BURNABY, B.C.—For federal New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh, the deadly opioid epidemic ravaging the country — its epicentre in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, where he’ll soon run for Parliament — brings up haunting childhood memories.

Growing up, he revealed in an interview Thursday, a family member’s substance addiction left him “angry and frustrated.” It made him commit to never trying drugs in his life.

“Kind of ironically,” he added, the experience also put him on the path to embracing harm-reduction policies.

“Folks might assume it’s because of other reasons I don’t drink or smoke, but I made a commitment to never doing drugs when I was probably 7 or 8,” he told StarMetro in his soon-to-open Burnaby South campaign office.

“I saw up close and personal in my family somebody who was addicted, and the impact that had on their life but also on the rest of us … I had to come to grips with the harm they were doing to themselves and the rest of the family.

“My approach is based on a desire to care for people. My anger and frustration wasn’t doing anything. It’s only love, care and support that can cure this illness … To me, that’s personal.”

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Singh will soon run for his first federal elected office, entering the fray in a province that’s been under a declared public-health emergency for 2.5 years — and where at least 1,450 people died last year alone from illicit overdoses. The majority died from opioids, a type of synthetic painkiller, such as fentanyl.

The latest data is grim: 128 died from illegal drug overdoses in September, an eight per cent jump from the previous month and far above the year before. That’s equivalent to more than four killed a day.

So many have died, according to an Oct. 23 report by Canada’s chief public health officer, that B.C.’s average life expectancy actually dropped by more than a month.

“When I see people suffering, I see a loved one suffering,” he said. “I see a family member hurting. And the solution is not to put that person in jail. That’s not going to cure the illness, the mental health, the addiction.”

This month marks a year since, during a visit to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Singh became likely the only party leader to have been trained to use the overdose-reversing drug naloxone. He has long been a proponent of the types of harm-reduction measures pioneered in B.C., such as overdose prevention sites, supervised injection facilities and opioid substitution treatments.

On Thursday, Singh went further, calling on the federal justice ministry to consider launching a lawsuit against some of the manufacturers of prescription opioids. A similar case in the U.S. found that pharmaceutical companies had failed to disclose the addictive risks of their products.

The B.C. NDP government launched its own class-action lawsuit in August, targeting more than 40 opioid producers. It was the first province to do so, but Singh hopes Ottawa will now follow suit — and even consider criminal charges.

“We have to take care of people, and we have to hold those responsible to account,” he said. “In the States, they held pharmaceutical companies responsible for not providing the necessary information on the addictive nature of the opioids they were producing.

“If there’s merit to the case, we have a responsibility at the federal level to recover the damages and reinvest those damages into saving people’s lives.”

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Such a move would mirror Ottawa’s approach to tobacco companies, he said. During his visit to B.C., Singh met the co-founder of Mothers Stop the Harm, Leslie McBain, whose only son was prescribed opioids for a back injury, became addicted and died of an overdose in 2014 at age 25.

McBain, who is family engagement lead at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, applauded Singh’s push for a much more aggressive, litigious approach from Ottawa.

“I hold the pharmaceutical company in large part responsible for my son’s death,” she said in a statement Thursday. “Our family doctor bought the marketing line from the company and prescribed ever-increasing doses of Oxycodone for Jordan’s minor back injury.

“Eventually Jordan had to find the drugs elsewhere and fatally overdosed.”

Meeting McBain and hearing her story on Thursday left Singh more resolute in his push to have Ottawa crack down on pharmaceutical firms that some experts say played a role in prescribing the painkillers to thousands.

“Her story was just mind-blowing,” Singh said. “It could be anybody. Leslie could have been anyone’s mom, and her son could have been anyone’s son.

“All of us know someone who’s touched by this.”

Although only a few federal political leaders have held B.C. seats, as an Ontarian soon to move to Burnaby, Singh says it’s time Ottawa took a page from the West Coast’s playbook on public health.

“We’ve seen the B.C. NDP take really bold decisions around harm reduction and caring for folks, and we should be doing them across the country,” he said. “It is a great idea that the federal government should join in on.”

As soon as Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau calls a byelection in Burnaby South to replace now-mayor of Vancouver Kennedy Stewart, Singh will run for the long-New Democrat seat in Parliament.

However, a byelection isn’t required by law for six months — leaving little time for Singh, if elected, to find his footing in the House of Commons before next fall’s federal election. That drew ire not only from the NDP but also Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, the Greens and the Bloc Québécois.

With files from Perrin Grauer

Correction — Nov. 16, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly implied NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has not held an elected office before. He was an Ontario MPP, but has not held an elected federal office.

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