Bill could keep Vancouver injection site alive: NDP

B.C.'s provincial opposition is introducing a private member's bill that it hopes will keep Vancouver's supervised injection site open.

MLA Jenny Kwan made the announcement on Friday at the Insite clinic in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The NDP legislator was flanked by senior public health officials, civil liberties proponents and neighbourhood leaders.

The bill would legally define Insite as a health facility, which Kwan said would take the clinic out of federal jurisdiction and give the province control.

The Liberal government has already expressed its support for the safe injection site, and Kwan said that gives her hope it will also support the NDP bill.

"We are in agreement — that is the government and the opposition — in our support for the supervised injection facility for Insite, so I would hope that the government would receive this as a … gesture to work together to realize what we all hope for, and that is to ensure that the operation of Insite continues," Kwan said.

Insite has earned praise in more 30 peer-reviewed medical journals but the federal Conservative government continues to designate it as a temporary facility.

It has been allowed to operate under an exemption to the Narcotics Control Act, but Health Minister Tony Clement has refused to make the exemption permanent.

Clement has granted two temporary extensions to the permit, the latest of which expires at the end of June, but has not said whether he will grant a further extension.

On Tuesday, Clement held a news conference in Vancouver to announce an infusion of $111 million over five years to help fund addiction treatment programs in the city, but Insite received none of the cash. 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called Insite "a second-best strategy at best, because if you remain a drug addict, I don't care how much harm you reduce, you're going to have a short and miserable life."