SoVote

Mar/2/22 4:45:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one has to ask why the Conservatives want to delay this for three weeks. They do not want the oversight committee in place, this parliamentary review committee. That is my question to my colleague. However, I need to preface it by noting the incredible impacts that the occupation had on the people of Ottawa. Any of us who walked through those neighbourhoods and talked to those residents know first-hand that people with disabilities and seniors were cut off from essential services. Families were subject to huge levels of noise and the highest level of pollution in the country. Thousands of jobs were lost and hundreds of businesses were closed. We saw and heard about the assaults. We heard about the vandalism. We heard about a wide range of abuses that the people of Ottawa had to endure, yet at this point, I have not heard one Conservative MP say they talked to the people of Ottawa, found out what was happening and now understand what they were enduring. The Conservatives seem to want to delay this for three weeks, but at the same time, they never spoke to the residents of Ottawa. Why did they not speak to the residents of Ottawa and why are they trying to delay the oversight committee by three weeks?

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Hon. Mark Holland

Mar/2/22 4:47:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct. We are going to back to our constituencies for two weeks, so if we do not deal with this today, the matter would be put off for three weeks. It is very confusing to see the Conservatives stand up and demand that there be oversight and accountability, but also demand that we not set up the process that would do the thing they say they want. They are speaking in contradictions. Because I suspect one of the next questions will be from the members opposite, I would invite them to talk to us about the conversations they have had with business owners inside the red zone and about how they were affected. They should talk about the residents who were affected, about why they were outside supporting the protest and about why they would be demanding to chair a process to overlook the thing they were supporting. It is an untenable, illogical position. There is a very simple solution. It is to vote right now to create this committee, get to work right now and get this done.

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Mr. Jeremy Patzer (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, CPC)

Mar/2/22 4:48:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the Friday Parliament was cancelled, I actually was talking to the residents of Ottawa. I talked to a lady who said she was one of the biggest supporters of the Prime Minister until a couple of months ago, when the Prime Minister insulted, belittled and continued to be disrespectful to people who have a different opinion than his. She had finally gotten to the point where she could no longer support the Prime Minister. She wanted to see what was going on, felt extremely safe and had no concerns. There was also a chef who worked for a restaurant that was closed because of the fearmongering by the government, which said there were dangerous people out on the streets. That was a blatant untruth. Many people were out of work simply because of the fearmongering that has happened in this place. In Parliament, we go on precedent. We quite often go on the customs and traditions of this place. I am wondering if something has happened historically that would give the member reason to believe we should give the chairmanship to a second and third opposition party, when the letter of the act specifically speaks to giving the chair to the official opposition. What is the precedent he is using to make this decision?

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Hon. Mark Holland

Mar/2/22 4:49:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise as the government House leader to respond to the question that was posed to me. The member says that he has talked to business owners who said their businesses were affected by the Prime Minister's objection to the illegal blockades. I would ask him what he thought happened when this city was completely shut down and businesses could not open their doors. I was talking to business owners who watched people defecate in front of their properties, who watched them stare in their windows and intimidate them, who watched them bang on their windows. Countless business owners said it was the worst thing they had endured in 30 years of business. The member found one person who was not negatively affected by it and is an ardent partisan of the Conservatives. I congratulate the member on his ability to find that person, because things would have been very difficult for anybody living in the red zone. This was a situation without precedent. Our city was occupied. There were unbelievable things happening outside these doors and the official opposition was cheerleading them. The member is right that this is without precedent, and we have to respond accordingly.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Mar/2/22 4:50:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if this was not such a serious issue, I would almost be amused by the childishness of the Liberals and the Conservatives. Personally, I find it doubly important that the membership of the committee be unanimous, because we need this committee to be as legitimate as possible given the context. Another reason why I think that is important is that a precedent has already been set in this case. The Liberals, along with their Siamese twins the NDP, imposed the emergency measures in a seemingly partisan context, and I would find it extremely frustrating if the membership of this committee was shoved down the House's throat with a gag order.

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The Deputy Speaker

Mar/2/22 4:51:33 p.m.
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It is my duty to interrupt proceedings at this time and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House. The question is on the motion. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I will invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair. The hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil.

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Mr. John Brassard

Mar/2/22 4:52:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we want a recorded vote.

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Recorded

The Deputy Speaker

Mar/2/22 4:52:16 p.m.
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Call in the members.

