In an effort to claw back the public health-care costs incurred by the opioid crisis, Canada’s provinces have filed a $67.4-billion US claim against OxyContin producer Purdue Pharma.
The provinces are some of the more than 600,000 claimants listed in documents filed against Purdue Pharma on Nov. 5 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
OxyContin was introduced about two decades ago, marking what addiction experts recognize as the beginning of the opioid crisis. The drug quickly spread to the streets, leading to a full-blown public-health crisis involving various other opioids and eventually a devastating influx of fentanyl, which killed many of the more than 4,500 Canadians who died of drug overdoses in 2018 alone.
British Columbia’s claim is for more than $9.1 billion US, while Ontario’s is $26.1 billion US, and Quebec’s is $15.3 billion US.
British Columbia’s claim against Purdue is for more than $9.1 billion US, while Ontario’s is $26.1 billion US, and Quebec’s is $15.3 billion US. (Douglas Healey/The Associated Press)
Reidar Mogerman is the lawyer handling the class action cost recovery litigation for British Columbia. He says this situation is comparable to past societal actions after mass public injury was caused by tobacco and asbestos.
“The Canadian number looks large and it is large because it’s a significant problem. I believe if you add in claims from U.S. entities you get numbers in excess of $2 trillion US. It’s really staggering,” said Mogerman.
In the United States, Purdue paid $634.5 million US about 13 years ago to settle litigation after being charged with misbranding OxyContin as less addictive than other prescription pain medications.
Health Canada has never investigated Purdue.
“It’s a product that we thought was useful and it turned out to be extremely dangerous. The carnage can only be addressed with society-wide tools,” said Mogerman.
Society-wide health care crisis created
He explained that as the drug maker became overwhelmed by claims related to the opioid crisis it moved to apply to the U.S. courts for bankruptcy protection, which has stalled the legal process.
Purdue paid $634.5 million US about 13 years ago to settle litigation after being charged with misbranding OxyContin as less addictive than other prescription pain medications. (George Frey/Bloomberg/Getty)
Mogerman says Purdue continues to sell opioids in Canada and the U.S., but the way they are used and marketed has become safer.
However, the fallout from the introduction of OxyContin has been a “society-wide health care crisis,” he said.
Three years ago Canadian provinces seemed willing to whittle down their $85.5-billion Canadian claim — for everything from emergency medical care to overdose prevention sites and addiction treatment programs — to a $2 million share of the settlement offer.
But outspoken Saskatchewan judges raised the alarm that the provinces were failing to protect public funds.
Purdue initially offered $20 million Cdn to settle a 1,600-member victim-centred Canadian class-action lawsuit that’s been ongoing since 2007.
But in the end provinces withdrew their support, after the judges’ rebuke.
In 2018 the B.C. government launched its own lawsuit against more than 40 pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue. That claim alleges they knew, or should have known, that opioids were addictive and leaking into the illegal market.
But all claims were frozen after Purdue sought bankruptcy protection in 2019.
Mogerman says patient claims began to be at odds with provincial interests — so they had to move another way.
He said B.C. takes this crisis so seriously that billions have been spent trying to solve it.
“The province needed to protect the larger public interest that it’s trying to pursue,” he said.
“But nobody has a silver bullet. It’s not an easy thing to solve.”
He predicts a reckoning will come and pharmaceutical companies will pay B.C. and other provinces compensation or his team will pursue the company and the family who owns it.
“We will pursue the cases to the ends of the earth if we need to,” he said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
