B.C.’s attorney general continues to flex the province’s legal muscle against companies not typically held accountable for their harms, this time targeting an advertising firm that the province claims helped supercharge the opioid crisis.
Niki Sharma’s Canada-wide class-action lawsuit against consulting firm McKinsey & Co. was certified by the BC Supreme Court this week. B.C. hopes other provinces will sign on to try and recover money for the health-care and societal harms caused by the overuse of addictive prescription drugs, like OxyContin.
“McKinsey's involvement in marketing for its clients helped promote and sell the opioid products that have caused so much harm for families,” Sharma said in a statement. The company denies the claim.
The BC NDP government has taken an aggressive stance on using the resources of the state to challenge large multinational corporations.
It led a 2018 class-action lawsuit against Purdue Canada, the makers of OxyContin, after passing the Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act and pledging to target the wrongful conduct of the manufacturers, distributors and consultants behind the addictions crisis that has killed 16,000 people in B.C. since 2016.
The resulting $150-million settlement was the first of its kind, though Purdue is moving to in the United States as part of bankruptcy proceedings.
B.C. is also leading a larger class-action lawsuit against other opioid manufacturers and distributors, which was certified earlier this year.
Sharma is not just on the court offensive over pharmaceutical companies.
Her office has threatened to sue some of the world’s largest tech companies for the harms their algorithms are perpetrating on mental health and wellness, especially amongst children.
And she has urged Ottawa to resurrect parts of federal legislation that would mandate tech companies have a duty to protect people from harms advanced by their products.
“I find this work so important because isn’t that our job as government to represent the public and speak on behalf of the public and act on behalf of the public when there’s a wrongdoer?” Sharma said in an interview.
“Companies can’t be bigger than public interest. And that balance, we’re always trying to seek in society where that line is. So this is such a great tool for us to stand as governments in Canada, and that has power to it.”
The strategy repositions the B.C. government, and its small army of publicly funded lawyers, as a proactive force out to recover money from large global companies that were previously untouchable by a subnational province.
“I see my job as AG to represent the public interest,” said Sharma. “And that means showing up in the courtroom as needed to represent the public.”
Freeland slams B.C. over China ferries deal
The BC NDP government ended a bad week on BC Ferries with yet another volley of bad news.
Federal Transportation Minister Chrystia Freeland said she’s “angry” that the publicly owned BC Ferries corporation has contracted to buy new ships from the Chinese government, and has written to Premier David Eby’s government to demand no federal money be used as part of the deal.
Freeland made the admission in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
“I share the concern, the anger, of other members of this house about the purchase of Chinese ferries,” said Freeland. “I have written to the province of B.C. to make clear the federal government’s support for BC Ferries, which is explicitly for operating support, must not be used for anything other than the operation of ferries.”
Eby refused this week to overturn the BC Ferries deal, saying the public needs ferries quickly and China is $1.2 billion cheaper than purchasing from a European shipyard.
The B.C. government received Freeland’s letter, but on Thursday refused to release it, in an attempt to stave off the embarrassment of further criticism being made public. Although the document falls under the Freedom of Information Act, Eby’s office said it won’t comply.
“Please reach out to Minister Freeland’s office as we aren’t the authors of the letter,” Eby’s office said in a statement.
Freeland’s office did not return a request for the letter either.
The move comes amidst widespread condemnation of the BC Ferries deal with China from organized labour groups, within the BC NDP, national security experts and federal politicians who warn against awarding billions of dollars in public funds to a brutal authoritarian regime.
Conservative MP Dan Albas, who quizzed Freeland in Parliament, accused her and Eby of being on “Team China” and Eby of “stonewalling” on the letter.
“Chrystia Freeland made a point to tell Canadians she wrote a letter to the BC Government regarding the sourcing of ships from China,” said Albas, the MP for Okanagan Lake West-South Kelowna.
“She should then release it instead of playing games and hiding from accountability.
“The Liberals are sending $36 million in subsidies to BC Ferries. Perhaps they are trying to hide that rather than doing the hard work to demand better and guarantee Canadian jobs for taxpayer money, they are content to send Canadian dollars to Chinese state-owned shipbuilders and steel.”
