'No plans' to renew safer supply funding after federal support quietly runs out

Dozens of safer supply pilot programs lost federal funding earlier this year and Ottawa says there are no plans to re-up its financial support.

Starting in 2020, Health Canada provided financial backing to 31 programs across the country that offered "prescribed alternative" opioids to people with addictions.

The overdose crisis has rocked Canada over much of the past decade. Health Canada reports that more than 52,000 people have died of an apparent opioid overdose since 2016. Almost three-quarters of those deaths involved fentanyl. According to Health Canada, it only takes a few grains of fentanyl to kill someone.

The goal of safer supply programs is to offer prescribed, safer alternatives to illegal street drugs like fentanyl. In recent years, reports have also indicated that illicit opioids have become increasingly laced and contaminated with other substances — including drugs never meant for human consumption, like the animal tranquilizer known as xylazine — making the street supply even more dangerous.

Federal funding sunset at the end of March, but Health Canada told CBC News in a statement that "there are currently no plans to resume previous projects or fund new [prescribed alternatives] projects."

The federal government is still providing funding for a number of other harm-reduction and treatment initiatives.

Rob Boyd, CEO of Ottawa Inner City Health, told CBC News that his organization's prescribed alternative program was able to maintain support for most of its clients.

"We knew that the program was about to end, that the funding was about to end. So we had a mitigation strategy in place," he said.

But the lack of funding has meant that the program hasn't been able to take on new clients.

"We really do need to scale up harm reduction rather than to pull back," Boyd said.

Beyond prescribed alternatives, Boyd's organization provides access to other health services and housing supports.

"It really is about providing access to physical, mental and substance use health care for people," he said. "Sometimes that includes medications, and sometimes it doesn't."

When asked if the Liberals are considering further funding for safer supply programs, a spokesperson for Health Minister Marjorie Michel didn't directly answer the question. But they suggested there are "many ways" the government is addressing the overdose crisis.

"We are using every tool available to connect people to care, address urgent local challenges and keep our communities safe, including measures at our border to detect and disrupt the fentanyl trade and other toxic drugs," Guillaume Bertrand, Michel's communications director, told CBC News in an email.

Even if the federal government renewed its funding, Ottawa Inner City Health and other Ontario programs wouldn't be allowed to apply without permission from the provincial government — a new rule in Ontario's Community Care and Recovery Act that took effect this spring.

Safer supply — and harm-reduction programs in general — have been a point of attack for the federal Conservatives against the governing Liberals in the past year.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has repeatedly called on the government to dial back harm-reduction policies and instead focus more on treatment.

Katy Merrifield, a spokesperson from the leader of the Official Opposition's office, told CBC News in a statement that a Conservative government would end "drug liberalization experiments."

"Liberals disproportionately fund programs focused on stigma, harm reduction and vague references to 'wrap-around care.' Their reckless choices have destroyed countless families and made our communities unrecognizable after years of crime and decay," Merrifield said.

One of the concerns around prescribed alternative programs is that the drugs get diverted to the street supply. British Columbia changed its program earlier this year — to require people to take the prescription in front of a pharmacist — in an effort to clamp down on diversion.

But NDP health critic Gord Johns argues prescribed alternatives can save lives. He said it is "heartbreaking" that the government hasn't reintroduced funding.

"This is not leadership, it is neglect. People are dying and this government is choosing politics over evidence, and ideology over action," Johns said in a statement.

Boyd pushed back on the idea that the prescribed alternative program hasn't been helpful.

"It's unfortunate that right now there has been this anti-harm-reduction and anti-safer-supply narrative that's out there that is not really consistent with what the evidence is showing," he said.

"If the water is contaminated, you bring in clean water. [If] lettuce is contaminated, you pull it off the shelf and then you source lettuce that is not going to harm people."

The latest report published by Ottawa's safer supply program suggests that it was having some success — 85 per cent of clients surveyed reported a decrease or halt in their fentanyl use.

"We've demonstrated that they are actually very effective programs and they should be part of the toolkit," Boyd said. "We never said it was going to solve every problem because we're not naive enough to think that."