FILE PHOTO - Katherine McParland

Image Credit: FACEBOOK / Katherine McParland

Troylana Manson says she was relieved this week when she learned a Kamloops homeless youth advocate’s overdose death was made public.

She lost her son Aaron Manson last April to an overdose. Since then, the Kamloops resident has been a vocal part of Moms Stop the Harm, a network of Canadian families impacted by substance use-related harms and deaths.

Earlier this week, a B.C. Coroner’s report confirmed what many in the community already knew — A Way Home Kamloops founder Katherine McParland died of a fentanyl overdose in 2020.

READ MORE: Kamloops homeless advocate died of fentanyl overdose: coroner

By being open and sharing the grief about overdose deaths, families can heal and address the stigma, Manson said.

She has found that talking about her son’s overdose death allows others to share their own stories and find support.

“I want us to be loud and I want more families (to talk about this). One of the people I ran into last night, he was going to a funeral today for an overdose... in Kamloops,” she said.

She didn’t know McParland personally but said she cheered on her work to end youth homelessness from the sidelines.

“I have more hope when we have more families speaking out and not take on the shame and guilt,” Manson said. “When he died, I was just like ‘you know what? I’m not being gagged anymore.”

Only by talking about it can the community support one another and not continue the cycle of shame and guilt, Manson said.

"If everybody's being quiet, it's destructive for the community, it's destructive for the families and the individuals who are struggling."

Kamloops City Councillor Dale Bass has also been impacted by the opioid crisis. She lost her friend Christopher Seguin, then Thompson Rivers University vice president of advancement, to an accidental drug overdose in 2017. Her son also lost his best friend to an overdose.

“My kid’s never going to be the same. He goes around with three naloxone kits in his backpack,” she said. “We have a system set up to stigmatize people who, for whatever reason, feel shame that they use drugs. We don’t make it easy for them, they don’t want to use these safe consumption sites and be seen with what I will euphemistically refer to as ‘those people.’”

“They use at home and they die at home.”

In McParland’s case, there wasn't anything available for her to follow up with. There is no agency for semi-professional, middle-class, upper-class drug addicts, Bass said.

“We don’t see drug addiction as a health issue and that’s all it is.”

There's too much time talking and not acting, Bass said. “Let’s address the stigma, we all know what it is and we need to find a way to address it and this goes right up to the federal government.”

Bass has been an advocate for the decriminalization of illicit drugs. In December, she and other councillors sent a letter to the federal government urging it to create a national public emergency.

READ MORE: Kamloops council to urge feds to adopt national overdose plan

She doesn’t have the answer to how stigma will be addressed but suggested it could start at a public school level.

“I look to Christopher as the best example. He was like Superman to everybody but he wasn’t and he had this image he had to maintain because he didn’t even want really to change his image and he died,” Bass said.

“Once they go through counselling and they’re supposedly fine, there’s no one checking in on them.”

As of right now, whatever is happening isn’t working, she said.

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