Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) has filed a complaint accusing her Conservative opponent, Jay Shin, of spreading lies about her ahead of the Feb. 25 byelection in Burnaby South.
Shin’s campaign printed and distributed flyers with images of drugs and paraphernalia. The pamphlets, printed in English and Chinese, suggest Thompson and her party’s leader, Maxime Bernier, support safe injection sites and marijuana legalization.
“How is this different from Justin Trudeau? Are these your values?” the pamphlet asks.
Thompson told the NOW the literature is inaccurate.
“It's absolutely defamatory and it's absolutely false and it's lies,” she said. “I'm very upset.”
The PPC candidate said she discussed the issues with Bernier, who could not recall the interview in which he’s reported as being open to supporting more safe injection sites. She said the party currently has no position on the issue, but she personally does not support the harm reduction strategy.
“I support people being free of drug addiction and that does not include enabling,” she said.
She said she opposed recreational cannabis legalization but has “zero interest in trying to reverse that.”
Thompson said she filed a formal complaint with the Commissioner of Elections Canada.
She also said she asked the Shin campaign to stop distributing the “smear brochure.”
“The Commissioner of Canada Elections doesn’t comment on whether or not a complaint has been received by our office or if an investigation is being conducted into a particular matter. This is in keeping with the confidentiality provisions of the Canada Elections Act,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.
But Thompson said she received a response to her complaint that she took as a dismissal.
According to Thompson, the commissioner’s office wrote: “In order that elections be conducted freely and in a manner consistent with traditional democratic values – and in the interest of promoting vigorous debates and exchanges of ideas, it is important that considerable latitude be given to electoral contestants so that they may criticize or take issue with the views or the positions of their opponents or those of their leader.”
Shin was unapologetic.
“My position is the voters need to know exactly what each of the candidates stand for,” he said.
Shin said Thompson’s misquoted the Elections Act.
Thompson’s press release quotes a section of the act which states it’s illegal to induce someone to vote or not to vote “by any pretence or contrivance.” Her release, however, does not include a part of the same clause which specifies “including by representing that the ballot or the manner of voting at an election is not secret.”
According to Shin, this omission amounts to “misquoting” and “rewriting” the law.
“She's the one who's really lying about this issue,” he said.
Shin said he support the four pillars approach to addiction: prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction. Safe injection sites are an aspect of the harm-reduction approach to addiction.
Asked whether he would support allowing existing safe injection sites to continue operating, Shin said he needs to study the topic more.
“I'm not advocating more safe injection sites; that's not our policy position,” he said.
But Shin did not have a clear answer when asked about a safe injection room that may be established in Burnaby South later this year. A planned supportive housing project on Norland Avenue might include an injection room open only to the building’s residents, Jaye Treit, the executive director of the Progressive Housing Society, told the NOW in June.
“I don't know about that project,” Shin said. “I need to know more about it, so I can't really comment on that right now.”
Shin said he has heard many Burnaby South residents worried about the impacts of legalized cannabis.
He said people are worried about the coming legalization of cannabis-infused foods known as edibles. Shin said people might mistakenly take an edible overseas and run into trouble in Asian countries, where drug smuggling laws are especially strict.
“It's a concern for immigrants because they don't often read the labels correctly,” he said.
Asked how plausible such a scenario is, he said “It’s a big concern for the seniors and the immigrant community here.”
That being said, Shin conceded it’s unlikely cannabis will become illegal once more.
Liberal Richard Lee was not available for an interview but a spokesperson provided a statement.
“While the Conservative Party continues to double down on the same divisive politics that we all remember from Stephen Harper, I'm staying focused on my own positive plan to help make life better Burnaby families,” Lee said in the statement.
NDP Leader and Burnaby South candidate Jagmeet Singh said he fully supports safe injection sites – including in Burnaby South – as one aspect in the fight against the overdose crisis.
“I believe very strongly that we need to help people out, and right now we're faced with an opioid crisis where thousands of Canadians are dying and the approach to this desperate crisis has not worked,” Singh said.
