Injection site should stay, high court says Ruling big blow to Tory crime plan
By: Mike Blanchfield
Posted: 10/1/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 3 (including replies)
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Supporters of Insite celebrate outside the facility in Vancouver after the Supreme Court of Canada announced that it would allow the safe injection site to stay open Friday, Sept. 30, 2011. Insite, located in Vancouver downtown Eastside is a safe drug injection site where addicts are supervised as they do injection style drugs preventing the spread of disease and risk of overdose. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
OTTAWA -- The Supreme Court of Canada dramatically derailed part of the Conservative government's tough-on-crime juggernaut with a landmark ruling Friday that firmly supports a Vancouver safe-injection site for drug addicts.
Dour Tories did not attempt to hide their disappointment at the 9-0 decision that left the government no wiggle room, firmly rebuked the Harper government's crime agenda and set a precedent on the division of federal and provincial powers.
A safe-injection kit at Insite. (CP)
Plaintiff Dean Wilson, who is a former user of Insite, turns away from cameras as he wells up with tears of happiness as he reacts to the positive ruling regarding Vancouver?s supervised injection sites, in the lobby of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa on Friday, September 30, 2011. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick (CP)
The court ordered the government to abandon its effort to close the Vancouver facility and to grant an exemption to protect Insite staff from prosecution for drug possession or trafficking.
"We're disappointed," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said at an event in Quebec City. "We have a different policy. We'll take a look at the decision but we will clearly act in respect and within the constraints of the decision."
Harper said he would have to study the ruling further, but "obviously, it is going to lead to some change in federal policy in order to respect the decision."
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq told the House of Commons the government was disappointed, but would comply.
Groups that backed Insite, including major medical organizations, hailed the ruling as a victory for evidence-based health policy over political ideology.
The justices agreed with Insite's supporters, who argued closing the facility would violate the rights of addicts living in one of the country's most squalid neighbourhoods, Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside.
The ruling rejected the federal argument that the facility fosters addiction and runs counter to its crime-fighting agenda.
The ruling arrived after the Conservative majority cut short debate on its massive law-and-order omnibus bill, ensuring speedy passage of nine different crime bills opposition parties had been able to block in previous minority Parliaments.
The Tories took aim at Insite in 2008 when then-health minister Tony Clement said the exemption for its staff should not be continued.
The court disagreed sharply.
"This limit is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice," said Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who held the pen on this ruling.
"It is arbitrary," she wrote. "It is also grossly disproportionate: the potential denial of health services and the correlative increased risk of death and disease to injection drug users outweigh any benefit that might be derived from maintaining an absolute prohibition on possession of illegal drugs on Insite's premises."
Insite supporters said peer-reviewed studies found the facility prevents overdose deaths, reduces the spread of HIV and hepatitis and curbs crime and open drug use.
McLachlin made clear in the ruling the federal government has a right to set policy, but when policy is translated into state action and law the courts must determine their validity under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"The discretion vested in the minister of health is not absolute; as with all exercises of discretion, the minister's decisions must conform to the charter."
The ruling represents a significant setback for the Conservative crime agenda and could lead to the creation of similar injection sites in major cities.
Insite is the only facility of its kind in North America. It gives addicts a safe location, with nurses on hand in case of problems, where they can use clean needles and sterile water to mix and inject the drugs they buy illegally on the street.
The political ramifications of the decision quickly resonated beyond the borders of Vancouver's troubled Eastside.
New Democrat MP Libby Davies, whose riding includes Insite, immediately called on the Harper government to abandon its ideological opposition to the facility.
"I don't believe any of them ever went there, they never took the time to really find out what Insite was about," she said.
"They always took this political, partisan, ideological position. And I want to say to them, have you now understood and learned the importance of what Insite is about, and how it's so much a part of our community?"
Liberal health critic Hedy Fry, who as a cabinet minister was involved in Insite's creation in 2003, said the ruling shows a get-tough approach is the wrong way to deal with addiction.
"Addiction is a medical problem and requires medical and public-health solutions," she said. "As a physician I believe that to deny proven, life-saving assistance to those who are vulnerable simply because one disapproves of their lifestyles is the ultimate immorality."
The victory was perhaps sweetest for Dean Wilson, a former addict from the seedy Eastside, who was a plaintiff in the court challenge.
Wilson said he wants to work with the Harper government to get on with the business of saving lives.
"I'm just extending an olive branch," said Wilson, who says he has been clean for two years, after 44 years of addiction.
"I want to continue to work together to do the best medical interventions we can. We're talking about really seriously ill people; we're not talking about people partying."
-- The Canadian Press
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/injection-site-should-stay-high-court-says-130900558.html |
