“I lost my daughter two years ago to this opioid crisis. I fought for the last two years to save her life, and I failed,” said Greg Sword, struggling to contain his tears. He had flown from Metro Vancouver to Ottawa, to tell parliamentarians he believes diverted “safer supply” opioids led to the death of his only daughter, Kamilah, two years ago. Sword testified safer supply opioids had ravaged her friend group and he wanted justice for them all.
Yet at the House of Commons Health Committee, where Sword’s testimony was given, the Liberal-NDP MPs in attendance didn’t seem too interested in his story. They asked no questions of him, and, worse yet, seemingly used parliamentary maneuvers to reduce his speaking time.
This outcome, though deplorable, was not altogether unexpected. The Liberals and NDP have maintained that “safer supply” opioids, which are firehosed upon addicts at taxpayer expense, are not ending up in the hands of youth, and that critics are merely fearmongering and spreading disinformation.
Faced with the rebuke of his tears, they chose to ignore a grieving father and, in doing so, prioritized politics over compassion and ideology over reality.
In the short time Kamilah’s father was given to speak, he told parliamentarians, “She liked the pills, and the ease that she was able to get the pills was unbelievable. She would go to the local park, and she would have what they call ‘safe supply’ within five minutes.” He recounted how a local dealer would travel to Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside to procure the opioids, which, according to Kamilah’s friends, would then be resold to them in Port Coquitlam, a suburban town 40 minutes away.
“It is so easy for these kids to get their hands on it, because we don’t monitor it in B.C. We just hand out the pills and hope that the addicts will take them and not sell them for the drugs that they want,” he told members at the hearing.
After Kamilah first overdosed on fentanyl at age 13, he begged the hospital to give her addiction treatment but was told that nothing could be done without her consent, which she refused to provide. “My daughter was stubborn. She would never ask anyone for help. Me, being a father, I had to sit there and watch my daughter commit suicide for a year,” said Sword.
A year later, she was found dead in her room, in the fetal position with foam on the corners of her mouth. After Greg accessed her Snapchat account, he said he discovered that her drug dealers were still offering to sell her “dillies”— the term refers to hydromorphone, a heroin-strength opioid widely distributed by safer supply programs.
Despite Kamilah’s death, two of her close friends continued to use fentanyl, a drug they had escalated to after getting addicted to hydromorphone. They eventually sought treatment after several overdoses, but it took a month and a half to access a public treatment bed. Neither family could afford private care.
“For a teenager, a month and a half is a lifetime, especially when they’re struggling with addiction. We could have lost (Kamilah’s friend) very quickly, because we do not have the funding to help these children overcome their addictions,” testified Sword to the parliamentarians.
Also in attendance at the hearing was Dr. Martyn Judson, one of Ontario’s most esteemed addiction physicians, who pioneered the use of methadone in the 1990s. Methadone is a long-acting opioid taken once a day that, if properly administered, manages withdrawals without inducing a euphoric high. It is widely considered the gold-standard of addiction treatment, alongside Suboxone, a similar medication.
As an expert witness, Judon testified that the term “safe supply” is a form of misinformation, because pharmaceutical opioids are inherently dangerous. He said that, with methadone, prescribers are vetted and patients are generally required to consume their medications under supervision. In contrast, almost any doctor can prescribe safer supply drugs, which are given away in large volumes with almost no monitoring.
He said that it is “unconscionable” that addicts are “entrusted to take that amount of an opioid home” and that the lack of monitoring in safer supply programs is “tantamount to negligence.” Safer supply “aggravates addiction,” he said, and has led to a collapse in patients seeking evidence-base, recovery-oriented treatment. The number of patients at his clinic, for example, has decreased by more than half.
Rather than ask Judson or Sword any questions, the NDP and Liberal parliamentarians tabled two motions at the committee. Neither was particularly urgent or relevant to the hearing’s proceedings. NDP MP Gord Johns, for example, called upon the government to protect the public health care system from being privatized by corporate interests like Loblaws.
In response, Conservative MP Stephen Ellis accused Johns of using parliamentary maneuvers to reduce Sword’s speaking time.
The Health Committee provides groups of witnesses limited windows of time – two hours, in this case – to give short presentations and answer questions. These appearances are generally scheduled far in advance and, once this window closes, few witnesses are given another opportunity to present again. By introducing unnecessary motions, and pressing for a committee debate on them, parliamentarians can derail proceedings and waste time that could otherwise be spent listening to, and questioning, certain witnesses.
Ellis noted that there had been ample opportunities to table these motions on other occasions. When Johns claimed that no such opportunities existed, Ellis replied that this was “absolutely untrue.”
“We have a gentleman here whose daughter died from this opioid scourge. And the two of you want to go on talking about something that you had nine years to fix. Shame on you,” Ellis berated Johns.
In a phone call after the hearing, Sword said that, though testifying at parliament was “nerve-racking” and “overwhelming,” he was “honoured” to share Kamilah’s story. Yet he found the Liberal-NDP MPs’ incuriosity “a bit frustrating” and felt that “their true colours” had come out: “They really don’t care about the common folk if it doesn’t serve their agenda. I didn’t really matter.”
Adam Zivo is executive director of the Centre For Responsible Drug Policy
National Post