The mayor of Kamloops has come back from this year’s Southern Interior Local Government Association (SILGA) convention with some hope on the opioid overdose front.

Ken Christian says there was plenty of talk behind the scenes – both among mayors and with the province at SILGA – on a number of topics including the overdose crisis.

“There was a number of pieces in and around wildfire preparedness and mitigation issues, which are uniquely Interior issues,” he says. “We also had a good chance to talk with the Executive Director of the addictions group with Judy Darcy’s ministry about the nature of the opioid crisis in the interior and the strategies to deal with that.”

Christian says there was a general feeling among Interior local governments that what is being done to date to tackle the overdose crisis is not working.

He says in the big interior cities of Vernon, Kelowna, Penticton, and Kamloops, there is an appetite to find new ways to battle the overdose crisis including decriminalization.