Auditor-General of the commissioning of academic articles by the RCMP on Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site. The allegations made in the Pivot application regarding possible politically motivated research are of a serious nature and are deserving of response.

It is important to reaffirm the interest of the RCMP with respect to the establishment and evaluation of Insite as a supervised injection site. Our responsibility to develop enforcement responses and internal policy associated to enforcement of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act accounts for our role as an interested stakeholder in public policy matters regarding controlled substances. It is our responsibility as a national and provincial policing agency to provide expert subject-matter feedback on related issues from a public safety perspective, as may be requested, to government, our contracting partners and the public.

In these and other matters, the RCMP is firmly committed to the principle that public policy having the potential to impact public safety should be evaluated by research adhering to the highest available standards of objectivity, academic quality and transparency. In practice, this means a commitment to objective, peer-reviewed research from credible sources, and a willingness to approach research findings and their implications in an open-minded fashion. Further to this commitment, the Force affirms the legitimacy of our original engagement of Dr. Ray Corrado and Dr. Irwin Cohen to conduct research on matters related to Insite, and believes their completed research on these issues to be rigorous, credible, and an important good faith contribution to public debate. Dr. Corrado’s report in particular indicated that much more work was required, and more data incorporated, to pass meaningful judgement on the public safety impact of Insite.

The allegations made by Pivot Legal are taken seriously and are under review. Internal enquiry and consideration of the materials identified suggest that some of the actions and statements in question – subsequently attributed by media sources to RCMP employees – in fact originated from retired RCMP and/or non-RCMP personnel. However, regardless of their origin, the Force categorically condemns the sentiments and derogatory tone found within these comments.

The most serious aspects of the Pivot application concern research commissioned subsequent to the completion of studies by Drs. Corrado and Cohen. It is alleged that the RCMP and/or one or more of its Members allowed personal political views to intrude on our responsibility to engage in a fair and impartial manner in public discourse concerning matters of public safety; and that, in addition, attempts were made to create an appearance of independence for research which may have been funded by the Force. As these allegations are directly linked to the relationship of trust between the public and the RCMP, a relationship which is vital for us to maintain in the impartial execution of our duties, an internal review of the circumstances surrounding this research activity is currently underway and its findings will be disclosed in due course. It would be a matter of significant concern to the Force should these allegations be founded.

As we take these steps to ensure that the RCMP’s current and future engagement with research merits and supports beyond doubt the level of trust placed in us by Canadians, it is also important to us to continue to build and solidify our relationship with our partners in government, in the research community, and the public concerning important questions of public policy. Opinions on matters such as these cannot be formed in isolation: this is a multi-faceted issue which requires input from a range of expertise in related fields. The RCMP recognizes that the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS is a global leader in HIV/AIDS research. As you know, in the last week we have communicated with the office of the Provincial Health Officer and with the CFE to underscore our commitment to resolve this matter, and look forward to meeting with CFE researchers to address any concerns that you may have.

The role of the RCMP as regards research into significant matters of public policy is one of providing or facilitating appropriate, evidence-based contributions based on evident subject-matter expertise. Our belief in the value of research is manifest in RCMP “E” Division’s current five-year engagement with the Institute of Canadian Urban Research Studies at two BC universities to develop a rigorous research backdrop to our operations. We have chosen to move explicitly in this direction as a key component of our commitment to Crime Reduction, recognizing that a commitment to rely on objective, high-quality research is an attribute shared by all credible contributors to public policy, and welcome the challenge this standard represents. As we respond to this matter we welcome any subsequent communication or enquiry from the Auditor-General.

Sincerely,

///Original Signed by:///

Gary D. Bass, O.O.M.
Deputy Commissioner - Pacific Region
& Commanding Officer, “E” Division