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Call

The Speaker

Mar/2/22 5:35:48 p.m.
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I declare the motion carried.

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Hon. Mona Fortier

Mar/2/22 5:36:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, on behalf of 90 departments and agencies, the departmental plans for 2022‑23.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Mar/2/22 5:36:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know that there has been a change of plans, but if I understand correctly, I will have nine minutes before Private Members' Business and the consideration of the bill introduced by my dear colleague, the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni. Do I have nine minutes? After Private Members' Business, I will have five more minutes. Do I have that right?

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Mar/2/22 5:37:23 p.m.
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We will proceed with orders of the day until 5:44 p.m. We will then interrupt the proceedings and move to private members' bills. We will resume debate at 6:44 p.m., and the hon. member will be able to continue his speech at that time. The hon. member has 14 minutes remaining.

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Mr. Peter Julian

Mar/2/22 5:38:24 p.m.
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Thank you, Madam Speaker. I knew there would be an interruption, and I wanted to confirm that. All of us, not just in the House of Commons but across Canada, are looking forward to hearing about the bill brought forward by my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni. This is a very worthwhile bill that will make a difference for so many Canadians. We look forward to it. I gave the first part of my speech on Monday, and I spoke at length about the situation of Ottawa residents. Today, I will give the second part, and as was just confirmed, I will give the third part after private members' business. Here is the second part of my speech. Members will recall that in the first part of my speech I talked about the profound impacts of the occupation on the residents of Ottawa. During the blockades many thousands of jobs were lost. The people of Ottawa suffered incredibly during this three-week period due to government inaction and due to a lack of action taken to protect them. We saw people with disabilities and seniors denied essential services. We saw cases of vandalism and assault. We certainly saw the highest noise levels, those normally seen in airports, going on 24-7 in downtown Ottawa. We saw toxic pollution from the diesel engines running 24-hour a day, which had profound impacts on children in downtown Ottawa. We also saw the loss of thousands of jobs and the closure of hundreds of businesses. The first part of my speech was to address the profound hardship that the people of Ottawa endured during that period. That is why it is so vitally important now, having thankfully come to a peaceful resolution, and some members of Parliament would say that is despite the Emergencies Act and others would say that it is because of the Emergencies Act, to move immediately to putting in place a parliamentary review. That is what Canadians want to see. They want to see answers to those questions. They believe we need to move with alacrity. We had an opportunity on Monday for the official opposition to join all the other recognized parties in the House of Commons and the parliamentary groups in the Senate to put this motion in place by unanimous consent. We saw this, thankfully, with the ban on conversion therapy. The Conservatives stepped up, and we had a unanimous adoption of that important legislation in the House of Commons. We could have and should have done the same thing on Monday. Now we have the opportunity to have a vote tonight. If we had not taken the step we just took, the Conservatives would have delayed, for another three weeks, the putting into place of this vitally important parliamentary review. It is an absolutely essential parliamentary review. I am speaking in favour of this motion because what it does, and why it has such broad support within the House of Commons and within the Senate, is it accomplishes a number of things in a very important way to set up a structure that would allow for a thorough and impartial review of what transpired, not only with the Emergencies Act, but also in the three weeks prior. We have two chairs in place from the House of Commons, representing both sides of the debate, an NDP co-chair and a Bloc co-chair, the NDP having voted in favour and the Bloc having voted against. We have that impartiality, in the chairs, that is so vitally important. We have a fair representation from all parties and all of the four Senate groups. With the changes in the Senate, the idea that we could only have one Conservative senator and nobody else made no sense at all. Here we have fair representation from the Senate groups and fair representation from the House of Commons. The Conservatives certainly cannot complain. They have three members, and if we include the ex-Conservatives in the Canadian Senate group, four members, which is more than any other party in this parliamentary review committee. The Conservatives have three or four, depending on how we want to count ex-Conservatives. The Liberals have three. The NDP has one. The Bloc has one. The Independent Senate group has one. The Progressive Senate group has one, and the Conservative senators have one. It is a fair division of the membership of a committee that is so essential to moving forward immediately. We have a fair division of the chair roles. We have a fair division in terms of the party membership and the Senate group membership. With that on the table, we should have been able to move forward with this on Monday. The Conservatives should have said, “Yes, this is important. We believe we need to move ahead rapidly.” Instead, they have delayed and continue to want to delay. Next week and the following week are constituency weeks. Obviously, they wanted to delay this for another three weeks. Ottawa cannot wait. Canadians cannot wait. We have to move ahead with this parliamentary review. That is why it is so important that we have the vote tonight. I am thankful, of course, that three of the four recognized parties in this House of Commons will be voting yes on this motion and that the Senate groups have said that they will be voting in support of this motion to put in place a parliamentary review. The NDP thinks it is absolutely essential. It has to happen now. We could get to work tomorrow.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Mar/2/22 5:44:35 p.m.
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The hon. member will have about eight minutes when we resume debate on the motion. It being 5:44 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

