KWAN WANTS PM TO BACK OFF SUPERVISED-INJECTION SITE

Since her election to the legislature in 1996 as the NDP MLA for
Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, Jenny Kwan has been a forceful advocate for
low-income people who live in her constituency. As part of those
efforts, Kwan recently introduced a member's bill into the legislature
to have Vancouver's supervised injection site, Insite, designated as a
provincial health facility retroactive to 2003.

Kwan's bill--called the Supervised Injection Facility Designation Act,
2008--advanced the argument that the province has exclusive
constitutional jurisdiction over health. So if Insite were to be
declared a provincial health facility, the federal government wouldn't
be able to shut it down without a messy court fight.

"The jurisdiction that is responsible for health-care delivery is in
fact the Province of British Columbia," Kwan told the Georgia Straight
in a June 3 phone interview. "And in the case of supervised injection
facilities--because we deem it as a health-care issue, the courts have
now deemed it as a health issue--it is even clearer to me that the
province has exclusive jurisdiction of the delivery of this service
under the Constitution Act."

Kwan said she has discussed this issue with Attorney General Wally
Oppal and Health Minister George Abbott. "Both of them did not reject
the bill out of hand, and are considering it as a possibility," she
said.

Dean Wilson, a director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users,
praised Kwan's courage in bringing this argument forward. "I think
it's a very normal route to go," he said.

Chuck Doucette is vice president of the Drug Prevention Network of
Canada, which opposes people injecting illegal drugs in a public
clinic. "I fail to understand how shooting an illicit substance which
could kill you could be classified as health care," Doucette told the
Straight in a phone interview. "Open the clinic. Give them all the
free health care you can, by all means. But why would you also include
shooting up something that could kill you? That doesn't make sense to
us."

In a May 27 decision, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Pitfield ruled
that two sections of Controlled Drugs and Substances Act--which the
federal government could cite to shut down Insite--violates the
constitutional rights of drug addicts. This means the facility can
stay open pending any appeals. However, Pitfield rejected legal
arguments from PHS Community Services Society, the Vancouver Area
Network of Drug Users, and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association that
Insite, as a health facility, had "interjurisdictional immunity" from
federal laws.

UBC law professor Margot Young told the Straight in a phone interview
that Ottawa usually has the upper hand legally if there is a conflict
involving activities in which both levels of government have
jurisdiction. However, there is another legal argument--known as
interjurisdictional immunity--that can be cited under certain
circumstances. Young said that she thinks Kwan's bill is an attempt to
set up this argument, which was rejected by Pitfield.

Vancouver Civil City commissioner and former attorney general Geoff
Plant told the Straight in a phone interview that he thinks it would
be hard to displace the federal government's jurisdiction over
criminal law. "I applaud any creative thinking about how to get us out
of this current policy impasse that seems to be so harmful of the
health needs of people who are most acutely in need of our help," Plant said.

B.C. Liberal MLAs didn't support Kwan's bill, which didn't get past
first reading when the legislative session ended on May 29. Kwan's
husband is a senior official with PHS Community Services Society,
which comanages Insite with Vancouver Coastal Health. Conflict of
Interest Commissioner Paul Fraser and his predecessor, H. A. D.
Oliver, have both stated in writing that they do not believe that this
places Kwan in any conflict of interest.

"The service is actually provided through PHS to thousands of people,
and anyway, many of them are my constituents," Kwan said.

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SIDEBAR

Insight into Insite

More than 8,000 people have visited Insite to inject
drugs.

About 80 percent of the 600 daily visits are for injecting, and the
remaining 20 percent for support services such as counselling.

The injections at Insite account for less than five percent of
injections in the Downtown Eastside.

Staff successfully intervened in more than 336 overdose events since
2006, and no overdose deaths have occurred.

Insite facilitated the immunization of injection-drug users during an
outbreak of pneumococcal pneumonia in 2006.

The annual operating cost was $3,000,000 or $14 per visit for the year
ending August 2007.

There was no evidence of increases in drug-related loitering, drug
dealing, and petty crime around Insite.

Source: Final report of Health Canada's expert advisory committee on
supervised injection sites research, March 31

Should B.C. tell Ottawa to butt out of Insite because provinces have
exclusive jurisdiction over health care?

Dean Wilson Director, Vancouver Area Network of Drug
Users

"I think it's a great idea. It will entrench what I believe is true
anyways: that drug addiction and, by extension, Insite is a health
issue and therefore it is provincial jurisdiction. It's not criminal
and it should not be federal jurisdiction. For once, that would
entrench it."

Margot Young Associate professor, UBC law school

"The provincial government can't fix this problem just by legislative
fiat. It's going to take a judge. What they're trying to do they
cannot do just by passing a law. It's going to end up in the courts.
They can't legislatively claim jurisdiction like this."

Jenny Kwan NDP MLA Vancouver-Mount Pleasant

"Really, what we need to do here is to take politics out of this
health-care delivery service....It is unconstitutional for Stephen
Harper to do what he is trying to do, and that is to deprive people
with addictions [access to] a critical health-care service that would
actually keep them alive."

Geoff Plant Civil City commissioner

"You're calling somebody who is completely supportive of Insite....My
initial view is that it would be hard to displace federal criminal-law
jurisdiction by an assertion that an issue is or is not a matter of
health care. You're not going to displace the authority of the courts
to decide that issue as it may arise."