It’s a story all too common in British Columbia. Here’s how CTV News reported it: “Police believe a drug overdose is the cause of death for two men, apparently in their fifties, who were found lifeless in a car parked at a gas station on Friday morning.”
It didn’t happen in B.C., though. It happened in Montreal on Aug. 25 and the real story is what happened next:
In less than six weeks, Montreal police had conducted six raids, arresting 13 drug dealers linked to the two deaths. They seized $19,000 in cash along with fentanyl, about 500 grams of heroin, meth and other drugs.
Montreal police chief Philippe Pichet was blunt after the last raid: “We will follow and stop those who put [fentanyl] into narcotics.”
Note his choice of words. Pichet was announcing the priority for his department’s drug enforcement efforts, he was declaring war on fentanyl “to stave-off a public health crisis.”
It’s not an isolated illustration.
Last February, a Gatineau couple were found in their apartment with their unharmed child, four days after overdosing on fentanyl.
Eight months later — following a six-month investigation — the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) announced it had shut down “an illegal weapons and drugs operation” in the National Capital Region with the assistance of the Ottawa and Gatineau police services.
Contrast those results with this in B.C.:
In September, Delta police announced the arrest of a 21-year-old dealer alleged to have sold tainted drugs that resulted in nine fentanyl-related overdoes in a span of 20 minutes more than a year earlier. The identity of the alleged dealer was no secret — his father was granting media interviews within days following the 2016 overdoses.
B.C. isn’t lacking police officers. Last year, there were 184 officers for every 100,000 residents, a tad shy of the national rate of 187.
Something else has to be at play to explain the stark differences in response to the opioid crisis between B.C. and other provinces. Part of it may have something to do with how local communities are policed. Outside of Atlantic Canada, B.C. is the only province to have more RCMP officers policing local communities than local police departments do — 5,378 versus 2,532, or nearly seven out of every 10 officers. In Quebec, 37% of local police officers are on contract from the provincial police force; in Ontario, 25% are from the OPP; and in Alberta, 38% are RCMP.
Only 11 municipalities in B.C. have their own police departments: one in Nelson, one in Abbotsford, four in the capital region and five in Metro Vancouver. Each has its own police board but their composition differs dramatically from boards elsewhere in Canada.
Boards are important. They’re where policing priorities are set.
In Ontario, the provincial government appoints three of the seven-member oversight boards. In Calgary, council appoints all 11 members to the city’s police commission. In B.C., boards are comprised of the mayor, one person appointed by the municipal council and up to seven members appointed by the B.C. government.
Among the appointees to the Vancouver board are an investment advisor, a property developer, a craft brewer and a physician. What they may lack in policing background, they more than make up for by what they share in common: Six of the seven have donated a total of $265,000 to the BC Liberal party since 2005.
If blame needs to be laid for B.C.’s less than stellar policing response to the opioid crisis, it’s not with police officers, it’s with the former provincial government and not just for their ham-fisted control over police boards but also for their short-sighted approach to funding the justice system.
Cops could be forgiven for wondering what’s the point in making an arrest if there aren’t enough sheriffs to keep courtrooms open?
It’s time for B.C.’s new NDP government to step up.
Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC.
www.integritybc.ca • @integritybc
