B.C.’s attorney general continues to flex the province’s legal muscle against companies not typically held accountable for their harms, this time targeting an advertising firm that the province claims helped supercharge the opioid crisis.

Niki Sharma’s Canada-wide class-action lawsuit against consulting firm McKinsey & Co. was certified by the BC Supreme Court this week. B.C. hopes other provinces will sign on to try and recover money for the health-care and societal harms caused by the overuse of addictive prescription drugs, like OxyContin.

“McKinsey's involvement in marketing for its clients helped promote and sell the opioid products that have caused so much harm for families,” Sharma said in a statement. The company denies the claim.

The BC NDP government has taken an aggressive stance on using the resources of the state to challenge large multinational corporations.

It led a 2018 class-action lawsuit against Purdue Canada, the makers of OxyContin, after passing the Opioid Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act and pledging to target the wrongful conduct of the manufacturers, distributors and consultants behind the addictions crisis that has killed 16,000 people in B.C. since 2016.

The resulting $150-million settlement was the first of its kind, though Purdue is moving to

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