Vancouver Coastal Health accused of double standard for letting staff appear in anti-harm reduction event
This comes after one nurse was reportedly warned for emails to colleagues about supporting the Drug User Liberation Front and another was allegedly let go for statements supporting Palestinians
The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is being accused of a double standard by allowing one of its staffers to speak at an anti-harm reduction event put on by a conservative organization after it reportedly warned a nurse with reprimand for privately supporting the Drug User Liberation Front among colleagues.
Pouya Azar, an addiction physician, was billed to appear on a panel for the Save Our Streets Coalition’s forum Thursday, where he shared a stage with Nickie Mathew, an addiction psychiatrist and outspoken critic of harm reduction, and Marshall Smith, the former chief of staff to conservative Alberta premier Danielle Smith.
Marshall Smith was also given half an hour during the forum to push the Alberta government’s “Alberta model” for drug policy — one that reduces harm reduction and focuses on drug treatment centres — in the event’s keynote speech.
VCH ‘aware’ of Azar’s participation
The agenda of the event originally included Azar’s employment with VCH, but after the health authority was questioned about this, the affiliation was removed from the SOS forum page.
VCH said in an emailed statement that it was “aware that Dr. Pouya Azar is participating in an upcoming conference panel regarding mental health and substance use.”
“Dr. Azar is participating in this conference in their independent capacity as an addictions physician, not as a representative of the health authority,” the statement added.
Azar did not appear at the forum, however it appears not to be because of any objection by VCH, with moderator Carole Taylor beginning the panel by saying he was still planning to join.
Student nurse Blake Edwards said that Azar being allowed to appear on the panel was a double-standard after VCH reportedly warned a registered nurse with discipline for emailing colleagues about how they could support DULF following the arrest of co-founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx.
While that nurse’s email was to colleagues, the panel was a public event, and while it claimed to be non-partisan, conservative politicians and political actors were present throughout the various panels.
VCH’s statement did not respond to this disparity.
Another VCH employee — Hayf Abichahine, a Lebanese-Palestinian trans man who was director of its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion office — was also let go less than a month after he was hired, allegedly for advocacy for Palestinian human rights, which was conflated with antisemitism.
VCH did not respond to questions from the Tyee, when it reported on the matter in October.
A strong association with conservatism
Other panels included current and former police chiefs, including Kash Heed, also a former MLA for the BC Liberals; a panel that included former BC Liberal MLA Wally Oppal and Nanaimo mayor Leonard Krog; and a panel on housing that included former Vancouver mayor and BC Liberal MLA Sam Sullivan.
Krog is the only politician on the panels that was not associated with a provincial conservative party, but he, too, has pushed an aligned tough-on-crime agenda as mayor, including appearing in far-right YouTuber Aaron Gunn’s video Canada is Dying. Gunn, who is running as a Conservative in the upcoming federal election, was kicked out of the BC Liberal Party’s 2021 leadership race for transphobic, racist and sexist comments online.
Besides the panelists, SOS has been pushing tough-on-crime rhetoric, including pushing rhetoric of an $824-per-household-per-year “crime tax” based on a misleading report that used shaky data and assumptions.
Edwards said it is “really unfortunate” that a VCH employee could appear on the forum, effectively “aligning themselves with people that are on the record as having some quite alt-right stances on healthcare … and proponents of involuntary treatment.”
Criminalizing a health and economic issue
He said organizations like SOS and individuals like many of the panelists aim to treat what are ultimately health and economic issues — increasing mental health issues and the toxic drug crisis — as criminal issues.
The panel Azar was supposed to appear on included a significant focus on opposition to safe supply and other harm reduction measures.
In response to a question about street disorder, Mathew claimed BC’s approach has been to treat an “opioid deficiency.”
“I think in British Columbia, it’s been conceptualized as: someone doesn’t have opioids. If we give them more and different types of opioids, this is going to solve it,” Mathew said.
Safe supply programs don’t treat a lack of opioids — rather, they address the toxicity of the toxic drug supply and nearly always provide an opioid that is less potent than the one an individual is already using.
Nevertheless, Mathew said it “seems like every intervention has gone down that path.”
However, the BC government’s funding of treatment for substance use disorders dwarfs that of safe supply — not to mention funding in BC for policing, which towers over both treatment and safe supply. And in the last couple of years, the BC NDP has all but abandoned safe supply in its rhetoric around the toxic drug crisis.
A call for submissions by photographer Jackie Dives
A friend and very talented photographer is looking for folks to contribute photographs and brief anecdotes to a project about the toxic drug crisis. Rather than explain it in my own words, I’ll just share her Instagram post about it here:
I had an idea for how to collaborate with the community as a part of some of my upcoming exhibitions.
If you’ve had a close friend or family member die from an overdose please send me a photo of your loved one. In the body of the email include their name and an anecdote about them.
It can be anything you like, but something that made them unique is best.
For example, mine for my dad might be: He had two cats that he named Puss and Boots and after they died he got two more cats and named them Puss and Boots as well.
It can be sad, funny, simple. You have to be comfortable with the photo and the info being shared with the public.
For this idea to work I’ll need to get 208 of these so please share this far and wide.
Small caveat: There’s always a chance it might not come to fruition. I might not get enough entries to make it work. Just want to put that out there so that no one is disappointed.
If you’ve got a submission, you can send it to divesin@gmail.com. And if you don’t already follow Jackie on Instagram, you should.