Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre has accused the mainstream media and public health agencies of misleading Canadians regarding the true impact of federal drug policy, says Blacklock's Reporter."Be more responsible," Poilievre urged reporters.“It is just so irresponsible for you to go and quote people who profit from the ongoing drug crisis as though they are experts,” Poilievre said. “They are not experts. If they were experts their policies which have been implemented over the last nine years would not have caused 40,000 deaths.”In 2022, Conservative MPs proposed redirecting all funding from the cabinet’s “safe supply” drug policy to addiction treatment and recovery programs, but the motion was defeated in the Commons by a 209 to 113 vote. The Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy currently costs over $1 billion, according to official estimates.“We’ve got to stop feeding the activist class and start providing treatment and recovery,” Poilievre stated. “I would encourage you, if you’re going to cover this drug issue, stop talking to the people who caused the problem, start talking to the recovery centres.”Poilievre challenged reporters to ask advocates “how many people they’ve gotten off drugs.” He continued, “Why don’t you ask them? Call them up.”“I don’t understand how media go to the same agencies and public health bureaucrats who helped cause the crisis and call them the experts when in fact the results of their policies are plain for all eyes to see,” Poilievre remarked. “There’s 256 homeless encampments in Toronto now. Fifty of them have opened up in three months alone.”“You are just being force-fed talking points by the authorities who caused the problem in the first place,” he told reporters. “This is exactly the problem.”“My proposal is recovery and treatment,” Poilievre said. “Am I going to give more money to these agencies that have caused the crisis? No. They are not going to get any more money. They have caused the mayhem. Have you seen the tent cities? And you think these agencies are doing a good job?”A recently published Department of Health memo on “national decriminalization” indicated federal support for “any jurisdictions that have comprehensive plans for the decriminalization” of narcotics in Canada. The document was prepared on March 21, only weeks before British Columbia abruptly ended its province-wide experiment with decriminalized public use of cocaine on April 26.Poilievre criticized the health department, stating it “had a secret document planning national decriminalization” under the Controlled Drugs And Substances Act. He claimed, “They tried to keep it under wraps until after the next election hoping Canadians would not find out but Blacklock’s Reporter got their hands on the document and it showed a secret scheme to legalize crack, heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs which if Trudeau and the NDP are re-elected will be as easy to get in your neighbourhood as a candy bar in a corner store. This is reality.”
