Canada allows minors into drug consumption sites, but would ban access to social media

Canada could enter a unique legal environment in which its minors would be barred from accessing social media. Photo by wildpixel /Getty Images

Article content

If the Liberals’ proposed digital safety bill passes as written, Canada would enter a unique legal environment in which its minors would be barred from accessing social media, but would still be able to inject illicit drugs at a government-run safe consumption site.

Article content

This week, the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney announced plans to table legislation Wednesday that would ban social media for Canadians younger than 16. Similar age controls were also promised for AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

Article content

Article content

Article content

“I think it’s obvious why it’s a priority. Kids are dying,” Marc Miller, the minister of identity, told reporters on Tuesday.

Article content

Article content

Nevertheless, as has been established at a recent House of Commons committee, no such age limits extend to Canada’s network of safe consumption sites for drugs.

Article content

Thus, Canadian 15-year-olds could soon face a regime in which they are not allowed to use Facebook, but could face no barriers to injecting fentanyl at a government-run facility.

Article content

In a February meeting of the House of Commons health committee, Conservative MP Dan Mazier asked Health Minister Marjorie Michel whether Health Canada imposes an “age requirement” on access to “federally approved supervised drug consumption sites.”

Article content

Michel answered “no.”

Article content

In a follow-up, Mazier then asked “if a 16-year-old enters a federally approved drug consumption site, is there any requirement from Health Canada that prohibits that minor from injecting fentanyl at that site, yes or no?”

Article content

To which Michel replied that age verification at drug consumption sites was not a federal responsibility.

Article content

“We just told you that we don’t manage supervised consumption sites. They’re managed by the provinces, so it’s not our responsibility,” she said.

Article content

Article content

At that same hearing, Health Canada official Kendal Weber also confirmed that there no was no age limit on safe consumption sites, nor any policies to enforce one.

Article content

Article content

“If someone comes to the site looking for help and a place to be supported when they’re using a substance, there is no requirement for ID,” she said.

Article content

B.C., which pioneered Canada’s system of supervised drug consumption clinics, has indeed been open about the fact that it allows minors to use illicit drugs in the province’s harm reduction facilities without parental consent.

Article content

“In B.C., there is no set age when a child is considered capable to give consent. This means there is no legal age limit for youth to access harm reduction services,” reads an information sheet distributed by Interior Health, one of the province’s five health authorities.

Article content

A 2023 paper in the B.C. Medical Journal went even further, declaring that children were cleared to use drugs at “non-regulated” facilities, even “without a capacity assessment.”

Article content

“Youth under 19 years of age can access harm reduction supplies, Naloxone, overdose prevention services, and, in appropriate circumstances, witnessed consumption by a regulated or non-regulated health or social service provider, without a capacity assessment,” it read.