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WEDNESDAY,OCTOBER16,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O A1 3

CALGARYThe Albertagovern-

ment is joining a class-action

lawsuit to recoup health-care

costs related to the opioid crisis,

the province’s Health Minister

said Tuesday.

Tyler Shandro said there were

almost 800 fatal overdoses and

4,200 emergency calls related to

opioids in the province last year

alone.

“Albertans have paid a high

price for the irresponsible ac-

tions of opioid manufacturers

and distributors,” Mr. Shandro

said. “While we cannot bring

back those we have lost, we can

recover some of the enormous

financial costs Albertans have

paid and continue to pay.”

The British Columbia govern-

ment filed the proposed class-

action suit a year ago, alleging

drug manufacturers falsely

marketed opioids as less addic-

tive than other pain drugs,

helping to trigger a crisis that

has killed thousands.

The suit seeks costs from

those manufacturers and dis-

tributors dating back to 1996,

when the pain drug OxyContin

was introduced in the Canadian

market.

None of the allegations in the

lawsuit has been tested in court.

Ontario and Newfoundland

previously announced they are

also joining the suit.

THECANADIANPRESS

ALBERTAJOINS

LAWSUITAGAINST

OPIOIDMANUFACTURERS

ANDDISTRIBUTORS

Seven people from a British family are set

to be deported from the United States,

where they spent nearly two weeks in a

detention centre enduring what they al-

lege were harsh conditions after driving

off a road in B.C. and crossing a median

into the U.S.

The Connors family said they blun-

dered their way into Washington State

while trying to avoid an animal on Ab-

botsford’s Zero Avenue – which is directly

adjacent to another road in the United

States – and have since been “treated like

criminals” by Immigration and Customs

Enforcement (ICE). The two couples and

three small children have been forced to

bide their time in a series of cold and

unsanitary immigration facilities as they

await deportation to England, the family

said.

Their lawyer has lodged a formal com-

plaint over the family’s treatment with

the U.S. Department of Homeland Securi-

ty’s inspector-general and civil rights of-

fice.

By contrast, U.S. officials have alleged

the family of Eileen and David Connors

crossed the border around 9 p.m. on pur-

pose, saying their vehicle was observed

“slowly and deliberately” driving through

a ditch to cross into U.S. territory in Lyn-

den, Wash., on Oct. 2. The couple have

been detained along with their three-

month-old son and Mr. Connors’s cousin,

his wife and their two-year-old twins, ac-

cording to statements from the family

and ICE.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

told The Globe and Mail on Tuesday that

their agents discovered two adults in the

group had been denied entry to the U.S.

last year. A spokesperson for the agency

would did not say which adults had been

denied entry into the U.S., or why.

The U.S. border agency said that its

agents tried returning the family to Cana-

da, but Canada refused to have them

back. The family had been vacationing in

the Vancouver area.

The Canada Border Ser-

vices Agency did not re-

spond to requests for com-

ment on Tuesday after-

noon as to why the family

wasn’t able to return to

Canada.

After making two at-

tempts to contact British

consular officials, the U.S.

Border Patrol said it turned

the family over to U.S. im-

migration officials for re-

moval proceedings. In the

meantime, the whole

group was transferred from

Seattle to the Berks Family

Residential Center in Pennsylvania – one

of three family detention centres in the

U.S. that hold children and parents who

are seeking asylum or who entered the

country illegally.

Bridget Cambria, the family’s lawyer,

described the whole situation as a “very

bizarre” case of federal overreach.

“What is bothersome for me as an at-

torney, and I guarantee for them, was the

lack of common sense at almost every

stage of their apprehension and deten-

tion,” Ms. Cambria said.

Ms. Connors, 24, said U.S. officials have

mistreated them, according to her affida-

vit from the formal complaint that was

released by immigrants’ rights groups in

Pennsylvania.

“We will be traumatized for the rest of

our lives by what the United States gov-

ernment has done to us,” she wrote.

In her affidavit, Ms. Connors described

Berks as a frigid facility

whose staff claimed they

couldn’t turn on the heat

until the end of Novem-

ber. Bathrooms are “dirty

and broken,” she wrote,

and a staff member shines

a light in their room every

15 minutes throughout the

night. She said her baby

developed a swollen, teary

eye and rough, blotchy

skin in custody.

