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Canadian Drug Strategies

Student

By Mykayla McGowan

Are Canadian Drug Strategies Out of Commission?

Substance use is the fuel that keeps the dumpster fire of Canada’s criminal justice complex and health care system ablaze. With 1 in 5 Canadians experiencing a substance use disorder in their lifetime, it is no wonder that the country we call home harbours the fastest-growing rate of overdose mortality globally.

The current Drugs and Substances strategy is failing Canadians and requires immediate modification.

Canada’s Current Situation

Approximately 6 million Canadians meet the criteria for a substance use disorder during their lifetime. Potential harms from such use have heightened amid Canada’s opioid crisis, as supplies have become increasingly contaminated with synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

Canada’s Drugs and Substances Strategy emphasizes four key pillars to prevent and treat problematic substance use. The pillars are:

  • Prevention: educate the public about the risks of substance use
  • Treatment: support treatment and rehabilitation services
  • Harm reduction: reduce the negative effects of substance use on individuals and communities
  • Enforcement: address production, trafficking and diversion of drugs

What’s Not Clicking in Canada?

National Inconsistency

The current Canadian system unloads enforcement and harm reduction responsibilities onto provinces and territories to deal with individually. The lack of a cohesive, national strategy focused on reducing problematic drug use and overdose has set Canada and its citizens up for failure.

Research, Evidence, and Evaluation Issues

The government fails to ground its substance use policy in evidence. The country does not have a central organization for data collection and analysis on substance use issues, as exists elsewhere, such as in Australia and the United States.

If things do not change, Canadians will start to feel the consequences of the inaction taken by our federal government.

Is Anyone Doing it Right?

Although it is easy to critic drug strategies across the globe for one reason or another, some countries are doing it right.

Take Portugal, for example. As of 2001, the Portuguese federal government decriminalized the personal possession of all drugs as a part of a push to treat substance use as an issue of public health rather than public order in response to high rates of HIV linked to injection drug use.

Portugal’s strategy acts as a cohesive, nationwide plan that enforces policies on a case-by-case basis. Problematic drug use is addressed by dissuasion committees rather than the criminal justice system, where sanctions, charges, or voluntary treatment referrals are imposed instead of jail time.

As a result, Portugal has enjoyed various benefits, including:

  • Reduced problematic drug use and incidences of HIV/AIDS
  • Increased number of citizens utilizing treatment facilities
  • Fewer drug-induced deaths
  • Overall social costs of drug misuse declined

Why it Works for Portugal

The Portuguese drug strategy is informed by evidence and research conducted within the country. Portugal identified the issues they wanted to address and approached them in a culturally and socially informed manner.

So What?

This blog has two purposes:

  • Criticize the Canadian federal government’s approach to drug use (which is well deserved)
  • Identify a need for change

Imagine that the Canadian federal government wants to adopt an effective strategy to reduce problematic substance use. They would need to:

  • Accept contextual factors facing Canadians
  • Be open to innovation
  • Situate any intervention within an evidence-informed continuum of prevention, harm reduction, and treatment
    • An evidence-informed continuum supports the collection and monitoring of data and is required to evaluate the success of any policy-based approach to substance use. This continuum allows for corrections to be made easily, as they are grounded in evidence and account for changes in external factors, such as trends in drug consumption or overdose rates

A great place to start would be forming a national organization for data collection and analysis on substance use issues.

Creating such an organization will allow the government to self-reflect and identify the most pressing problems that require immediate attention, such as the opioid crisis. Only once the key issues are pinpointed, the organization could conduct research to find the most effective solutions for our countries problems.

Perhaps this imaginary organization could take notes on the drug policy of Portugal as a starting point.

Obesity in Canada… The way forward

Student

By: Victoria Ekunnusi

Multiple Variables of Obesity

Obesity has many factors: Personal, Behavioral, and Environmental. Personal predisposing variables include genetics and ethical background. Behavioural variables are practices (sedentary lifestyle and food choice) that turn into habits over time. Finally, environmental variables are the living conditions and the overarching social determinants of health. Often, obesity is a result of a combination of these variables.

Obesity- A chronic health condition

Obesity is considered to be a chronic disease by organizations like Obesity Canada, Canadian Medical Association and the World Health Organization because obesity is the leading cause of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, cancer and other health problems, it can cause a significant strain on individuals, families, and the health care system. 

Despite public health prevention strategies, obesity continues to persist, and the rate has tripled over the past three decades in Canada, and now, about one in four Canadians is obese.

Cost of Obesity 

The annual direct health care cost of obesity which includes physician, hospitalization, and medication cost, is currently estimated to be between $5 to $7 billion. This cost is projected to rise to about $9 billion by 2021. The economic and psychological costs of obesity will continue to increase without comprehensive, evidence-based, and people-centred strategies. Thus, addressing the prevalence of obesity in Canada should be an utmost priority.

Addressing Obesity at the early stage of life

Recently, the Canadian government has created policies by placing taxes on unhealthy meals, banning certain fatty food, and providing open spaces to encourage physical activities. However, these interventions have not yielded the desired outcomes. 

