While sentencing a local woman to more than seven years in prison for her role in a $125,000 drug raid, a Sarnia judge said one of the drugs Michelle Poirier was selling – fentanyl – has altered the landscape of Canada’s substance-abuse crisis.
“And sadly, applying this to our context in Sarnia, we are a full-blown example of this reality and this crisis,” Justice Deborah Austin said. “The examples occur every day in our community, in our courts and in our hospitals, affecting the health-care system, affecting our community at every level.
“The crime for which Ms. Poirier is being sentenced is extremely serious.”
Poirier was sitting on a couch inside a Collingwood Street home when multiple Sarnia police squads, including the vice unit, raided three addresses with a search warrant on Aug. 5, 2021. Now she’ll be spending most of this decade sitting in a cell inside the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener after officers found nearly 600 grams of crystal meth and 185 grams of fentanyl worth just shy of $97,000, along with about $28,000 in cash, that Thursday night.
“An extremely large quantity of fentanyl,” assistant federal prosecutor Brian Higgins said.
Poirier, a 34-year-old mother of two with ties to Sarnia and Petrolia, pleaded guilty on Feb. 28 to possession of meth and possession of fentanyl, both for the purpose of trafficking. Following a couple of adjournments, she was finally sentenced Wednesday to 7.5 years in prison.
“The aggravating circumstances are obvious and significant and justify a significant penitentiary sentence,” Austin said.
A key factor in Poirier’s long stay behind bars was her criminal record. It was relatively short, but already had a conviction for possession for the purpose of trafficking.
“Despite having that prior conviction, we see an extreme escalation in behavior,” Higgins said.
In addition to the drugs, police found more than $28,000 in cash hidden in a bathroom at one of the homes. Along with Collingwood Street, police also raided Indian Road South and Hampton Avenue addresses.
“There was certainly a commercial side to this, because that’s an enormous quantity of cash,” Higgins said.
But defense lawyer Terry Brandon said her client, who was homeless and dealing with a significant addiction, didn’t benefit financially from the illegal business.
“She certainly didn’t accumulate any wealth in the result, because she was no different than those who were engaged in receiving the drugs that she was in possession of,” she said.
Higgins called both drugs a scourge in the community, but focused on fentanyl while arguing in favor of the 7.5-year sentence. He pointed out the drug, 100 times more potent than morphine and 20 times more potent than heroine, is especially dangerous in its powdered form due to uneven distribution.
“It was powdered fentanyl that was seized,” he pointed out.
Higgins also noted even a tiny amount can be fatal and cited statistics that about 23,000 Canadians died between January 2016 and March 2020 due to accidental opioid-related overdoses.
“With fentanyl involved in 71 per cent of these deaths,” he said.
But Poirier should get credit for taking responsibility and pleading guilty, he added, which was his plan all along.
Poirier wrote a letter to the judge that wasn’t read out loud. But she did briefly address the court over Zoom from the South West Detention Center near Windsor.
“I’m just ready to move on from this and put this in the past. Move forward,” she said while wearing glasses and a green T-shirt as she stood next to a jail guard in a small room.
Brandon said her client, who dropped out of high school in Grade 11, has regularly taken programs while spending the past nine months in jail. But she’s also endured pandemic-related lockdowns and lost a sibling to leukemia.
“This time during her incarceration has been very difficult,” she said.
“It is part of the price that she has had to pay and is continuing to pay throughout the course of this penitentiary sentence,” Austin said.
Poirier got nearly 15 months of pre-trial custody time shaved off her sentence, including a little extra credit for the harsh conditions, leaving about six years and three months to go. She was also banned from weapons for the rest of her life – Sarnia police said a replica handgun was seized during the raid, but she did not plead guilty to charges linked to that – and the cash was forfeited.
Other charges were withdrawn.