VICTORIA — The House Leader of the Opposition B.C. Conservatives has described the "unsurmountable" price paid by her family in the province's toxic drug crisis, which she said had claimed the lives of three of her cousins and a niece.
A'aliya Warbus said in question period in the B.C. Legislature on Thursday that she had lost two of her brothers, a niece and a nephew, but later clarified to reporters that the male relatives were all her first cousins.
She told the legislature that just last week she attended a memorial for one cousin who died from "a lethal dose of drugs" a year ago.
"Not only did it take two of my brothers, but also my niece, who died alone in a tent, in one of the tent cities, from an overdose by herself," she said in question period.
A member of the Sto:lo Nation and the daughter of former lieutenant-governor Steven Point, Warbus paused at several points as she choked on her words.
"Just last fall, we buried my 13-year-old nephew, because he found a wallet with drugs in it, which he did that night in his bed while his mom slept in the next room. And he was not an addict," she said, before renewing calls for a public inquiry into what she called the "failed experiment of safe supply."
She said family members of those who had died deserved a transparent and accountable public inquiry "to expose who knew what, when."
Warbus later said that she wanted to clarify her relationships with the family members, because "it's hard for people on the outside to understand Indigenous families."
"I have 35 first cousins. We all grew up in one village, all close proximity, and so my brother, that is my first cousin. My other brother, that is my other first cousin, he's just a year older than me, very close in age."
The boy she had referred to as a nephew was also a cousin, she told reporters, but "these are my brothers."
"To me they are. The outside world might not see us that way, but they are," she said.
The issue of the government's safer-supply drug program, in which addicted people are prescribed alternatives to street drugs, has dominated debate in the B.C. Legislature which is sitting this week for the first time in nine months.
On Wednesday, the NDP government announced a major revamp of the program, converting it to a "witnessed-only" model in which users are watched as they consume prescribed opioids, instead of being allowed to take them away.
Osborne said this was to prevent diversion of the drugs onto the street.
Health Minister Josie Osborne offered "sincere condolences" to Warbus, saying her experiences were "difficult to imagine."
"I want to acknowledge that this crisis has touched Indigenous Peoples in particular, in a very disproportionate way," Osborne said.
But she said the safer-supply program had helped many people, and the government had to "act on evidence," and it would continue with the program to get people the supports they need.
Warbus said in an interview that she wanted to share her family's story "to remind people that there are people behind the numbers that we look at every day and to really humanize that statistics and remember that these are lives we're dealing with."
"This isn't a currency. These people, my family, all of those lives, they're not currency for people to use. It's something that needs attention. It's something that should break your heart. It's something that is an injustice."
She reflected on a text she received from her 14-year-old son earlier in the day, saying he wanted to go to a friend's house.
"I shouldn't feel fear every time he says that, right? You shouldn't, but I do, and he's a good kid and he doesn't get into trouble," she said, adding that people don't want to live in a society where a parent fears their child being exposed to drugs.
Warbus said money needs to be put into helping people with addiction, trauma and other underlying causes to help them recover permanently.
During question period, Warbus had said that one of her relatives died because the government "not only failed to stop the flow of fentanyl into our communities, they then inflated the market with so-called safe supply or safer supply."
DJ Larkin, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, said that "the data does not support that."
"That is conflating two things. The unregulated market of fentanyl, which includes analogues, benzodiazepines, tranquillizers, is what is driving people dying, and it tragic, and all of us are harmed by that," Larkin said.
"Safe-supply programs are not driving those deaths. The coroner data has been very clear on this that it is the unregulated drug market, not pharmaceuticals."
More than 16,000 people have died in British Columbia since the toxic drug crisis was declared a public health emergency in April 2016.
Last year's death toll of 2,253 people was down 13 per cent, lower than any year since 2020.
Lisa Lapointe, B.C.'s former chief coroner, also said statistics show illicit fentanyl, not prescription alternatives, drive overdose deaths in the province.
She said last year's figures show hydromorphone, which is most often prescribed as part of the safer-supply program, was detected in three per cent of overdose fatalities, and those deaths were not necessarily due to the drug.
"That number has not gone up. It is a very low percentage present," Lapointe said, adding that fentanyl was present in about 84 per cent of deaths.
"If the allegation is that safer supply … pharmaceuticals are leading do death, they are not," Lapointe said.
Opposition Leader John Rustad has accused Premier David Eby and his government of "gaslighting" the province over the issue of safer supply and drug diversion.
Last March, both the RCMP's commanding officer in B.C. and then-solicitor general Mike Farnworth said there was no evidence of "widespread" diversion of prescription alternatives.
But earlier this month, a leaked Health Ministry briefing for police said a "significant portion" of opioids prescribed in B.C. were being diverted, and prescribed alternatives were being trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally.
Rustad took credit for Wednesday's policy shift, saying on social media that the government had "caved on one of Eby’s signature policy proposals."
— With files from Brenna Owen in Vancouver
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 20, 2025.
Marcy Nicholson, The Canadian Press