Poilievre may be 'too late' on promise to sue Big Pharma to tackle opioid crisis: lawyer

A class-action lawyer from a Windsor firm warns Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre’s proposal to sue pharmaceutical companies which have contributed to the opioid crisis may not be the most practical method of acquiring more funding for addiction treatment beds.

In an interview with CTV Windsor News on Feb. 10, Poilievre was asked how we would tackle the opioid crisis. Speaking out against safe consumption and treatment sites, Poilievre said a PC government would boost dollars for addiction treatment centres and open more bed space.

To acquire the necessary funding, Poilievre said he would “sue the pharmaceutical companies that flooded our communities with these drugs in the first place for their own profit.”

“I'm going to get massive awards from that. I'm going to use their money to pay for the treatment that our people need,” he said on Feb. 10.

According to Harvey Strosberg, a senior partner at Strosberg Sasso Sutts LLP, Poilievre’s plan to sue pharmaceutical companies is being pitched “too late” and is already happening at the provincial level.

That’s because Ontario passed legislation in 2019 allowing it to join five other provinces in a class-action lawsuit led by British Columbia.

The suit seeks to recover costs from manufacturers and distributors dating back to 1996, when the pain drug OxyContin was introduced in the Canadian market.

In June 2022, a proposed settlement of $150 million with Purdue Pharma Canada ⁠— which has been accused by government officials of being one of the main contributors to national opioid crisis by deceptively marketing their products as less addictive than they really are — was reached on behalf of all provinces and territories to recover health-care costs related to the sale and marketing of opioid-derived pain medication.

The allegations against Purdue Canada have not been proven in court.

Two months later in Oct. 2022, the B.C. government said it would introduce amendments to legislation that would allow the federal government to join that same class-action suit.

Strosberg also points to class-action lawsuits that were filed against three major tobacco companies in 1998. It wasn’t until 2015 that a Superior Court judge ordered those companies to pay more than $15 billion to smokers who either fell ill or were addicted.

“Because of that judgement, the companies went into restructuring. The class action members have not seen a dime yet almost 20 years later,” said Strosberg.

“While [Poilievre] is raising a critical problem, litigation doesn’t go that quickly, sadly. His idea is wonderful, but practically, it’s a very long process.”

In 2021, Purdue’s U.S. arm filed a restructuring plan to dissolve itself, while its ownership family agreed to pay US$4.2 billion to resolve a number of civil claims.

CTV News Windsor has reached out to Poilievre for more details on his plans for litigation but has not heard back.

With files from The Canadian Press, The Associated Press and CTV News Vancouver’s Todd Coyne and CTVNews.ca’s Cameron French.