FIRST READING: B.C. politician pushes bill to force schools to say drugs are bad
TOP STORY
Article content
The B.C. Conservatives are calling for measures to keep 'radical drug lobbyists' out of schools after a school event that featured info cards on how to do drugs such as cocaine, meth and GHB.
Article content
Article content
'This isn't education. It is grooming kids into drug culture,' said B.C. Conservative MLA Steve Kooner in a Tuesday statement endorsing his private member's bill that, if passed, would compel schools to 'explicitly discourage drug use.'
Article content
The event in question was a Pride festival sanctioned by the Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public Schools District.
Article content
After accompanying her 10-year-old to the event, Nanaimo, B.C. mother Ruth Taylor alerted local media to the presence of postcard-sized leaflets that local media described as 'drug use information cards.'
Article content
A card labelled 'meth,' for instance, details the drug's euphoric effects, its reported ability to increase libido and even includes recommended dosages.
Article content
The NDP invite the pro-drug lobby into BC schools.
Conservatives are fighting to get them out. https://t.co/CDgjaHTphf pic.twitter.com/XQjX33c3AZ
— Steve Kooner MLA (@SteveKooner) June 24, 2025
Article content
'A light dose is around 5-10 mg, a common dose is around 10-30 mg, and a strong dose is 30-40 mg,' it reads.
Article content
A card for GHB, a common date-rape drug, reads that the substance can 'make the user feel more relaxed and more sociable.' It adds, 'G can also increase libido.'
Article content
The cards were among the literature offered at a booth run by AIDS Vancouver Island, a harm reduction non-profit funded in part by government bodies such as Island Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Article content
Taylor told Chek News that she confronted AIDS Vancouver Island about the materials being inappropriate for schoolchildren, but that 'they were not receptive to what I was saying' and 'the cards stayed for the remainder of the event.'
Article content
AIDS Vancouver Island didn't respond to a National Post query before press time. In a statement provided to Global News on Monday, the group said it was told the event was for older children and that they stood by 'the fundamental importance of youth receiving honest, factual and appropriate substance use and sexual health materials.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Post
25 minutes ago
- National Post
Toronto teacher fired for wearing blackface to school should get his job back, arbitrator rules
An arbitrator has ordered that a white Toronto teacher who was terminated after he showed up at school in blackface for Halloween and told people he was dressed as a zombie should be reinstated and compensated for all wages and benefits lost in the last 20 months. Article content Gorian Surlan showed remorse for his actions, according to an arbitrator, who substituted a nearly two-year suspension for the high school teacher's penalty. Surlan, who had been teaching for 19 years, came to work at Parkdale Collegiate Institute in black face makeup and black clothing on Oct. 29, 2021. Article content Article content He wore the costume to an assembly that morning dubbed 'Where Everybody Belongs' that was attended by about 250 Grade 9 students and their mentors. Three students approached their vice-principal about Surlan's costume, saying he was in blackface. One student showed her a photo of his costume. Two of them were visibly upset and one was crying, Norm Jesin, the arbitrator, wrote in a decision dated Aug. 14. Article content 'He was asked if he was aware of the controversy over Justin Trudeau appearing as Aladdin in blackface. He said he was but that he was not trying to depict any person. Rather he was attempting to portray a zombie.' Article content Article content Article content Surlan, now 63, grieved his termination, arguing he 'was unjustly discharged from his employment on November 15, 2021, contrary to the collective agreement between' the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation and the Toronto District School Board. Article content Article content Born in Serbia, he witnessed many atrocities while working for the International Red Cross during the Bosnian war. Article content Those 'left a deep impact on him,' said the arbitrator. Article content 'He became a member of the Ontario College of Teachers and obtained qualifications in a number of disciplines including business studies, special education, librarianship, cooperative education and English as a second language,' Jesin said. Article content He took sabbaticals every five years, teaching in Nigeria and Vietnam, and had no previous discipline record before the blackface incident, said the arbitrator.
