Moms Stop the Harm demands probe into B.C. funding of private drug recovery programs

Moms Stop the Harm, a drug overdose awareness group, is demanding an independent investigation into the B.C. government’s funding of private drug recovery programs.

The group says the province is funding treatment centres that they allege have a history of abuse, sexual assault and death.

Leslie McBain with Moms Stop the Harm penned an open letter to MLA Niki Sharma and multiple B.C. ministers calling for an audit into an industry she calls "highly profitable."

“If the government continues to abandon its commitments to harm reduction in favour of diverting public funds towards this unregulated industry, we demand immediate accountability for the continued harm these programs perpetuate,” she wrote in the letter.

McBain points out that care home facilities are regulated, something she believes would provide transparency within private treatment facilities.

"It's like the wild west and we really need to have it regulated."

"What we need to know is where is the money is being spent, how the money is being spent, like any other money that comes from the government, like any other system,” she said in an interview with CTV News.

Jennifer Whiteside, B.C.’s mental health and addictions minister blames the previous government, who was in power nearly seven years ago, for the lack of transparency.

"We inherited a system that had been privatized, deregulated, underfunded and we have worked over the last several years to improve regulation, improve oversight through the contracting that health authorities do with supportive recovery homes,” Whiteside told reporters Thursday.

Whiteside pointed out that the provincial government announced funding for 40 treatment beds with direct oversight of the Island Health Authority, a situation she says she hopes to see more of in the future.

CTV News reached out the Whiteside office to clarify how much money exactly the province is providing treatment centers, but did not hear back in time for publication.