Thank you very much for this opportunity.
My name is Lorraine Brett. I've lived in New Westminster, B.C., since 1994, where I raised three boys with my husband David. I'm here to address the devastating mental illness, overdose and homelessness crisis facing this country.
For the better part of 20 years, my now 40-year-old son Jordan lived on the streets of New Westminster and Vancouver's Downtown Eastside as a drug-addicted, homeless, mentally ill man. It was 20 years of living hell.
He survived 12 overdoses. He would be rushed to New Westminster's Royal Columbian Hospital, only to be discharged to the streets a short time later.
When addicts face death, there is often a moment of clarity. They want to stop the nightmare. I will never forget the agony of listening to my son outside of RCH emergency, saying through tears, “I don't want to die.”
To get into a recovery bed in B.C., you need to first go through detox, but detox typically has two to three weeks of waiting or more, and clients have to call every day, which is hard to do if you don't have a phone. Jordan overdosed and was revived twice while on that wait-list.
There is an illusion often fostered by misleading government PR campaigns that addiction care is available for those who want it when they want it. Well, this is not true.
I saw calamity erupt on the streets during COVID when the discreet access to safe supply rolled out to homeless addicts like a sick sideshow circus. The endless drug use saw human beings like my son devolve to the level of animals from excess use. Worst of all, COVID reduced the number of recovery beds, detox beds and shelter beds. It was such a horrifying catch-22 for the street-entrenched mentally ill, who are the most vulnerable and are helpless without anyone to champion their dignity and their intention to get off drugs.
Safe supply and the legalization of hard drugs creates an inferno. It's a deeper level of hell. It stalks, traps and incinerates lives.
Our son is doing much better. How could this be?
Here are some things that did not in any way help our son: slick government marketing campaigns about ending stigma, safe supply, decriminalization and social justice activists calling to dismantle systems of oppression.
Here's what worked: involuntary treatment in locked facilities, appropriate antipsychosis medications administered in a controlled environment, psychiatrists willing to use the B.C. Mental Health Act to commit those suffering from psychosis and addiction, and the availability of a bed in an appropriate facility.
In 2006, I helped found the New Westminster Homelessness Coalition Society. I spent five years there, helping to launch a pilot project for services that are still operating today, such as wraparound services for the hardest to house.
Many wonderful people are working on the front lines of this crisis, but I've spent enough time in this system to know the difference between an expensive, professional media relations campaign and actual results.
For example, in B.C., a new recovery and psych facility called Red Fish was opened on the Riverview lands. Those ribbons were cut and the government fuelled media fanfare and trumpeted great press. Unfortunately, the public is mostly unaware that Red Fish was just a replacement for the aging Burnaby mental health and addictions facility, where our son spent three months. No new beds were created.
Where are all the new beds? Thousands more are needed, not a few hundred sprinkled across the country, here and there.
Here's my request of all of you. Stop trying to change the channel by pointlessly boosting expensive anti-stigma campaigns and safe supply rhetoric. Stigma has nothing to do with the overdose crisis. It's just a cynical PR strategy to make the public think they're causing overdose deaths through the way they think and talk about addicts, and that is nonsense.
There is no such thing as safe supply. Stigma does not kill. Drugs do.
The myth is that if it were not for stigma, addicts would be rushing to access the care they need and safe drugs. That's a fabrication. There is not enough care available for those who already actively seek it.
Jordan was an innocent, happy kid a mom could be proud of. He was a football star, a standout, an all around athlete and a hard-working, focused student, and then it all went south.
Alcohol led to pot, which led to crack, which led to meth, which then got mixed with fentanyl. Jordan does not want to be a drug user. He works incredibly hard to stay off drugs. He has just celebrated a year clean.
Here are some concrete recommendations for you.
Prioritize those simultaneously suffering from addiction and psychosis. Dramatically expand the use of mental health laws to incarcerate and treat dual-diagnosis persons. Dramatically accelerate the opening of thousands of beds in secure facilities. It's an emergency. Take it on as an emergency. Find those facilities. Procure the land. Make the construction happen.
For those who are addicted and not psychotic, but who present with such psychotic symptoms as paranoia, remand them to care involuntarily. If the psychotic behaviour disappears, well, then, let them transfer into voluntary treatment facilities.
Now, for sure, expand tenfold the number of detox beds and expand tenfold the number of treatment beds in Canada.
Thank you very much for listening to me today.
