Thank you for having us.

My name is Lance Charles. This is my wife Sarah MacDonald. She is the mother of Brianna MacDonald. Brianna passed away on August 23 from an overdose. She struggled with mental health. It dragged her down a dark path. She was an amazing little girl. She had a laugh like no other child. She was there for you when you needed her.

Around the time I came into Brianna's life, she started to experience issues with her mental health. She started experimenting with drugs, as well. Her drug of choice was Molly, but she would try anything she could get her hands on. Brianna had over 20 recorded suicide attempts. She tried to overdose on prescription drugs she would steal. Over time, you could see she was going down a very dark path.

We, as parents, started to discuss what we could do and tried to get her help. We looked into treatment centres, mental health centres, doctors and counsellors. None of it helped. The treatment centres told us she was too young. The doctors told us she had behavioural issues. Others told us she's too young to diagnose. Brianna's father and I begged doctors to keep her in hospital. The doctors overlooked what we said and released her, sending us home with Narcan kits. This was starting to get very alarming. It seemed we spent every other week with Brianna at the hospital. She was prescribed many different medications. Some worked for a bit, while others didn't work at all.

We noticed things were getting darker. She became a ball of rage. She was up all night sneaking around and doing drugs. She started to come and go as she pleased. Sarah and I would often get woken up by the police bringing her home because she was found extremely intoxicated. Police would also be needed when she had her violent episodes and threatened to kill herself. An officer asked me once what I would like him to do. I told the officer, “She's threatening to harm herself. Please invoke the Mental Health Act and force her into a hospital.” The officer told me he couldn't because it's against her will.

This is when I discovered the Infants Act. This little girl had more rights to her medical decisions than her own parents. She could tell doctors anything they wanted to hear, and they would release her. Back in February this year, Brianna was found in the kitchen overdosing. Sarah called 911. An ambulance came a short time later to take her to Abbotsford general. Sarah got very mad when she was at the hospital. She stood up to the doctors, who were just going to pump Brianna's stomach and send her on home. Sarah directly told the doctors that we were tired of this. Brianna needed help with her mental health.

This time they sent her to the children's hospital in Vancouver. Brianna didn't do well there. She was lashing out at staff, and screaming. They really couldn't handle her. They weren't fit to handle her. They transferred her to a place called CAPSU. It's at Surrey Memorial. They held her for about 10 days. While there, she had her good days and she had her bad days. Sarah had a meeting with the doctors. They told her Brianna was clear to be released when, realistically, she wasn't. She had just finished putting a pencil through her hand. Once again, Sarah fought to keep her there. Of course, all they did was send us home with a Narcan kit.

This is when we started to see the real dark side of Brianna. We noticed she started using drugs like Molly on a regular basis. We were astounded that she could actually get these drugs. One evening, a car randomly pulled up in front of our house. I went outside after asking my wife who this person was showing up in front of our house. It turns out that we didn't have a clue. I went out to check and make sure. I asked what this person's business was in front of our place. These were two 16-year-old children who were there to sell our daughter Molly. We took pictures of the licence plate and reported it to the police. The police never did anything. They didn't even report back to us.

Now I was really getting worried. It was shortly after this that Sarah started wondering what else was she up to, so she started following Brianna around.

Brianna would actually go to a harm reduction site. She would acquire these zip-lock bags full of needles, cooking kits and pamphlets on how to cook the drugs and safely use them. We were astounded by the fact that these were available to a child. How can a 12-year-old, as she was at that time, acquire these? She can't buy marijuana at a dispensary and she can't buy booze at a liquor store, but she's able to pick up these kits from a harm reduction site to use drugs—a site that is meant for people who are not children. It didn't make any sense

Now we have reached the darkest times, just before she passed. Around the end of July 2024, Brianna became so violent towards her mom and I. This was a direct result of not just the drugs, but her mental health, which had gone so far down a deep path.

Sarah was destroyed seeing her daughter do this. We talked about it every night, trying to figure out what to do. Days later, Brianna became so violent with us that she caused some serious damage to her mom, who ended up in hospital with a severe concussion and some serious brain trauma. I ended up with a black eye and a cracked orbital socket.

Now her mental health was in a really dark spot and we didn't feel safe having her at our house when we have other children. The police removed her from our house and advised that it was not safe for her to be around our other children because she had become so violent. They ended up taking her to a place called Cyrus house. Cyrus house tried to hold her and keep her there. She stayed one night. The next night she didn't return.

When she didn't return, Cyrus Centre put out a missing persons report. This is when we found out she now wanted to be at a homeless camp. The police found her there. They didn't directly tell us that she was at a homeless camp. We found that out days later, by ourselves.

All they said to us was that is safe and that she's with another adult—who was nobody to us. We didn't know her; we didn't even know her name. Since when is it okay for a 13-year-old to be at a homeless camp? Why didn't the police bring her back to Cyrus Centre? Why was she just left there with another adult who doesn't associate with us?

We did keep in contact with Brianna every day. We brought her food and we brought her clothes, but she didn't want to return home. We tried to inflict rules and tried give her more stability; we told her that if she comes home, she needs to follow these. She said, “Why? I can do whatever I want out here”. It didn't make any sense. If she needed clothes or if she needed anything, she could always reach out to us and we were there for her.

Now we come to August 22 and August 23, 2024.

I went to work on August 22, thinking this wasn't going to be a change in my life. I was at work. I work night shifts at Seaspan international. I received a phone call from my wife, who never calls me at three in the morning. It was the one that a parent dreads.

She started the conversation off with, “I love you very much”. This is when she proceeded to tell me that our daughter had passed. This is every parent's nightmare.

This is when we realized that the system we have in place had failed her massively. The people she could go to for help failed her.

My question is, and always will be, why are harm reduction places considered safe? Why are children allowed...I shouldn't say “allowed”. Why are there no programs, really, in place for our children and their mental health? These drug addictions would have never become what they were had she been able to, honestly, get the mental help.

She used to tell us she would have demons and voices in her head, and the only way she could drown them out was through the drug use. I don't know about you guys here, but when you stand back and think about that, it is very alarming that a child is using drugs to drown out voices in her head. The mental health problems were there, but anybody we reached out to weren't. They would send us home with Narcan kits. They would tell us, “We can't force her into anything against her will.”

On September 19, Brianna's friend Chayton, a very lovely little boy...they were best friends.... They started experimenting with drugs because they both struggled with mental health. He had a very hard time dealing with the fact that Brianna was gone, to the point where he made a suicide attempt shortly before Brianna's funeral and, days later, after her funeral, succeeded. He is no longer with us. These were two 13-year-olds who have passed now, not only because of drugs but struggles with mental health. We need things to change because our children are dying, and we can't afford to lose any more children.

I thank you for bringing us here to speak. I hope Brianna's story, as well as Chayton's story, can bring awareness to the struggles that our children are having and awareness to the parents who are struggling with children who are struggling.

It hurts every day thinking about this situation, because I think that, if Brianna had access to the proper mental help, she'd still be here today and able to tell you this herself. Instead we have to speak on her behalf because she's no longer with us. It breaks my heart, having to speak about a child who's no longer here. We do need change, and it needs to be now. Our children are dying, and no other parents should be going through this pain. I hope that, today, we can bring some answers and enlightenment to this subject.