Canadian Press file photo

By Emily Keller

opioid lawsuit

Grande Prairie Mayor hopes to see financial restitution come from opioid lawsuit

Jun 8, 2020 | 5:30 AM

The City of Grande Prairie officially filed a $10 billion class action lawsuit regarding the opioid crisis last week, and will be represented by the Guardian Law Group.

The City has signed on as the Representative Plaintiff in the lawsuit, which is being filed against over 40 pharmaceutical companies for their alleged role in the opioid crisis and the harm caused to communities and the effect it has had on resources in these communities and on municipalities responding to the crisis.

Last month, City committee recommended that Council participate in a class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers.

Grande Prairie Mayor Bill Given says that filing this lawsuit acknowledges how Grande Prairie was and is effected by the crisis, and that the city was both atypical and typical compared to other municipalities.

“We (the City) were atypical in the way that we were very hard hit, but we’re also quite typical in terms of the range of services impacted by the response.”

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He says that municipalities in Alberta generally do not have public health and healthcare responsibilities compared to other places in Canada.

Mayor Given adds that there may be some other municipalities in the province who join in on the lawsuit in the next couple of months and years.

The lawsuit claims that these manufacturers falsely and fraudulently marketed opioids as safe and non-addictive, failed to properly perform long-term studies on the effects of the drugs, and created a false perception of safety and value of opioids in the medical community.

Mayor Given says that the City is hoping to receive some form of financial restitution, if the lawsuit is successful.

“There is no reason people should profit from the opioid epidemic. People who are selling and marketing opioids in a way that they knew would have dangerous consequences, and that local property taxpayers should have to pay the additional burden. The hope here would be to recoup some of the costs so that local taxpayers aren’t on the hook.”

He does confirm that going forward with this lawsuit will not come at a cost to Grande Prairie taxpayers, as the City is taking part on a contingency fee basis.

Grande Prairie saw the highest rate of fentanyl related deaths in the province among major municipalities in Alberta in 2019.

The latest Alberta Opioid Response Surveillance Report from Alberta Health showed that the city had 24 people die from an apparent opioid overdose related to fentanyl in 2019, setting the rate at 32.2 per 100,000 people.