Benjamin Perrin once worked at the highest ranks in Stephen Harper’s government and believed, like many Conservatives, that it was simply wrong to set up safe-injection sites for drug users.

Perrin, now a law professor in Vancouver and a recovering politico, has had a profound change of heart on this most polarizing political issue and is urging current Conservatives to do the same — as nothing less than a test of their morality and ethics.

His new book, “Overdose: Heartbreak and Hope in Canada’s Opioid Crisis,” will be out this spring and it promises to be an indictment of the victim-blaming politics rampant in the debate over safe-injection sites.

Perrin is familiar with those politics — he used to practise them. Then he decided to do his own research into the harm-reduction strategies being employed to fight a drug problem that has claimed more than 14,000 lives in the past three years, according to government statistics.

Railing against safe-consumption sites has become a way for Conservatives to win votes, Perrin said in an interview on Tuesday, but there’s a price to be paid for that cynicism.

“We know that can draw support, and fear will drive that,” Perrin said, but “history will do a post-mortem on this ongoing crisis, and it will name the politicians who stood in the way of critical, life-saving interventions.”

Perrin is in the midst of a total rethink of the “tough-on-crime” agenda that drove much of the Harper justice policy from 2006 to 2015, which he now regrets having supported.

It’s an exercise in shaking off partisan dogma that Perrin highly recommends to Conservatives, especially those who see the current leadership contest as an opportunity to put a more compassionate and tolerant face on conservatism.

That’s no small challenge, especially on an issue in which many Conservatives — even those seen as moderates — have been heavily invested.

Peter MacKay, viewed as a front-runner in the leadership race and somewhat of a symbol for progressives in the Conservative camp, was justice minister throughout the tough-on-crime years of the Harper reign.

Rona Ambrose, who had been expected to run as a kinder and gentler Conservative before bowing out of the race last week, has her own history as a safe-injection site opponent.

As the federal health minister in 2013, Ambrose, publicly berated her own officials for setting up a supervised injection site in Vancouver. Just in case no one got that message, the Conservative party then fundraised off the Ambrose slap-down of her department, exhorting the base to send money to keep drug-friendly bureaucrats in line.

Perrin was no small player in this world either. He’d grown up as a conservative, joining the old Reform party as an intern and eventually getting a job in 2012 as criminal justice adviser to Harper himself.

“I never questioned the tough-on-crime agenda,” Perrin said.

He did eventually, however, go on to question some of what he experienced during his time in government, perhaps most notably as a witness during the Mike Duffy trial. Perrin parted ways with the line of his former colleagues in the Prime Minister’s Office, testifying that Harper had been aware of the controversial $90,000 payoff to Duffy. The PMO did not fare well in the ultimate verdict, with the judge dismissing all charges and slamming the Harper operatives for “mind-boggling and shocking” tactics.

That was politics, though. Perrin’s regrets now have stretched to policy as well — particularly the whole tough-on-crime legacy of the Harper years.

One might be tempted to call this a come-to-Jesus moment for Perrin, and that description turns out to be accurate. Perrin says openly and unabashedly that he was led to his post-political retrospection by his Christianity, and particularly its teachings on mercy. “My faith is what opened the door to my change of heart,” Perrin said. He actually embarked on his research into safe-injection sites by praying to God to keep his mind open — to question all he’d blindly and loyally accepted as the “right” view on how to treat drug users.

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He hadn’t intended to speak out about his findings so far in advance of his book’s publication, but politics (of course) intervened. Last week, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said he was looking into closing or moving some safe-injection sites in that province.

Perrin decided he needed to go public and published an “I was wrong” piece in the Calgary Herald. Will it change minds? He says he’s heard from some Conservatives, including former MPs and advisers, who quietly share his view.

What remains to be seen is whether any of the party’s leadership contenders are willing to similarly rethink their views on safe-injection sites. Loyalty, as Perrin notes, is powerful in politics, including loyalty to past policy positions — even when they’re wrong.

Susan Delacourt is a columnist based in Ottawa covering national politics. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt

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