By Scott E. Bernstein, Pivot Legal Society. The Insite safe injection site is the only legal supervised injection site in North America. It is located at 139 East Hastings Street.
After a long legal battle with the Harper government, on September 29, 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously to uphold Insite’s exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, allowing the facility to stay open indefinitely.
Supporters, homeless people and those who work with them, victims of the drug war and all those interested in helping those who have been, in many cases , abandoned and marginalized in our society, are invited to join the BC/Yukon Drug War Survivors and other groups at Jubilee Park in Abbotsford to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of the decision.
Celebrations are being planned for Montreal, Toronto and Abbotsford. Abbotsford was chosne in light of the worldwide attention the City brought upon itself during the Abbotsford Chicken Manure Incident in June, during which the City attacked the homeless with chicken manure.
As a result of that action Abbotsford has been under a microscope with revelations that as many as five municipal departments were involved in the decision; allegations that the Abbotsford Police Department has been harassing and terrorizing the homeless for years by slashing their tents and pepper spraying their belongings; and revelations that the Salvation Army was in agreement with the chicken manure dump prior to its execution.
The historic Insite decision in a nutshell
From the Pivot Legal Society
Unless you’ve been hiding with the radio and TV off and avoiding the web, you’ve already heard the Supreme Court of Canada decision on Insite – North America’s only sanctioned safe injection facility. In short, this morning we won a remarkable victory that will allow Insite to continue to operate and save lives, prevent disease, provide access to health care and recovery services and a host of other proven benefits. It was an important victory of evidence-based science over ideology. Importantly, we’re hopeful that this historic decision may open the doors to similar services throughout Canada and possibly into the United States where the results of the SCC are being watched by harm reduction advocates.
In May, I attended the Supreme Court of Canada as one of four lawyers representing PHS Community Services, Dean Wilson and Shelly Tomic – the three parties who began the legal action in BC Supreme Court in 2007 when faced with threats from the federal government to close down Insite. Sitting in the Ottawa airport, I blogged about the journey that took me through this case, first as a law student and then a lawyer. As my first trip to the Supreme Court of Canada, I was thrilled and honoured to be a part of this important case that affects so many people and to assist the talented senior lawyers who put so much passion into this case, Joseph Arvay and Monique Pongracic-Speier.
The media, of course, have been reporting on the decision this morning with gusto. But, understandably, there has been some confusion in the reporting of the actual legal decision that was handed down by the Court. For the record, let me give a brief explanation of what was decided (and what wasn’t) by the SCC:
In this case, we made two big arguments. The first was that Insite was health care and health care is a “protected core” of provincial power. As a protected core, health care decisions (like creating Insite) couldn’t be negated by a federal law (the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act or CDSA) . This constitutional doctrine is termed “interjurisdictional immunity” (impress your friends with this if you dare) and has been relied on by the courts less and less frequently in recent times and has never worked in favour of provincial powers, only federal ones to date. We lost this argument in the BC Supreme Court, and then surprisingly won it in the Court of Appeal. In the Supreme Court of Canada, we lost it again. The SCC said in this case to “apply it here would disturb settled competencies and introduce uncertainties for new ones.” So, when the media say that the SCC decision found that health care was in the purview of the province and can’t be ousted by the criminal law, that’s not really true. The SCC says that – absent any Charter issues – the CDSA applies and can oust health care because of another constitional doctrine: paramountcy.
The second argument, though, relied on the Charter. We said that the CDSA sections were unconstitutional because they violate the Section 7 rights to not be deprived of life, liberty or security of the person without being in accord with the “principles of fundamental justice” (continue impressing your friends). OR, the Minister’s failure to continue an exemption of the CDSA was a Section 7 infringement. In the end, the SCC found that while the prohibition on possession of drugs (but not trafficking) does engage life, liberty and security of the person, it wasn’t contrary to those principles because there was a mechanism in place where the Minister could grant an exemption for purposes of science, reasearch, etc. But, because the Minister refused to grant an exemption, this was contrary to the Charter Section 7 because this decision was arbitrary (undermining the purposes of the CDSA) and grossly disproportionate. So, in the end, the Court ordered the Minister (“an order in the nature of mandamus” – if you still have friends left after the first two, try this one out) to issue the exemption forthwith.
And, that’s the decision in a nutshell.
As for what the Insite decision means for the Minister allowing other facilities in Canada and what steps Pivot will take in the future in this area, I’ll leave that for a future blog post. But, the SCC seems to have left open a door or at least a crack (paragraphs 152 and 153):
The dual purposes of the CDSA – public health and public safety – provide some guidance to the Minister. Where the Minister is considering an application for exemption for a supervised injection facility, he or she will aim to strike the appropriate balance between achieving the public health and public safety goals. Where, as here, the evidence indicates that a supervised injection site will decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, the Minister should generally grant an exemption.
The CDSA grants the Minister discretion in determining whether to grant exemptions. That discretion must be exercised in accordance with the Charter. This requires the Minister to consider whether denying an exemption would cause deprivations of life and security of the person that are not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. The factors considered in making the decision on an exemption must include evidence, if any, on the impact of such a facility on crime rates, the local conditions indicating a need for such supervised injection site, the regulatory structure in place to support the facility, the resources available to support its maintenance, and expressions of community support or opposition.
Note: From Scott E. Bernstein – One point of note is that the “cracks” I wrote about that might allow for new injection sites are being filled in and then some by the federal government’s proposed legislation – Bill c-65 – the Respect for Communities Act. Also of note – two years passed and not one further government sanctioned injection site has opened, despite efforts by cities such as Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, etc.
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Background
Insite is the only legal supervised injection site in North America, located at 139 East Hastings Street, in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. The DTES had 4700 chronic drug users in 2000 and has been considered to be the centre of an “injection drug epidemic”.
The site provides a safe and health-focused location for injection drug use, primarily heroin, cocaine, and morphine. The clinic does not supply any drugs. Medical staff are present to provide addiction treatment, mental health assistance, and first aid in the event of an overdose or wound. In 2009, the site recorded 276,178 visits (an average of 702 visits per day) by 5,447 unique users; 484 overdoses occurred with no fatalities, due to intervention by medical staff
On September 29, 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously to uphold Insite’s exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, allowing the facility to stay open indefinitely. The ruling states that Clement’s decision to apply the CDSA to Insite was “arbitrary, undermining the very purposes of the CDSA, which include public health and safety. It is also grossly disproportionate: the potential denial of health services and the correlative increase in the risk of death and disease to injection drug users outweigh any benefit that might be derived from maintaining an absolute prohibition on possession of illegal drugs on Insite’s premises
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