Just about every sale of fentanyl would apply, clogging our justice system. Time for a logic check.
As soon as the sloganeering unveiled a policy proposal, Pierre Poilievre’s mask slipped.
Under Poilievre’s plan, “anyone caught trafficking, producing, or exporting over 40 mg of fentanyl” would receive a mandatory life sentence in prison.
This 40-milligram threshold is a mere 1.6 per cent of the 2.5 grams that someone can possess under British Columbia’s decriminalization pilot project. For context, 40 milligrams is less than half of a typical baby Aspirin tablet.
When applied to a weight of 40 milligrams, “trafficking” — the sale, distribution, administration or transfer of drugs under Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act — becomes problematic given how fentanyl is sold and consumed on a street level.
As harm reduction advocate Zoë Dodd noted, fentanyl is generally sold on the streets in 100-milligram increments.
“If you’re talking about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, fentanyl users are using a quarter gram [250 milligrams] or more a day,” according to Guy Felicella, a harm reduction and recovery advocate.
“There are always hand-to-hand transactions, from dealers to drug users to other drug users. It’s a constant exchange in the Downtown Eastside. It’s pretty common for people to pool their money to buy from a dealer and then those drugs get distributed.”
These hand-to-hand exchanges constitute trafficking, which would — under the proposed policy — subject every habitual fentanyl user to a punishment of life in prison.
The very same people that Pierre Poilievre promised to “bring home” drug-free are now, by Poilievre’s own definition, “fentanyl kingpins” who should be imprisoned for life.
“Pretty much every drug user on the street would be going to jail for life,” said Felicella.
This Conservative policy marks an all-out “war on drugs” approach to permanently incarcerate drug users, which is inconsistent with Poilievre’s promise to provide drug users with treatment and recovery services.
It is also impractical.
An unserious proposal
Mandatory minimum sentence policies have been overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada, which in 2021 determined that appropriate sentencing for fentanyl trafficking is eight to 15 years. However, Poilievre has suggested that if his criminal laws are struck down by the Supreme Court, he will use the notwithstanding clause to “make them constitutional.”'
- Mo Amir, "Pierre Poilievre’s Pipe Dream: Imprison Drug Users for Life," The Tyee. February 11, 2025.
[We tried this in the fifties and sixties, especially in Vancouver - it didn't work then, it won't work now, and ignoring the Constitution and Charter to punish people is a bad idea too... ]
