Victims of B.C. overdose crisis remembered at rallies in Victoria, Vancouver

People who are grieving the loss of a loved one due to B.C.’s toxic drug poisoning crisis are renewing their message for safer supply and decriminalization, on the heels of the latest report showing a record number of overdose deaths in the province.

Dual rallies led by Moms Stop the Harm were held on the steps of the B.C. legislature and outside the health minister’s constituency office in Vancouver Thursday.

"We need bravery! We need guts," shouts one advocate in Victoria.

Tessa MacKinnon says she travelled from Duncan in memory of her partner, Aaron, who died Thanksgiving weekend, three weeks shy of his 36th birthday.

"He wasn’t ready to die," she says. "And I wasn’t ready for him to die."

His death is among 2,224 in B.C. last year as a result of an illicit drug poisoning – which is the highest annual total to date.

"We need to think about an approach that’s more compassionate and more effective," says B.C.'s Chief Coroner, Lisa Lapointe.

She attended the rally in support of the group, which could also be heard chanting: "What do we want? Safe supply. When do we want it? Now."

Advocates are also calling on the decriminalization of illicit drugs in B.C.

B.C. Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Sheila Malcolmson, says the province is listening, but faces jurisdictional limitations on what it can do.

She says the province is working to expand its prescribed safer supply policy.

"We need to add more access points, add more kinds of prescriptions," says Malcomson. “We’re in the course of doing that. We’ve already done that with fentanyl patches and FENTORA."

B.C. is also the first province in Canada to apply to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs for personal use, which Victoria’s Member of Parliament says she’s pushing for in the House of Commons.

"It is so essential that we start treating it as a health issue and not a criminal one," says Victoria MP Laurel Collins.

But those at the rally say government needs to move faster to prevent more lives from being lost.

"These people are real people and they were loved," says Leslie Hogya.

Her son died home alone before the pandemic.

"He struggled," she says. "But he was struggling to get better."