Harsh sentences won’t solve Canada’s fentanyl crisis: Senator Pate – SenCA+
February 27, 2025
Canadians deserve a meaningful response to the fentanyl crisis, not ill-conceived and draconian ideas — much less costly mandatory-minimum penalties.
Characterizing mandatory life sentences as a solution to the toxic-drug crisis, as suggested by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, is misleading and dangerous. Such an approach would undoubtedly exacerbate, not alleviate, the problem. Worse yet, it would result in even more austerity, overcrowded jails and many more people abandoned to desperate, impoverished and unstable situations, especially to homelessness in our communities.
For the better part of five decades, I have worked and walked with those captured by so-called tough-on-crime and war-on-drugs agendas. These approaches are always toughest on those who are most vulnerable and, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer has shown, these methods come with huge price tags for taxpayers. Indeed, the PBO estimates that they have already cost Canada billions of taxpayer dollars.
Those who are easiest to catch, prosecute and subject to long and punitive prison sentences are not the kingpins of the drug world. Those who benefit most from opioid crises have the means to avoid detection, launder their drug money and, in the unlikely event they are caught, they typically can hire teams of lawyers to help them avoid legal accountability.
