‘Desperately missed’ victims honoured as B.C. marks 10 years of toxic drug emergency

B.C. is marking a grim anniversary Tuesday—10 years since officials declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.

Paula Beardy said her grandson Sheldon Beardy was a good kid.

He would have turned 28 on Monday. But his mother died last year, and after attending her memorial service in August, Sheldon also died of a drug overdose.

Paula Beardy said Sheldon used to stay with her a lot and she misses his happy smile.

“He was always very helpful,” she said. “He helped me around the house or go shopping. He was a good kid, but he did take fentanyl once in a while, and it’s a great loss.”

She was among hundreds of people who attended a rain-drenched rally outside the legislature in Victoria to mark the 10th anniversary of B.C. declaring the overdose crisis a public health emergency.

Leslie McBain of Moms Stop the Harm told those in attendance to maintain their rage about the toxic drug crisis that has since claimed more than 18,000 lives.

McBain, who lost her 25-year-old son Jordan Miller to a drug overdose in 2014, urged attendees to keep pressure on government.

“It gives me a whole lot of strength and gratitude and compassion to see you all out here in the rain,” she said. “Hold on to your outrage. You are all warriors. Don’t stop.”

Linda Dammeyer holds a portrait of her son Misha, 35, who died from an accidental overdose on Dec. 29, 2023 as she joins supporters who gathered for the Sadness and Rage rally to mark the 10th anniversary of the declaration of the public health emergency for the overdose crisis in the province at the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

Attendees including Beardy clutched photos of loved ones lost to overdoses. Others held candles and yellow roses.

Speakers included B.C.’s former chief coroner Lisa Lapointe, who tried to capture the human dimension of the crisis.

“Each of the almost 19,000 who died because of toxic drugs mattered,” she said. “They were sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, nephews, nieces, friends, colleagues and neighbours. They are desperately missed.”

The rally, organized by advocacy groups including Moms Stop the Harm, Doctors for Safer Drug Policy and the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users, honoured those lost with a moment of silence and calls for action.

“It takes a lot to come to something like this, because you are reminded of your loved one,” Beardy said. “I really want to push for legislation,” she added.

She said she would like to see government regulate drugs, the way it regulates alcohol, but also called on government to crack down on dealers.

Supporters gather for the Sadness and Rage rally to mark the 10th anniversary of the declaration of the public health emergency for the overdose crisis in the province at the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

Similar memorial events were also planned in Prince George, Cranbrook and Powell River along with a webinar on Indigenous approaches to harm reduction and an art show in Victoria.

On April 14, 2016, the emergency declaration was issued after the province had reported 474 apparent illicit drug deaths in 2015, a number that would climb to more than 2,000 deaths annually as the crisis intensified.

Inside the legislature on Tuesday, Claire Rattee, the Opposition Conservative critic for mental health and addictions, said the NDP government continued to push failed policies like safe supply, “in the face of growing evidence of harm.”

She noted recent comments from Dr. Daniel Vigo, who said that safe supply is “actually a disincentive for treatment” and that harm reduction for people with severe mental illness amounts to “harm enhancement.”

Vigo is B.C.’s chief scientific adviser for psychiatry, toxic drugs and concurrent disorders.

B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne said during question period that the government had hired Vigo to provide “very specific advice” about people with acquired brain injuries, in the face of the changing nature of the toxic drug crisis.

Osborne said the anniversary is a “sombre” one, and her government continues to focus on separating people from unregulated toxic drugs, and building care for them.

She said harm reduction measures work and have prevented “thousands and thousands and thousands” of deaths.

Supporters gather for the Sadness and Rage rally to mark the 10th anniversary of the declaration of the public health emergency for the overdose crisis in the province at the legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

An online post from the Vancouver-based Canadian Drug Policy Coalition says that over the past 10 years, the urgency of the declaration seems to have “ebbed away,” alongside the government’s willingness to use the powers that it grants.

“It feels impossible to separate the personal from the political, the specific grief of individual losses from the collective, cumulative exhaustion of so much loss,” the post says.

“This is compounded by witnessing the ongoing crush of a system that actively harms people, and the ways decision-makers continue to prop it up.”

Once seen as being on the cutting edge of drug policy, the B.C. government has ended a drug decriminalization pilot program and rolled back key parts of its safer supply policy

Premier David Eby has said decriminalization didn’t work, but provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Monday that she believed there was political pressure to stop the three-year trial, which removed criminal penalties for those caught with small amounts of certain illicit drugs for personal use.

Osborne announced in January that B.C. would not apply for an extension to decriminalization because it had not delivered the results that government hoped for.

The coalition, which works with more than 100 organizations across Canada, is calling on all provinces and territories to act with urgency to address the ongoing crisis.

“On this anniversary, we send our love, sorrow and rage to everyone who is mourning, who is angry, who is weary, who is trying. We remember and honour the people we have lost,” its post says.

There were 1,833 overdose deaths in B.C. last year, a 21 per cent decrease from 2024, but almost four times the toll in 2014.

— With files from Ashley Joannou in Vancouver

This report by Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press, was first published April 14, 2026