Globe and Mail
25 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Dr. Brian Day predicted the health care mess we're in today
Last month, it was revealed that between 2018 and 2024, almost 142,000 people walked out of an emergency room in British Columbia without being seen by a doctor or a nurse. The numbers make up just some of the data tracked by the province's health ministry. The information was obtained by the BC Conservative Party via a freedom-of-information request because heavens knows these are not the kind of statistics a sitting government wants out there – especially a government that has fought hard to maintain the status quo when it comes to health care in the province. 'It's just really sad that this is what passes for a quality health care system,' Dr. Brian Day says to me over the phone. 'The numbers are shocking, and yet we've seen this coming for years now.' Certainly he has. I've been chronicling Dr. Day's fight against the health care system as we know it for years. And I can say, unequivocally, that he forecast the sorry state of affairs we are living today, with long waits for important surgeries becoming a part of daily life for far too many Canadians. Dr. Day predicted emergency rooms would not have the capacity to meet the growing number of people in Metro Vancouver unless the government went on a major hiring spree. Successive administrations didn't listen, and here we are today. In rural B.C., frequent ER closings show how 'fragile' the health care system has become B.C. health authority cuts dozens of jobs after quiet government directive to balance budget There are few doctors in this country who have been as high-profile and controversial as Dr. Day has been for three decades. He has been the tireless pitchman for a hybrid system of health care that allows for some private providers, like the clinic he's operated in Vancouver for three decades. The journey he's been on has now been chronicled in his new autobiography: My Fight For Canadian Healthcare: A Thirty-Year Battle To Put Patients First. It is a meticulous piece of work with more than 500 references to data and research he says grounds his position in the facts. I would urge all defenders of the great system we have today to spend some time exploring its pages. It's impossible to not come away flummoxed and angry at the gross hypocrisy of those who continue to support a system that perennially underperforms against our peer nations – despite, in many cases, spending far more money. The book walks the reader through Dr. Day's long fight with the B.C. government to allow private health insurance in the province. The struggle, of course, ultimately led to a defeat in B.C. Supreme Court in 2020, with the judge in the case rejecting Dr. Day's argument that British Columbians had a constitutional right to access private care when wait times in the public system put a person's health and life at risk. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal. This would be the same court that in 2005 ruled that private insurance could be allowed in Quebec because, in the words of then-chief justice Beverley McLachlin, 'access to a waiting list is not access to health care.' So private health care is allowed in Quebec, just not anywhere else in Canada. Make that make sense. The ruling against Mr. Day's clinic only applied to B.C. and its residents. So, people in Alberta, for instance, who are tired of waiting for knee or hip surgery there, can come to Dr. Day's clinic and pay to get help. (And they do.) Just as British Columbians tired of being in pain here can go to a private clinic in Alberta and get operated on. (As they do as well.) 'Many Canadians don't realize it, but we're the only country on the planet where most people are prevented from getting private health insurance,' Dr. Day told me. But Ottawa does allow people to have private insurance for things like drug prescriptions. So, again, no private insurance allowed to get diagnosed with a health problem, but it's okay to have it for the drugs needed to remedy your issue. Again, if you can make that make sense, good for you. Dr. Day is 78 years old now and still performing surgeries. He is as animated as ever on the topic of Canadian health care, especially on social media, where he showcases the absolute insanity of the system we live under in his many posts. As he points out in his book, there is nothing like it in the world. 'I think I'm being proven right in terms of the warnings I sounded years ago,' Dr. Day said. 'I do believe that some day people will come to their senses and realize a hybrid model where some private health care is allowed makes sense – which is why all the best health care systems have it.'
CBC
26 minutes ago
- CBC
P.E.I. will expand RSV protections for infants and more seniors this fall
Social Sharing With the approach of fall likely bringing the usual uptick in respiratory illness, the provincial government is boosting its range of protections against RSV, with free vaccines available for more seniors and infants eligible to receive an antibody product. Previously, free vaccines were available to people 60 years and older who were living in long-term or community-care homes on Prince Edward Island, said Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Heather Morrison. "Seniors 75 years of age or older will be able to have a vaccine to protect against RSV starting in September," she said. "There's a product for children less than one year of age. It will be available in October, and it will also provide protection as they go into their first season of RSV." RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, infects the nose, throat and lungs. The common virus can lead to hospitalization for people without strong immune systems, such as infants and older adults with chronic health conditions. Morrison said Islanders not in those two groups might become eligible for protections down the road. What parents need to know about RSV 10 months ago "We have talked about trying to make sure that it's available for seniors with COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], for instance, because those are certainly very vulnerable seniors who would be under 75," she said. "So we're trying to work with the system to identify as some of those individuals." The province's website says children between 12 and 24 months of age who have certain medical conditions will also remain eligible for free RSV protection measures. Only one dose of the Abrysvo vaccine is needed to protect adults against RSV, Morrison said. Infants will receive the product Beyfortus, described as a long-acting monoclonal antibody with protection that lasts a full RSV season, typically from November to April. Morrison said this treatment will protect those children from getting bronchiolitis and pneumonia related to RSV. Hundreds of cases on P.E.I. Morrison said that RSV has been around for a long time, but products to fight its worst effects are relatively new. "In the last two winters, we've had over 150 hospitalizations related to RSV," she said. "This past winter, 58 per cent of those were related to little children." In those same two seasons, Morrison said there were more than 850 lab-confirmed cases on the Island, including some outbreaks of the illness, and three people died. We want to protect more babies and seniors and keep them out of the hospital. — Dr. Heather Morrison "It is circulating... so this vaccine hopefully will make a difference and help our health-care system as well as the population here in P.E.I." She said other provinces across Canada are also making the vaccine and antibody product more available. "This is certainly in line with the evidence and vaccine recommendations across the country, and with our National Advisory Committee on Immunization," she said.
