On Oct. 6, 2026, Conservative Party of B.C. leader Lorne Doerkson announced a public safety plan aimed at ending open drug use and restoring safety in towns and cities across the province.
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Lorne Doerkson, leader of the Conservative Party of B.C., announced the party’s public safety plan on Oct. 6, 2026, saying it is designed to end open drug use and disorder across British Columbia’s towns and cities.
In a statement, Doerkson said the party will “take back our streets from hard drugs and disorder” and restore “safety to towns and cities across British Columbia.”
The Conservatives said they would deploy more police to the “hardest-hit” neighbourhoods and expand psychiatric services, crisis response, and residential treatment.
The plan also includes “compassionate intervention,” described by the Conservatives as taking people with severe addiction, mental illness, or brain injury off the street and into care.
The party further said it would amend the Mental Health Act so police officers can connect people with involuntary care.
Doerkson’s plan also calls for additional policing in B.C., including expanding the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) Police Academy to hire and deploy 250 more police officers, adding 500 RCMP officers and 150 civilian staff over five years, and increasing sheriff and court capacity to reduce delays that Conservatives said can allow criminals to “walk free.”
The Conservatives said they will also hire 50 new Crown prosecutors and work with Ottawa to fund 20 more trial judges.
In the announcement, Doerkson said communities have been “devastated by crime,” adding that people do not feel safe going downtown and that families share parks and walking paths with chronic drug users using drugs described by the statement as including fentanyl.
The release referenced B.C.’s earlier drug decriminalization pilot, which the Conservatives said the BC NDP ended earlier in 2026 after a three-year run in which Health Canada granted B.C. an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Under that three-year exemption, the Conservatives said people age 18 or older could possess up to 2.5 grams of MDMA, methamphetamine, cocaine, or opioids for personal use without arrest for possession, and police could not seize the substances.
The announcement described the pilot’s stated purpose as addressing the toxic drug crisis by reducing the likelihood that people would hide their drugs and avoid treatment.
It also said that prior to the pilot starting in 2023, the B.C. government had described criminalization as causing “visible harms,” including overdoses and deaths, stigma and shame, economic costs tied to the criminal justice system, and people resorting to unfamiliar drug sources after a seizure.
The release said the policy became controversial, with some attributing increasing crime in Vancouver and other parts of the province to the pilot.
The Conservatives said B.C. later moved to make illicit drug use illegal in public spaces in 2024, and worked with the federal government to change the legality of possessing drugs in B.C., giving police power to enforce against drug use in public places.
The Conservatives added that provincial elections will be held on Oct. 24, 2026.
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