A slap in the face to Conservative bigotry and ignorance. This excerpt from the unanimous ruling, via Aaron Wherry of Maclean’s, really says all that needs to be said about the Conservative mindset:

The Minister made a decision not to extend the exemption from the application of the federal drug laws to Insite. The effect of that decision, but for the trial judge’s interim order, would have been to prevent injection drug users from accessing the health services offered by Insite, threatening the health and indeed the lives of the potential clients. The Minister’s decision thus engages the claimants’ s. 7 interests and constitutes a limit on their s. 7 rights. Based on the information available to the Minister, this limit is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. It is arbitrary, undermining the very purposes of the CDSA, which include public health and safety. It is also grossly disproportionate: the potential denial of health services and the correlative increase in the risk of death and disease to injection drug users outweigh any benefit that might be derived from maintaining an absolute prohibition on possession of illegal drugs on Insite’s premises.

The Minister—why, it was Tony Gazebo, what a surprise—is far from alone, of course. But the conservative death wish, at least for now, has been kept in check.