The Site C Dam location along the Peace River in Fort St. John, B.C., on April 18, 2017.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
BC Hydro enlisted a drug-sniffing dog at the Site C dam construction project, citing concerns about workers possibly bringing illicit drugs onto the massive jobsite.
The construction of the $16-billion dam requires a large work force – as many as 6,000 people are on the jobsite at any time, and the workers’ quarters can house up to 2,300. Those facilities include a movie theatre, coffee shop, gym and a bar – amenities designed to make life at the remote worksite more comfortable.
BC Hydro prohibits the use, possession and distribution of cannabis, illicit drugs or other mood-altering substances at the site.
Since Jan. 31, adults in B.C. are not being arrested or charged for possessing small amounts of certain illegal drugs most commonly associated with overdoses, nor are their drugs seized. After that change, the Crown-owned utility said it recorded an increase in violations of its prohibition policies at Site C.
BC Hydro says decriminalization does not apply on its jobsite because the project is not a public space, and safety requirements pre-empt any right to possess drugs.
Greg Alexis, spokesperson for the project, said the K9 detection unit began working at the site in May, leading to an average of about six seizures of contraband per month.
Most of the seizures involved alcohol and cannabis – rather than illicit substances – in quantities that were likely for personal use. That’s a decline in the number of seizures that were made during random searches at the gates before May – about 10 per month – which he said shows the K9 unit has been an effective deterrent.
“The K9 detection unit helps with enforcement and consists of one dog that is deployed up to four times per week at site,” he said in a written response to questions. The drug-sniffing dog is focused on workers arriving at the two main gates, and people are selected at random for searches.
“There has been a significant downward trend in the number of recoveries since K9 searches began earlier this year,” he said.
A Sept. 28 construction update filed with the utility’s regulator stated: “Since this decriminalization of drugs became effective, BC Hydro has seen an increase in drugs recovered at the security gate.”
That’s why the utility asked its Site C security services contractor to bring in a local drug dog handler.
Workers in the construction trades and those in remote camps are overrepresented in the number of illicit drug-poisoning deaths, according to the BC Coroners Service. Men account for 79 per cent of the province’s illicit drug deaths, and 35 per cent of those employed at their time of death worked in trades, transport, or as equipment operators.
A 2017 study by the Fraser Health Authority highlighted the high rate of opioid overdoses among men working in the construction industry. That report prompted public-health officials to work with construction unions and the industry to develop supports that are tailored to workers in a sector where there is resistance to seeking help with addictions. That includes a “tailgate toolkit” that provides support to help with substance use in the trades.
B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer, Bonnie Henry, said in an interview that she has seen no evidence that workplace drug prohibitions have been weakened by decriminalization.
“It just means you can’t be criminally charged for having drugs on your possession for personal use. It doesn’t negate workplace policies that say ‘no drugs on this workplace,’ ” she said.
Dr. Henry said that within a large work force like the one employed at the Site C construction project, there are going to be people with addictions, and prohibition policies need to be paired with supports.
“On a site like this, they’ve always had a policy of no drugs,” she said. “And maybe there was the sense [with decriminalization] that people felt they, they now could talk about it, or that they were more open about it. So what I would say is on a site like that, what they really need is to have a place for people to go to talk about it, because not everybody is able to stop using drugs.”
The Site C mega dam on the Peace River in northeastern B.C. has been beset by technical challenges, delays and cost overruns since construction began in 2015, but is now expected to be in service by 2025. Once complete, the dam will produce about 5,100 gigawatt hours of electricity each year, making it the fourth-largest hydroelectric facility in the province.
The decriminalization policy is intended to address the relentless loss of life from toxic drugs by reducing the stigma that can prevent people from seeking help for addiction.
However, it has yet to deliver positive results. B.C. is expected to record an unprecedented number of unregulated drug-related deaths in 2023. In November, an average of seven people died each day in the province.
Like the rest of the province, northern B.C. has been hit by the toxic-drug crisis that has killed more than 13,000 British Columbians since a public-health emergency was first declared in April, 2016.
Although the majority of those deaths have been in the large urban centres – Vancouver, Surrey and Greater Victoria – the health authority with the highest rate of death in 2023 is Northern Health – where the Site C construction project is located.