As Victoria’s city council returned to session this week, Councillor Marg Gardiner brought forth a motion that would seek to pressure the Province to end temporary decriminalization of illicit drugs.
This decriminalization of small amounts of certain illicit drugs was sought and implemented as a strategic approach to the toxic drug crisis through a harm reduction lens.
However, this three-year decriminalization initiative is just a temporary exemption from the Canadian Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and will be ending on January 31st, 2026.
The BC government has yet to indicate whether they will seek an extension or renewal to decriminalization of small amounts of illicit drugs, but Gardiner’s motion sought to have Mayor Marianne Alto write a letter stating that Victoria would be against the endeavour.
In Gardiner’s motion, she wrote, “‘Harm reduction’ is an obscene phrase that obscures the harm done by illicit drug use.”
The motion noted a 5% rise in toxic drug deaths in 2023 from 2022, but failed to mention an 11% decrease in drug deaths in 2024, according to BC Coroners Service data.
Furthermore, thus far in 2025, toxic drug deaths have gone down by an average of 25% in the months that have data released by the BC Coroners Service.
After Councillor Gardiner moved and motivated her motion, Councillor Stephen Hammond seconded the matter, but stated he would not be supporting it.
“Politically, I thought, how do I deal with this,” said Hammond in the meeting.
He said he is horrified by how many deaths have occurred because of the toxic drug crisis, and admitted that he will never understand what someone struggling with addiction is going through.
However, he did admit that he understood the reasoning behind Gardiner bringing the motion forward.
“I think the only thing that we see is people saying ‘it equals death,’ as a matter of fact I’m looking at something that was delivered to us that [says] if we were to do this, ‘it equals death,’” continued Hammond.
“Well guess what? There is an enormous amount of death that is going on because there just seems to be more and more use of these very, very, very dangerous drugs that, from the grace of whomever, have not touched my life, personally.”
He concluded there has to be a lot more work done to advance harm prevention and reduction.
Next, Councillor Krista Loughton spoke to the matter, saying that this motion is the first time she has felt ashamed to be sitting on Victoria’s city council.
“I can understand that decriminalization and harm reduction can seem counter-intuitive to someone who is not well-versed in the issues, but we need to remember that they are a critical piece of the solutions to what we are seeing on the street,” she said.
“We have a year left in our term to make a tangible difference and this motion will take us in the wrong direction.”
Loughton noted that the motion claimed that decriminalization has taken a toll on Victoria’s most vulnerable, but had not provided any information to support this.
She added that she believes the “real solution” to the toxic drug crisis lies in strengthening health services, as BC did in 2024, which helped drive toxic drug deaths down, rather than reviving the “failed war on drugs.”
According to a letter to council from former Chief Coroner of BC, Lisa Lapointe, decriminalization has led directly to hundreds of fewer deaths, and that harm reduction is not an “obscene phrase,” as Gardiner referred to it, but rather a cornerstone of modern science.
“Just as we use seatbelts to reduce injury from driving, or provide sterile syringes to prevent infection, harm reduction saves lives while respecting human dignity,” said Loughton while reading from Lapointe’s letter.
Loughton even noted that former VicPD chief constable Del Manak is and was a supporter of implementing harm reduction tools and methods.
This past weekend happened to be International Overdose Awareness Day, which offers a day for mourning the loss of loved ones to the toxic drug crisis.
Loughton says that many of the family members of those who have died of drug use wrote to council, urging them not to support this motion.
“To bring this motion forward in that same week, shows at best, a lack of awareness, at worst, a callous disregard for those lives,” stated Loughton.
After an opportunity for some other councillors to offer brief statements in opposition, Councillor Gardiner still stood behind the motion.
In the end, all councillors aside from Gardiner voted against this motion.