Obesity and weight gain develop over a lifetime. Therefore, the impact of obesity points to the importance of prevention through healthy behaviours, including increased physical activity and a healthy nutritional diet, beginning at an early stage, and continuing through all the stages of life.

The federal government should encourage addressing Obesity from early childhood. For example, countries like Japan and Finland were able to reduce obesity issues by adopting the “health in all policies approach” (Addressing Obesity at the early life), where the health department worked with schools, childcare providers, and parents to create a healthier environment at the early life.

Considering the increasing rate of obesity, a possible way for the government to truly eradicate or at least reduce the prevalence of obesity is to address it at the early stage of life by adopting some guidelines (listed below) that could help reduce the national burden of obesity.

Guidelines

Here are the guidelines that should be followed to reduce obesity:

  • Young children should be educated on the importance of healthy eating and engaging in physical activities.
  • Young married couples should be encouraged to initiate healthy meals for their children early in life so that it becomes part of their lifestyle.
  • The government could subsidize the cost of healthy food and gym membership for low- and middle-income families to facilitate involvement in healthy lifestyle choices.
  • There should be an ongoing evaluation strategy to identify and monitor areas of improvement.

Awakening Call

The quality of life of Canadians should be at the forefront of the government priorities to ensure all citizens live a healthy life. Addressing Obesity at the early stage of life is the way forward that can help reduce the burden of chronic health issues over time, significantly increasing Canadian’s quality of life and reducing the huge medical cost of obesity

Strategies to prevent obesity need to address all phases and places in life, starting from birth to make sure we are living healthy lives through healthy eating and physical activity.

Uncovering the Truth About the First-Past-The-Post Electoral System

Student

By Jason Kalbfleisch

The Current System in Canada

Since its conception, Canada has modelled its electoral system after the British system of governance. Even though Canada’s system has deep historical roots, its blatant disregard for Canadian voters means that it needs to change.

Canada uses a first-past-the-post electoral system that sees candidates with the highest number of votes win an election. The system of ridings ensures that candidates are elected from across Canada and considers the wide variety within Canada’s unique political landscape. But the current electoral system encourages the creation of one ruling party and one opposition party by suppressing its citizens’ diversity of thought and diminishing the value of our vote.

Diminishing the Value of our Vote

By its nature, the first-past-the-post system encourages two-party dominance and suppresses smaller parties’ success. Through a phenomenon known as tactical voting, voters are often discouraged from voting with their true political beliefs and give their votes to a larger party with views most similar to theirs to prevent opposition parties’ from being elected.

Alarmingly, studies suggest that 42% of Ontarians’ votes cast in the 2018 Provincial Election were not cast to elect the candidate of their choice but to prevent a less desirable candidate’s election. Those who cast these “strategic” votes discard their political expression to compensate for the electoral system’s deficiencies.

Looking at Alternatives- Proportional Representation

To ensure accurate electoral representation and expression, Canada should look for an alternative electoral system. One proposed solution is Proportional Representation. Under a system of Proportional Representation, the proportion of the votes cast for a party in an election would directly translate into the representation of those parties in the House’s composition. An election that resulted in 30% of votes being cast for the Liberals would result in the Liberals making up 30% of the House.

Additionally, Proportional Representation would result in creating more political parties that would allow voters to vote according to their beliefs without the fear of having their vote wasted.

A System that Fits Canada’s Needs

Any alternative system needs to consider the unique factors that define Canada’s political system. For example, one of the challenges that Proportional Representation would need to overcome is how it would address Canada’s immense geography, political differences, and riding system.

The model that works best for Canada is the Single-Transferable Vote. Under a Single-Transferable Vote, voters would elect their representatives under a preferential ballot. In this system, voters would vote for multiple members from multiple ridings, under a preferential system, voting for as many or as few candidates they would like. Candidates must receive a predetermined number of votes to get elected, and votes cast for a candidate after going over this number will be given to the second choice listed on the ballot. This process continues until the required number of candidates is elected.

This way, every vote would impact an election, and Canada’s political differences would be accurately represented. This transition would provide an incentive for all voters to vote for candidates who genuinely represent their political opinions.

Weaknesses as Opportunities

Critics of Proportional Representation often note that the system’s biggest weakness is its creation of relatively unstable coalition governments. By enabling voters to vote for what they believe in, rather than the largest parties, there will inevitably be fewer majority governments, and more political parties will have a seat at the table.

Instead, this perceived weakness could provide Canada with a new opportunity. Coalition governments could become the new normal, and there could be increased collaboration between political parties. With the House truly representing an election’s outcome, policy coming out of these collaborative governments would consider multiple parties’ agendas, creating more conclusive and effective policy. Under this system, environmental concerns, social concerns, and economic concerns would have to meet and work towards Canada’s future.

What is the Next Step?

The topic of electoral reform is not new in Canada. Justin Trudeau ran an election with the promise of it being the last under the first-past-the-post electoral system. Yet when electoral reform is proposed with a formal vote, it fails. The next step for Canadians is to educate themselves on Proportional Representation to remove any fears that come with this change. The next time it comes to a referendum, Canadians need to take the opportunity to embrace an electoral system that restores their votes’ value.