“We have been treated

unfairly from day one,”

Ms. Connors wrote. “It is

undoubtedly the worst ex-

perience we have ever

lived through.”

The ICE statement said the Berks cen-

tre “has an outstanding track record,” and

“provides a safe and humane environ-

ment for families as they move through

the immigration process.”

Ms. Cambria, the immigration lawyer,

said the family should be on a plane to

England within days.

With reports from the Associated Press

BritishfamilywhocrossedU.S.borderwhilevacat ioning

inB.C.tobedeportedafternearlytwoweeksindetention

MIKEHAGERVANCOUVER

NEWS|

The death toll in the worst typhoon to hit

Japan for decades climbed to 66 on Tues-

day as rescuers slogged through mud and

debris in an increasingly grim search for

the missing, and as thousands of homes

remained without power or water.

Fifteen people remain missing nearly

three days after Typhoon Hagibis

smashed into central and eastern Japan,

national broadcaster NHK said. More than

200 people were injured in the storm,

whose name means “speed” in the Taga-

log language.

The highest toll was in Fukushima pre-

fecture north of Tokyo, where levees burst

in at least 14 places along the Abukuma

River, which meanders through a number

of cities in the largely agricultural prefec-

ture. At least 25 people died in Fukushima,

including a mother and child who were

caught in flood waters, NHK said. Another

child of the woman remains missing.

Residents in Koriyama, one of Fukushi-

ma’s larger cities, said they were taken by

surprise by the flooding. Police were

searching house-to-house to make sure

nobody had been left behind or was in

need of help.

“The river has never flooded like this

before, and some houses have been com-

pletely swept away. I think it might be

time to redraw hazard maps or reconsider

evacuation plans,” said Masaharu Ishiza-

wa, a 26-year-old high-school teacher who

was cleaning up at his family home in Ko-

riyama.

He said there are a lot of elderly in his

area and many of them were taken in by

relatives.

“We have never seen damage like this

before, and maybe global warming and

environmental change has something to

do with it.”

Part of his family’s back garden had

been washed away, breaking water pipes

and electricity lines. The family was using

water carried from a local community cen-

tre to clean up. Two doors down, an old

house had collapsed after the flood

washed its foundations away.

About 133,000 households were with-

out water while 22,000 lacked electricity,

well down on the hundreds of thousands

initially left without power but a cause for

concern in northern areas where temper-

atures are falling.

Survivors described how water rose

rapidly to chest height in about an hour

and mainly at night, making it hard to es-

cape to higher ground. Many of the dead

in Fukushima were elderly, NHK said.

“I checked the flood hazard map but it

didn’t have my area as being at risk,” said

Yoshinagi Higuchi, 68, who lives about 10 0

metres from one levee and waited out the

flood on the second floor of his house as

the ground floor filled with water.

“I heard there was a flood once before

the war, but we just weren’t expecting the

water to come over the levee despite all

the warnings.”

Residents were warned by the public

address systems that are a feature of Japa-

nese cities and some evacuated to a local

elementary school, he added as he and

neighbours piled sodden tatami straw

mats and other damaged furniture on the

street.

“Nobody from city hall has come to

check on us yet,” Mr. Higuchi said.

Fukushima is home to the Fukushima

Daiichi nuclear power plant that was crip-

pled by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Officials for Tokyo Electric Power Co,

which owns the plant, have said there was

no leakage of contaminated water.

REUTERS

DeathtollfromTyphoonHagibisclimbsinJapan

TIMKELLY

KWIYEONHAKORIYAMA,JAPAN

Peoplenavigateamud-coveredstreetinNagano,Japan,onTuesday.Morethan200people

havebeeninjuredinTyphoonHagibis.CHANGW.LEE/THENEWYORKTIMES

U.S.officialshave

allegedthefamilyof

EileenandDavid

Connorscrossedthe

borderaround9p.m.

onpurpose,saying

theirvehiclewas

observed‘slowlyand

deliberately’driving

throughaditchtocross

intoU.S.territoryin

Lynden,Wash.