Burnaby marks Overdose Awareness Day

On Saturday, Aug. 31, community groups and politicians gathered in Civic Square beside Burnaby Public Library, Bob Prittie, Metrotown, to mark International Overdose Awareness Day. The event officially began at 3:45pm and continued until 5:30pm. 

In the hour before the event began, community members, volunteers, and outreach workers planted purple flags on the lawn at Civic Square. Each person who planted a flag had written a message to their deceased loved one.

“Drugs are not the answer,” said one message. Many flags said, “You will be missed,” or otherwise told deceased loved ones that the people they left behind continue to remember them and celebrate their lives. 

Most of the people present had been affected by the toxic drug crisis in some way. Karen O’Shannacery, former executive director of Lookout Housing and Health Society and the Society to End Homelessness in Burnaby and a Burnaby Community Action Team (BCAT) member, spoke to the Beacon about her personal experiences. 

“Like many people, I’ve been touched personally by it. I mean, when I was a kid, I used drugs, and, you know, people on the street said I was too good for that, and they locked me in a room, and they wouldn’t let me out for over a week. And I was young; I was only 14,” O’Shannacery said.   

O’Shannacery has also had tragedy in her extended family due to the toxic drug crisis after her niece died of an overdose a few years ago. 

“She was in a car accident, a very severe car accident, and was given a prescription of oxycodone. That was going on for a while, and then she was cut off cold turkey on the instructions of the government changing direction in terms of the kinds of drugs that they were using for treatment. So she ended up turning to the illegal drug supply, and it eventually killed her,” O’Shannacery said. 

Her niece went through treatment and was in recovery for several months when her relationship with her partner broke down, and she started using drugs again. 

“She used after being clean for a time period, and she bought a bad batch of drugs,” O’Shannacery said. That batch of drugs led to her death. 

Despite the ubiquity of the crisis and the number of lives it has affected, there remains a powerful stigma attached to drug use and addiction. It prevents many from seeking help and exacerbates the problem. Employers continue to fire workers who are discovered to be using drugs, for example. In other cases, there is a real scarcity of recovery centres for people to seek treatment. 

“Stigma and changing culture is the most difficult thing. There are so many myths out there. There are so many fears and beliefs. Like one of the myths is that people who are homeless are addicts and they’re going to do all of these things, or addicts are violent and they’re going to do all of these things,” O’Shannacery said. 

O’Shannacery said that Burnaby lacks sufficient services such as detox and treatment centres and housing. O’Shannacery noted that even though Burnaby has one “marvellous” and “phenomenal” treatment centre, Charlford House Society for Women, the city needs more. 

“I’d say Burnaby is like a desert,”  O’Shannacery said. “There hasn’t been a lot of investment in the kinds of services that such a large municipality needs. We’re just getting little bits of it now but have a long way to go.” 

This is similar to what BCAT peer coordinator Hedy Wolff had told the Beacon in October 2023, that the city needs more detox and treatment facilities. 

A group of politicians attended, including Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley, councillors Richard Lee and James Wang, MP Peter Julian, and MLAs Janet Routledge, Raj Chouhan, and Katrina Chen. 

The event began with a speech and welcome by Kanyen’kehà:ka Elder Kanatiio, also known as Allen Gabriel.

The next speaker was Julian, who asked the crowd who among them knew someone personally who had been affected by the toxic drug crisis. Most attendees raised their hands, including the politicians. However, Julian said the federal government needed to step up and do more to solve the problem. 

“We’ve seen the numbers going down, but the federal government, quite frankly, has been nowhere to be seen, and so as your federal MP standing with Jagmeet Singh, the message from the both of us is that we will continue to push so that the federal government actually steps up and acknowledges the magnitude of the crisis,” Julian said. “The federal government has to step up to declare this a national health emergency and ensure that resources are devoted right across this country.”

Julian added that the government needs to prosecute the corporate executives who are partly responsible for the crisis. 

The other speakers echoed Julian’s comments on the federal government doing more. 

“On behalf of the City of Burnaby, we will pledge to do everything we can to assist along the way. I think you’ve seen that in how we brought in care workers to go out onto the streets and talk to individuals who need help. We’ve really taken a very different approach to how we want to do it, but we certainly don’t have the resources nor the expertise to tackle this thing on our own,” Hurley said. 

Other speakers included representatives of Fraser Health and advocates who spoke about their personal experiences. 

One advocate, introduced as Kathy, spoke about her daughter, Jessica, who died of a fentanyl overdose in 2018. Jessica had been a science teacher and mother and had started using prescription opioids first. When the government restricted prescription drugs, she began using heroin and, subsequently, fentanyl. She had managed to stop using drugs for almost a year when Kathy fell ill and was on life support. Jessica relapsed during her mother’s illness and subsequently died of an overdose. 

Gabriel gave some closing remarks for the event, saying that politicians have made the same promises in previous years but have not done enough to address the crisis.  

“My anger is coming up now because I heard words today from politicians. Again, I heard those same words last year. I’m going to call you out now,” Gabriel said.  

After the event, he spoke with the Beacon about his perspective. 

“I was here last year, and they said the same thing. We got to do something. We have a responsibility to do that. So, yeah, what did you do in the last year? It made me angry. Today, the Indigenous situation is different from everybody else’s, and we get lumped in all the time, and we always get left behind,” Gabriel said. “So we’re coming up with a plan that’s pretty comprehensive, and we want them to support it… It’s a five-year plan, and it’s basically what I said, to make space, create opportunity, and get out of the way.”

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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