She has a panic button on her desk. Police do drive-bys past her house to make sure she’s safe. Her office has been relocated to a more secure setting. Welcome to the dangerous life of Helen Stevenson, the bureaucrat spearheading Ontario’s controversial drug reforms.

The assistant deputy minister of health has been the target of death threats and thousands of angry letters, emails and phone calls.

While she admits the intimidation tactics have unnerved her, she says they are failing to move the province off course in implementing the biggest changes to its drug program in decades.

“You have to believe in what you do and I absolutely believe the government has made the right decisions,” she says.

The latest reforms are aimed at slashing the price of generic drugs by banning millions in payouts from drug companies to pharmacies. Pharmacists argue this will drive smaller drugstores out of business and force others to cut back on hours and services.

Threats against Stevenson date back to 2006 when the Liberal government made its first attempt to control drug costs with new legislation requiring pharmacies to pass on volume-purchase discounts on generic drugs covered by the provincial benefit program.

“I had someone on the phone tell me if he had a gun he was going to come and kill me,” she recounts.

Also that year, an individual at an industry meeting threatened to chop her head off. In both cases, the threats were made by pharmacists, Stevenson says. Charges were never laid.

The 46-year-old single mother of three school-age children says some strange things have happened around her Toronto home. She’s purposely vague on details, but says at one point someone tried to break in and she has found “unusual things” in her mailbox.

“I won’t speak specifically, but in the middle of the night there were weird things happening and neighbours noticing strange things. I think a little bit of this is probably harassment,” Stevenson says.

Freedom of information requests have been made to the ministry for personal information about her and an ally in the pharmacy industry has warned her that a private detective is tailing her, she says.

Stevenson says that since 2008, she has received as many as 400 postcards with a picture of a tombstone on them from members of the Independent Pharmacists of Ontario.

“I get a huge amount of hostility and almost hatred from some pharmacists, but it’s by no means all pharmacists,” Stevenson says.

Representatives of industry associations say they know nothing of the threats and emphasize that they would never condone such action.

“Certainly, we’ve had our issues with Helen but under no circumstances would we ever, ever direct a pharmacist to take this type of action and whoever this individual was —and I don’t think it’s ever been proven that it’s a pharmacist — probably has some sort of psychiatric disorder,” says Dean Miller, chair of the Ontario Pharmacists’ Association.

Still, he acknowledges that the reforms have caused emotions to run high, especially among the independent pharmacists whose livelihoods are at stake.

Miller notes that the serious threats against Stevenson date back four years: “It’s an old issue, but quite truthfully Helen tends to like to keep bringing it up. She’s not that fond of our industry. I think you can probably tell that.”

Ben Shenouda, president of the Independent Pharmacists of Ontario, says Stevenson has misinterpreted the postcard campaign, noting that the tombstones bear the message “RIP Independent Pharmacists of Ontario.” It’s meant to signal that smaller pharmacies are threatened with death because of the reforms, he says.

“Every so often she comes to the media to say this to distract the media and to create sympathy with her. Is it real? Is it not real? Is it that serious? Is it not that serious? To be honest with you, I have no idea.”

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The Ontario Provincial Police declined to comment. But Stevenson says police have made decisions about what security provisions to put in place after assessing the level of risk. Sometimes police accompany her to events and stand guard outside meetings. Changes have also been made to the security around her home.

“I always say that I have a pink Kevlar blazer,” she jokes.

On a more serious note, she says she sometimes finds herself looking over her shoulder and admits that the animosity has on occasion brought her to tears.