Poilievre proposes letting judges order drug treatment for addiction

RICHMOND – Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Saturday he would change the law to allow judges to order drug treatment for those struggling with addiction.

Poilievre was in Richmond, B.C., where he expanded on his plans to tackle addiction in Canada.

His latest idea would give judges the option to order mandatory drug treatment as a substitute for incarceration.

The proposal would apply to offenders whose crimes are connected to possessing small quantities of drugs for personal use or other minor non-violent offences.

“For more serious offenders, we’ll ensure that they will go to prison of course, but there will be treatment in prison and it will be an option for judges to require that the prisoner undergo drug treatment behind bars as a condition of ever getting released,” Poilievre told the press conference.

The proposals are appropriate in cases where those struggling with serious addiction have lost the capacity to seek recovery on their own, Poilievre said.

“This policy is not about punishment, it’s about redemption,” he said.

“When someone is too sick to choose help, we won’t leave them without hope. We’ll help them take back control of their lives.”

Last fall, Poilievre came out in favour of imposing compulsory mental health and addictions care for children and prisoners who can’t make decisions for themselves.

He said in October that he was still doing research on “how that would work” for adults.

Multiple provinces including British Columbia have proposed implementing or expanding mandatory treatment programs as communities struggle to cope with the opioid crisis.

Concerns have been raised about those proposals by mental health advocates who question whether compulsory treatment is effective, as well as civil liberties groups who fear for the rights of the patients.

Poilievre on Saturday addressed how those concerns appear to conflict with his campaign theme emphasizing personal freedom.

He said drug addiction removes an individual’s power to choose for themselves.

“That is why it is appropriate for the law to come in, take that person, put them in a treatment program,” and allow them to have hope, Poilievre said.

The Conservative campaign, which for the first time did not allow media to travel with the campaign tour and has limited journalists to four questions with no followup at Poilievre’s press events, allotted no questions to national media outlets at the Richmond announcement.

Some journalists shouted questions at Poilievre instead, one of which he addressed about Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s platform release earlier on Saturday.

Poilievre lambasted the Liberal plan, which proposes a deepening of the federal deficit and trumped up spending to reduce Canada’s reliance on the United States amid the trade war.

The Conservative leader said Carney’s plan would add “inflationary debt … on the backs of Canadians.”

“This inflationary spending means higher taxes and higher costs of living and a weaker dollar,” Poilievre said.

In recent weeks, Poilievre has intensified attacks on Carney that paint him in the same light as former prime minister Justin Trudeau, while emphasizing the Conservative campaign’s message of “change.”

He said Saturday that the Conservatives’ drug plan promises to help 50,000 Canadians on the path to addiction recovery.

He repeated pledges to shut down supervised injection sites and safe supply programs and to amend the Criminal Code to impose life sentences on those caught trafficking or producing more than 40 milligrams of fentanyl.

Poilievre has pinned much of the blame for Canada’s opioid crisis on so-called safer supply programs that provide people with prescription alternatives to illicit drugs and overdose prevention sites — another measure aimed at reducing overdose deaths.

In 2020, Health Canada funded safer supply pilot projects in three provinces, namely British Columbia, Ontario and New Brunswick.

“The most vulnerable Canadians, those struggling with addiction, are being given free drugs, abandoned to die on our streets, and Liberals like Mark Carney call it compassion,” Poilievre said Saturday.

“There’s nothing compassionate about giving taxpayer-funded hard drugs that ultimately get resold to buy fentanyl, heroin, crack and worse.”

Last year, both the RCMP’s commanding officer in B.C. and the province’s then-solicitor general Mike Farnworth said there was no evidence of “widespread” diversion of prescription alternatives onto the illicit market.

But in February, a leaked B.C. Health Ministry briefing for police said a “significant portion” of opioids prescribed in the province were being diverted.

The B.C. government recently overhauled the program that provides prescription alternatives to toxic illicit drugs, moving to a “witnessed-only” model in which people must be supervised while consuming their prescription drugs.

The province’s former chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, criticized the shift. It appeared to have been an “impulsive political decision” that would only drive people back to the toxic illicit market, she told The Canadian Press in February.

Vancouver was home to Canada’s first legal supervised consumption site, which opened more than two decades ago. The sites are aimed at preventing deaths from drug poisoning, allowing people to consume drugs in a setting where help is available if needed.

Poilievre said a Conservative government would shut down “drug dens” and put the money into treatment facilities instead.

Last year, Richmond councillors voted 7-2 in favour of exploring the possibility of a stand-alone supervised consumption site in the city following two days of heated debate.

But Vancouver Coastal Health announced days later that it was no longer considering such a site in Richmond, saying the latest public health data suggested the facility would not be the most appropriate service for those at risk of overdose in the Metro Vancouver community.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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The possibility of a stand-alone overdose prevention site had sparked opposition from local residents and opponents of Premier David Eby’s NDP government.

Poilievre said “the drug dens that have been tried to be pushed on Richmond, that won’t happen anymore.”

“There will be no government-funded drug-use sites under a Conservative government,” he said.

— Written by Craig Lord in Ottawa and Brenna Owen in Richmond, B.C.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 19, 2025.