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Minutes

Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Mar/2/22 5:45:34 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-216

moved that Bill C-216, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to enact the Expungement of Certain Drug-related Convictions Act and the National Strategy on Substance Use Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee. He said: Madam Speaker, it is a huge honour to draw third in the order of precedence this Parliament to be able to move such an important piece of legislation. It is emotional for me because this is such an important bill. It is Bill C-216, a health-based approach to substance use act. I want to thank my deputy House critic for the NDP from Port Moody—Coquitlam for seconding the bill. The bill is not new. It was originally moved by the member for Vancouver Kingsway in the 43rd Parliament, but it died on the Order Paper because of an unnecessary election. Its time has come, and we cannot delay any more. We are using this as the third bill to debate in the House because lives are at stake. We know this from the same public health experts who asked us to follow the science at the beginning of the pandemic. We know this from provincial coroners' reports, which tell the story with statistical evidence of record-breaking numbers of overdose deaths in our cities, our towns and our rural communities. We know the time has come to debate these measures when Canada's police chiefs and the municipal governments of our largest cities are supporting the decriminalization of the possession of illicit drugs for personal use and the provision of access to a safe, regulated supply of drugs for users. We know the time has come from the families and loved ones of so many victims of drug poisoning and from the heartbreaking stories the media reports about their pain. Each of us in the House, every one of us, knows all too well the time has come for common sense reforms of Canada's drug laws because of the phone calls we receive from our constituents, from moms and dads, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours, about overdose deaths caused by drug poisoning. They tell us the time has come to act on the decriminalization of simple possession and for the provision of a safe, regulated supply of substances. They are all asking us to save lives. As the former provincial medical health officer from my home province of British Columbia, Dr. Perry Kendall, said recently, the latest figures are “unconscionable” and “it is past time for an adult discussion about drug policy.” The bill is the healthiest approach to substance use, and the debate is about having that adult discussion, which has not taken place in the history of this House. We know from the evidence that the so-called war on drugs has not worked over the past many decades. As the frontline workers fighting to save lives on the streets of our towns and cities remind us, it has not been so much a war on drugs, but it has been and continues to be a war on drug users. The fact is that because a son, daughter, friend or neighbour is addicted to drugs, or is just a weekend user, should not be a death sentence, because too often it is. They are sentenced to death by drugs poisoned with fentanyl and other dangerous substances by organized crime seeking to maximize profits. In fact, fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. Its orders of magnitude show it is cheaper to traffic than other drugs, which creates a huge economic incentive, at the cost of lives. A few grains of fentanyl can cause overdose and death. I know there is support in this Parliament for the measures proposed in the bill from many members and from many parties, and I am grateful for that support. I am especially grateful for that of my own party, which has been behind this the whole way. We may not all agree on the same specific actions required, but we all want to stop the harm. In 2020, Health Canada asked 18 experts in the field of substance use and addictions to come together as an expert task force on substance use and consider alternatives to criminal penalties for the simple possession of illicit drugs. The government promised it would be informed by this task force in its policy making going forward. In fact, it became a campaign promise. The expert task force was mindful of five core issues: stigma, disproportionate harms to populations experiencing structural inequity, harms from the illicit drug market, the financial burden on the health and criminal justice systems, and unaddressed underlying conditions. In May 2021, we heard from these experts and were informed by their near-unanimous recommendations. Not surprisingly, their recommendations mirror the measures proposed in this bill today for a truly health-based approach to substance use. In the same way that we listen to the advice of public health professionals in dealing with COVID-19 and the pandemic, we must listen to these experts about the overdose crisis, which is killing increasing numbers of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. First, “the Task Force found that the criminalization of simple possession causes harms to Canadians and needs to end.” These are not my words. They come from this body of esteemed experts gathered together by the government to guide the actions intended to save lives. I am going to repeat that: “The Task Force found that criminalization of simple possession causes harms to Canadians and needs to end.” This is a human rights issue. It has been more than 10 months, and hundreds and hundreds of deaths, since the City of Vancouver applied for section 56 decriminalization exemption with the support of its medical health officer and its chief of police. This is the exact same process Vancouver used to get the first supervised consumption site almost 20 years ago. The federal government of the day backed the City against provincial opposition, as the need was so dire. This took courage and political will. The need is more dire today. We all know this. However, for whatever reason, the Vancouver application, now joined by applications from British Columbia and the City of Toronto, sits on the minister's desk. Second, the government was informed by its own expert task force that it recommends: As part of decriminalization...criminal records from previous offenses related to simple possession be fully expunged. This should be complete deletion, automatic, and cost-free. It is right in the report. This bill calls for full expungement of conviction for simple possession. It is time to relieve Canadians of this unnecessary burden. Why? Because those Canadians who are burdened with records of criminal conviction for simple possession of illicit substances face often insurmountable barriers to employment, housing, child