Vancouver mayor, former mayors go to bat for supervised injection site his, government, challenge, balance, former

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Vancouver mayor, former mayors go to bat for supervised injection site


VANCOUVER -- With the future of Insite, Vancouver's medically supervised injection site hanging in the balance, Mayor Gregor Robertson and five former mayors have asked the federal government to back off its Supreme Court of Canada challenge of the Downtown Eastside facility.


In a letter Tuesday, Robertson and his predecessors said there have been numerous studies to show lives have been saved since Insite opened in 2003. They argue the facility is a medical service and worry that if the federal government insists on closing it addicts will return to more hazardous practices on the street.


The letter comes as the federal government asks the Supreme Court of Canada to ignore mounds of evidence trumpeting the success of North America's first supervised injection site for drug users, warning that the court should avoid becoming a "super legislature" by ruling on the wisdom of federal policy decisions.


The caution is contained in Justice Department legal arguments filed in the Supreme Court for a hearing Thursday that will determine the fate of the clinic. Ottawa contends that its power over criminal law trumps British Columbia's jurisdiction over health care in deciding whether the unique clinic should survive.


"Public safety demands that access to drugs be carefully controlled," federal lawyer Robert Frater says in a legal brief.


The B.C. government, in its written submission, counters the case boils down to "which level of government has the final say on the local delivery of vital health care services within a provincially authorized health care facility."

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The letter of support was signed by former mayors Philip Owen, whose Four Pillars Coalition led to the opening of Insite, Larry Campbell (now a Liberal senator) whose administration installed Insite, former New Democratic Party premier Mike Harcourt, Art Phillips and Sam Sullivan. The only mayor missing on that list is Gordon Campbell, the recently resigned Liberal premier. Robertson's office said Campbell is out of the country and could not be reached. But it was his government that funded the facility and which has come to its defence in court.


"Drug addiction is a health issue, not a criminal issue, and Insite needs to be recognized for what it is: a valuable health service that saves lives," Owen said. "To help people who are addicted, we need a comprehensive, health-based approach, and Insite needs to be a part of that."


The clinic, which opened under the Liberal government of Jean Chretien, initially operated under a three-year exemption from Health Canada, so that staff and clients were shielded from criminal charges. The Harper government declined in 2008 to extend the exemption but two groups, the Portland Hotel Society, a community organization that helps house homeless drug addicts, and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users launched a court challenge.


In 2008 B.C. Supreme Court ruled that shutting a health care facility that saves lives and curtails the spread of infectious disease violates the Charter of Rights guarantees of life, liberty and security of the person. The ruling was upheld by the B.C. Court of Appeal in January 2010, which that the federal government does not have the power to shut the clinic down because it falls under provincial jurisdiction over health care.


"At issue in the appeal is nothing less than the ability of the province to respond to an epidemic, and the rights of injection drug users to try to survive it," Joseph Arvay, a lawyer for the Portland Hotel Society says in written legal arguments to the Supreme Court. He says that the federal government's broad claim that criminal law should prevail "has the potential to exert a stranglehold on the provincial health care power, and imperil the rights — and lives — of some of Vancouver's most disenfranchised residents."


There are also 11 intervenors in the case, including the province of Quebec.


"The wide range of political perspectives supporting Insite demonstrates how crucial Insite has become, particularly for the health of some of our most vulnerable citizens," Robertson said.

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Brightly-lit user booths line a wall at the InSite safe injection site on Hastings Street, in this file photo.