Pierre Poilievre wants Big Pharma to pay billions for toxic drug crisis

OTTAWA—A Conservative government would attempt to recover billions of dollars in damages from drug makers and others linked to the toxic drug crisis that kills thousands of people a year, leader Pierre Poilievre said Tuesday.

Poilievre said his government would both join an existing B.C. lawsuit seeking to extract damages from pharmaceutical companies but also launch its own with the goal of recouping $44 billion altogether to pay for the social and economic costs associated with toxic drug use.

“The people who profited from this misery should be the ones to pay the bill,” he said during his latest swing through B.C., a province where toxic drugs claim hundreds of lives each month.

Taking on the toxic drug crisis as a political pressure point is a relatively new tactic for Poilievre, but one his party sees as crucial to address, given the issue’s resonance with so many Canadians.

In B.C. in particular, the party has a fighting chance to pick up seats come the next election and Poilievre — as well as senior MPs from his front bench — have been repeatedly visiting the province in the six months since he won leadership of the Conservatives.

But that those in the business of manufacturing, promoting and selling opioid-based drugs should face legal consequences is not new.

More than 20 years ago, U.S. officials began warning that opioid-based painkillers were highly addictive, and began chastising the companies making them for aggressive marketing tactics that ultimately were leading to rising numbers of addictions, illness and deaths.

Numerous U.S. state governments and others in that country went on to launch lawsuits against drug makers, pharmacies and others in the industry. In 2018, B.C. became the first Canadian province to launch its own lawsuit.

The province settled with one defendant, Purdue Canada, for $150 million last year.

But its class-action efforts continue, and last fall B.C. amended a law required to launch the class action in order for the federal government to be able to participate.

Ottawa has yet to say whether it will in fact do so.

How so-called Big Pharma created and profited off opioid addiction is just part of the story of the current crisis. Another major element is the toxicity of the drugs people are buying on the street, leading to persistently high numbers of poisonings and deaths.

Poilievre blamed the Liberals for that Tuesday, suggesting the government’s support for “safe supply” of certain drugs as well as a decision to allow B.C. to decriminalize possession of particular amounts of those drugs exacerbates the issue.

“Putting more drugs on our streets makes for higher overdoses and more crime,” he said Tuesday. “What we need to do is give people the hope for a drug free life by putting our resources into recovery and treatment programs.”

But the B.C. Coroner’s Office has said there’s no evidence prescribed safe supply is the problem, citing toxicology studies that find no connection.

“Our province continues to lose an average of six lives every day, and many more people experience serious health consequences as a result of the unpredictable, unregulated drug supply,” Lisa Lapointe said in January.

What’s needed, she has said, is a range of options including safe supply, treatment and other harm-reduction tools.

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