custody and travel. Third, this bill calls for a national plan: a strategy to expand access to harm reduction, treatment and recovery services across Canada. Importantly, this must include ensuring access to a regulated safe supply for users. Instead of leaving the drug supply to gangs driven to maximize profits at the expense of lives, we must support the domestic production and regulation of a safer supply that is readily available and accessible to users. It has been almost two decades since the first sanctioned supervised consumption site opened. It has been another decade since the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it must remain open, yet there are still only a few dozen in the entire country. Why are there so few? Why is there such limited access for those who need the service? I submit that it is because of a continued stigma against and criminalization of drug users. Unfortunately, as these common-sense reforms are advanced on a daily basis by public health professionals, law enforcement, the media, frontline workers, and substance users and their families, they have been given very little attention by the current government. It has been six years. The overdose crisis is not even mentioned in the Prime Minister's mandate letter to the Minister of Health, and is given a low priority in his letter to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. It was not even in the Speech from the Throne. This crisis must be treated with urgency. It is a health emergency. Slow-walking essential reforms through a protracted political and bureaucratic deliberation, or worse, ignoring them altogether, will only result in more preventable deaths. We all want lives to be saved, so let us take the politics out of the overdose and toxic drug-supply crisis. Indigenous people are disproportionately affected, and we must work with them in partnership on the implementation of a health-based approach. Frontline workers struggling day in and day out to save lives must also be partners in implementing a health-based approach. Public health professionals and law enforcement must be engaged along with territorial, provincial and municipal governments. In summary, I ask that consideration be made of the three essential measures proposed in this bill. First, that the stigma of substance use be addressed by repealing the provision in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that makes it an offence to personally possess certain substances. Second, that barriers to employment, housing and other essentials of life be removed for Canadians with certain drug-related convictions through the destruction or removal of the judicial records of those convictions that are in federal systems. Third, and finally, that a health-based approach to substance use be created through a national strategy on substance use act, which would require the Minister of Health to address the harm caused by problematic substance use. A national strategy should include, but not be limited by, access to a safe, regulated supply of substances for users, universal access to recovery, trauma-based treatment, harm reduction services, prevention programs, outreach and public awareness programs. None of the above should cause this government to delay further the approval of applications by British Columbia, and the cities of Vancouver and Toronto, for section 56 decriminalization exemptions. Unfortunately, ministers and their officials continue to hem and haw about the differences between the applications as they pertain to the threshold of quantities that are possessed. This should not be an excuse for delaying our movement as a nation towards decriminalization. Similarly, with the expansion of safe injection sites and the provision of safe drugs under existing laws, we cannot let this debate and the legislative and regulatory actions that must follow delay or defer providing access to a safe supply. Evidence shows that users are not dying from overdoses at safe injection sites, where they exist. In fact, there has not been a single overdose death in any of the safe injection sites in this country. Not one. There has not been a single overdose death. We learn from this that a regulated safer supply will save lives. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, this bill, which is a health-based approach to substance use, aims to save lives. The Public Health Agency of Canada projects that we will lose at least another 3,000 Canadians just in the first half of this year alone. This is not just a statistic. It is a tragedy, this enormous loss of life. Of course, in the stories of the families who have just lost loved ones to illicit drug poisoning, we know from the evidence and from the advice of public health experts that these deaths could have been prevented. Who are they? Seventy-five per cent of the deaths are men, with the majority of people between the ages of 20 and 49. Indigenous people are especially at high risk in our country. In B.C., my own province, first nations people died of an overdose at a rate 5.3 times that of other residents in 2020. Most are economically vulnerable. Only a quarter of the men, and a third of the women, had some level of employment. For those who were employed, most were concentrated in the trades and other physically demanding occupations that are also more prone to high rates of injury and unmanaged pain. These people are dying alone. In Ontario, 75% of fatal overdoses in 2021 occurred when no one was present to intervene. In B.C, 83% of overdose deaths occurred inside, and more than half were in private residences. We know from the Public Health Agency of Canada that, without significant interventions, the rate of deaths and harms will worsen and altering the course of the overdose crisis will become even more challenging. Over the past six years, we have lost over 25,000 lives and Canada still does not have a strategy. We know from coroners' reports, frontline workers and users that people are dying from drugs that are, for the most part, poisoned with fentanyl and other chemicals to maximize the profits of organized crime. Some people are addicted to illicit drugs, and many are not. They are occasional users seeking relief from the pain of past trauma or the challenges of everyday life. I know that some members will say the emphasis of our approach should be limited to providing treatment for addiction. While trauma-based treatment leading to recovery from an addiction is an important component of a health-based approach to substance use, we must stop the harm first. As the member for Vancouver East told the House last month, dead people don’t need treatment. My thanks to all of my colleagues in the House for their consideration of this very important bill. I look forward to their comments, their ideas and their questions.

