VICTORIA — Premier David Eby sought cover this week when asked about the drug trafficking convictions of two founders of the Drug User Liberation Front, an organization the province had funded and supported.
DULF founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nix were convicted earlier this month of possession of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine for the purpose of trafficking.
Court heard that their organization was buying illicit drugs on the dark web, testing them for safety, then packaging them for resale at cost to the 43 members of a “compassion club” of drug users.
Eby was asked if the government sought legal advice before providing the organization with several hundred thousand dollars in funding.
“I understand that Vancouver Coastal Health was funding that organization,” replied Eby.
Yes, the Vancouver Coastal Health region — funded by the province, managed under an NDP-appointed board, and subject to direct government orders.
As Eby confirmed with the next thing he said.
“When we learned that this organization was engaged in drug trafficking, we directed Vancouver Coastal Health to immediately terminate the funding,” the premier continued Monday.
Despite Eby’s claim of “immediate” action, there is evidence that the province had for some time turned a blind eye to the self-styled liberation front’s involvement in the illicit drug trade.
There was nothing secret about what was going on, as B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray noted in convicting Kalicum and Nix of drug trafficking.
“They have always been openly and publicly forthright about their activities and their impetus for doing so,” she wrote.
She also quoted expressions of support for DULF from Vancouver Coastal, its deputy chief medical officer, and other officials.
“Vancouver Coastal knew that DULF was distributing tested drugs when they granted the exemption, gave them funding and provided them the storefront in the Downtown Eastside,” wrote Murray.
Nor was there any secrecy about the front’s involvement in the buying and selling of illicit drugs. It formed the basis of the conviction.
“There is no doubt that at all times, DULF possessed the drugs for one purpose — to distribute to its members,” wrote the judge.
She expressed sympathy for the duo. “There is no question that their intentions were and are good. They want to save lives. But were they exempt from criminal liability?” Her verdict, delivered Nov. 7, was “No.”
A key passage in the findings noted that the province only stepped in to cut off funding in October 2023, following news reports of the organization’s involvement in the illicit drug trade.
The New Democrats then threw DULF and its founders under the bus, as Independent MLA Elenore Sturko observed in response to the recent convictions.
“Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum were exploited,” said Sturko, who began raising suspicions about DULF’s modus operandi as far back as 2022.
“People at very high and influential levels of government were complicit in this entire scheme,” she told Rob Shaw of Business In Vancouver. “Government knew right from the get-go, even before giving a single dollar to this endeavour, that it was going to be engaging in criminal activity.”
As evidence of government foreknowledge, critics have cited the hearings into the drug crisis by the legislature’s health committee three years ago. Among the witnesses on June 15, 2022 was Brittany Graham, executive-director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.
She disclosed to the committee how her network was working with DULF to create a “compassion club” to distribute illicit drugs that had been tested for safety.
“DULF is buying drugs from the dark web and having them checked by three or four different sources, boxing them up and letting people know what they are,” she told the committee.
Those in the know say that the reference to the “dark web” confirmed the drugs were being purchased from organized crime.
Chairing that committee meeting was Niki Sharma, then an NDP backbencher, today the attorney general in the Eby government.
Sharma has since maintained that at the time, she did not realize that DULF was receiving taxpayer funding. However, Graham did disclose to the committee that her organization had $250,000 in funding from Vancouver Coastal.
Eby was asked this week why Sharma didn’t take action back in 2022, when she first heard that DULF would be engaging in the illicit drug trade on the dark web.
The premier sidestepped the question of Sharma’s involvement and reiterated that he had cut off funding “as soon as I learned that DULF was engaging in illegal conduct.”
The reporter who asked the previous question, Fran Yanor of Northern Beat, tried a second time. The now-attorney-general had learned about DULF’s involvement in the illicit trade a year and a half before the government terminated funding. Was that acceptable to the premier?
Eby ducked the issue a second time and stuck to his, by then, well-rehearsed answer.
No wonder the Opposition has renewed calls for an independent investigation into the NDP government’s entangled relationship with the Drug Users Liberation Front.
“All parties must be held accountable, not just those who were convicted,” said Conservative MLA Steve Kooner in a recent news release.
