LGBTQ minister Pascale St-Onge to make history with parental leave

The toxic drug crisis is one of the most contentious and widely debated issues ahead of British Columbia’s provincial election on Oct. 19.

Here’s a look at the provincial statistics on toxic drug deaths to July 31, according to the BC Coroners Service.

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Deaths since declaration of public health emergency in April 2016: 15,140

2024 deaths: 1,365

2024 deaths involving detection of fentanyl: 83 per cent

2024 deaths with smoking as mode of drug consumption: 68 per cent

2024 victims who were men: 73 per cent

Deaths per day in 2024: 6.4

July 2024 deaths: 192, a 15 per cent decrease from July 2023.

Sept. 24, 2024: “One of the huge challenges with the prescribed safe-supply program is that there just aren’t enough physicians to prescribe, so as I said, there are estimates, reliable estimates, that there are about 225,000 people in our province using substances, unregulated substances. Fewer than 2 per cent of those people have access to a regulated supply,” said Lisa Lapointe, B.C.’s former chief coroner.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

MONTREAL – Members of Montreal’s Maghrebi community are gathering in a city park this afternoon to sound the alarm about what they call the “scourge” of street gangs recruiting youth to carry out criminal acts.

Event organizer Hadjira Belkacem says parents need to come together to reclaim their children from gangs and demand authorities investigate how kids are falling prey to the alleged recruitment.

Belkacem, who heads a group supporting mourning Muslim families in Quebec, says many parents have reached out to her with concerns that their children may be targeted.

Today’s gathering of people with roots in northern Africa follows several recent incidents in the province, including the death of a 14-year-old boy of Algerian descent who media reports say was found near a Hells Angels-linked bunker in Frampton, Que., about 50 kilometres southeast of Quebec City.

Provincial police have not confirmed the boy’s identity or cause of death, but multiple media reports say the victim is a teen from the Montreal borough of St. Leonard, where the gathering is taking place.

The province’s public security minister has publicly acknowledged the issue in recent weeks, and Belkacem says the teen’s death is not the only one to raise concerns among community members.

“Unfortunately, there have been many deaths of young people in our community,” Belkacem said, adding that Quebecers of Algerian and Moroccan descent have been especially affected.

“It starts at 12, 13, 14-years-old. Street gangs ask them to steal cars, go out and kill, that sort of thing… They recruit kids to do their dirty work,” she said. “We know because we’ve been called by several families asking for help and telling us that, ‘my child has been recruited into a gang.’”

Quebec’s Public Security Minister has previously spoken out on the issue, saying it is “vile” that organized criminals are recruiting youth.

“Like many Quebecers, what I hear coming out of Frampton shocks me,” François Bonnardel posted on X on Sept. 19. “It is vile for street gangs to enlist young people — children — to do their dirty work.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

VICTORIA – Almost 200 pages of research on the B.C. Conservative Party, which sources within BC United confirm were compiled before the party dropped out of the British Columbia election campaign to support their former rivals, have come back to haunt the new alliance.

The New Democrats are using the leaked documents to depict B.C. Conservative candidates as supporters of what they call “crackpot” conspiracy theories, including that Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol involved “antifa” in disguise.

Two BC United members, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Saturday the documents were the result of research compiled by the party before the election campaign, but denied being sources of the leak.

They said the research was handed over to the B.C. Conservatives as part of last month’s deal to suspend United’s campaign in hopes of avoiding a centre-right vote split.

One of the members suggested the Conservatives themselves could be the source of the leak in an attempt to “rip off the Band-Aid,” and one of the sources said up to eight people within BC United had access to the research.

When asked by a reporter about the documents during a campaign stop Saturday, B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad said he is confident about his party’s slate of candidates and the legislature is in need of “fresh people” who are willing to “stand up, say things and be themselves.”

“There are some obviously that still believe (NDP Leader) David Eby’s approach is the right approach and want to do everything they can to support him,” said Rustad.

“But I can tell you this, here’s the thing I really have to chuckle about: David Eby, close to half of his cabinet has resigned and is not running. He obviously does not have the confidence in his own team to do a cabinet shuffle and put people in position. What does that say about David Eby’s leadership?”

The documents were first publicly released by radio host and former BC United MLA Jas Johal on Thursday.

Portions were then shared by NDP candidate Ravi Parmar on social media platform X on Friday, and distributed by the NDP communications team in a short document titled “BC Conservative MAGA conspiracies.”

The accompanying NDP news release said: “Rustad’s candidates are openly endorsing crackpot MAGA conspiracies.”

The document uploaded to document-sharing site Scribd by Johal is 199 pages long and cites hundreds of social media posts by B.C. Conservative candidates.

It also includes material about Rustad that has already been highlighted by the NDP, including a speech in May last year in which he said children should not be expected to “eat bugs.”

Eby said at a Friday campaign appearance in Cumberland, B.C., that Rustad and his team were “focused on bizarre internet conspiracy theories — vaccines are a hoax, the COVID-19 pandemic was a hoax, kids are being forced to eat bugs.”

“Today (you see) a significant number of B.C. Conservative candidates advancing American election conspiracies that the January 6 riot at the Capitol Building was, in fact, a hoax, that it was actors that were made up,” he said.

“We can’t run our province based on internet conspiracy theories,” he added.

Ravi Kahlon, the NDP candidate for Delta North, said in an interview Friday that he is calling on Rustad to drop the candidates named in the “BC Conservative MAGA conspiracies” document ahead of Saturday’s nomination deadline.

“It’s very troubling that candidates, (and) John Rustad himself, have been falling down this rabbit hole of conspiracy theories,” he said.

Kahlon said he’s sure “everyone” has someone in their life who has fallen down those “rabbit holes” online and “come out saying weird things,” but people should ask themselves whether they want a premier who shares those views.

“These are people who are making important health decisions, important decisions about our environment, making decisions about where housing will be built, if it will be built at all, and so we want people who haven’t fallen down this rabbit hole of conspiracy theories leading the province,” said Kahlon.

He said the NDP was alerted to the various tweets after they were shared by Johal on social media.

The party previously highlighted comments by Rustad in June in which he said he regretted getting the “so-called vaccine” against COVID-19, and that vaccine mandates were “not so much” about achieving herd immunity or stopping the spread of the disease as they were about “shaping opinion and control of the population.”

Rustad said this week he regretted getting vaccinated because he developed heart problems after his second shot, and when he went for his third he wasn’t asked about it.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

— With files from Brieanna Charlebois, Nono Shen and Chuck Chiang.