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Mrs. Élisabeth Brière (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, Lib.)

Mar/2/22 6:00:33 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-216

Madam Speaker, I sincerely thank my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni for his speech. Clearly, this crisis has already taken too many lives. We understand that action is urgently needed, and that is why we made it a priority. I would like to ask the member this. Does he agree that moving in this direction requires addressing fundamental issues, including working with partners to establish appropriate thresholds to define possession and ensure other supports are in place?

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Mr. Gord Johns

Mar/2/22 6:01:19 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-216

Madam Speaker, I do believe we need to work together, and I look forward to working with my colleague. When we talk about thresholds, the concern is that if they are too low they exclude people. They also incentivize people who use drugs to use them more. Typically, thresholds exclude the people who use drugs the most. That is a concern, of course. When I think about the quantity of substances, I try to relate it to quantities of lives, because the lower the threshold, the fewer lives we save. The higher the threshold, the more lives we save. In Canadian case law right now, the way the laws are enforced is not based on thresholds. It is about action. It is something we need to talk about and look at. Again, my colleague and members should consider that the lower the threshold, the fewer people's lives we save. We are here to save lives. We are here to protect Canadians.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Mar/2/22 6:02:20 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-216

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his bill. It is important that we take a health-based approach. That is obviously the Quebec government's approach. However, we know very well that this approach cannot be funded through good intentions alone. I would like to know exactly which section of the bill proposes to increase unconditional health transfers to the provinces so that the Canada health transfer covers 35% of provincial system costs.

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Mr. Gord Johns

Mar/2/22 6:02:50 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-216

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for always pushing really hard to increase health transfers to provinces, which is so important because we know the system is underfunded. People need immediate access to treatment. They cannot get that right now. Regarding the amount of money that has been spent, when we compare COVID-19 with the overdose crisis, the stigma is there. It is pretty clear. It requires significant investment, but a strategy is critical to ensuring provincial and territorial governments are part of that conversation and are partners in delivering the protection needed to stop the deaths of people due to a poisoned drug supply. Absolutely, it needs robust investment, but it needs to also be treated fairly. There have been 25,000 people who have died from a poisoned drug supply in six years. The stigma is clear in the amount of money the government has invested in this crisis and health emergency.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Mar/2/22 6:03:55 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-216

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Courtenay—Alberni for his leadership with this bill. I want him to know the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands and I will both be supporting this for the simple reason that this bill, if passed, would save lives. In the Waterloo region alone, there were 155 preventable deaths last year. This bill follows the recommendations we already have from the expert task force on substance use. This bill follows through on the talk in this House recognizing that the poisoning crisis is not a criminal justice issue but one of public health. I would like to ask him about the importance of low-barrier access to safe supply, which is part of the national strategy called for in this bill.

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SoVote

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