44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 2, 2022 02:00PM
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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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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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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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for supporting this bill. I am disappointed I am not getting a question from the Conservative Party today on such a critical issue, because people are dying. If we do not take action and we continue on the path we are going down, it is a death sentence for drug users.
I have to say that the status quo is not working. Ideology cannot get in the way of expert and professional advice and evidence-based decision-making. This bill is based on that.
In terms of a safe supply, right now we know that 69% of drugs on the street are actually tainted with fentanyl. That has gone up from 29% just five years ago. We need to tackle this issue. People who use drugs need a safe supply. It should not be a death sentence when they use drugs.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to speak in support of this bill presented by my colleague, the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni.
I thank the member for his dedication and leadership on this issue. While we have recently met, I know he has long been an advocate for individuals struggling with mental health and addictions. I would very much like to take a moment to thank him.
These are issues very important to me as well. In our own way, each of us has worked for a number of years, raising awareness and striving to address the toxic drug crisis, he in the chamber and me in my former role as chief medical officer of health for Yukon. I was serving as Yukon's CMOH back in 2016 when the first fentanyl fatality occurred in the territory. Since then, Canada has lost more than 26,000 people to overdoses. Untold numbers of Canadians have had their lives dramatically changed forever due to the untimely and preventable loss of loved ones.
My territory of the Yukon currently has the highest per capita mortality rate for toxic drug overdoses among the provinces and territories. I cannot overstate how this has affected every single member of my riding, but we know this is a problem that belongs to all of Canada.
As CMOH of Yukon, I worked with the Yukon government, first nations and community partners to introduce improvements in prevention, clinical care, access to treatment, education and harm reduction. I am pleased that the Liberal government, of which I am a proud member, has stepped up to address this toxic drug crisis. I know that without the multiple arrays of federal supports, we would not have had the successes in Yukon that we have had to date.
The hon. Minister of Mental Health and Addictions has already demonstrated strong leadership in this new ministry. The government already recognizes that problematic substance use is, first and foremost, a public health issue. We are working to divert people who use drugs away from the criminal justice system and toward supportive and trusted relationships.
We have a multi-faceted approach building on previous action, including investments of over $700 million in community-led harm reduction, treatment and prevention projects, which are so important. Importantly, we have also received section 56 exemption requests from B.C., Vancouver and Toronto Public Health, and they are being reviewed on an urgent basis. The government has invested over $60 million to expand access to a safe supply of prescription opioids and increase access to life-saving naloxone across the county, including in remote and isolated indigenous communities.
Since 2017, supervised consumption sites in Canada have received more than 2.9 million visits and have reversed almost 27,000 overdoses without a single death at a site. We are investing $425 million annually for community-based services to address the mental wellness needs of first nations and Inuit peoples. Our government is clear that we will use every tool at our disposal to end this national public health crisis.
Whether in Yukon or in any other location in Canada, though, there is more we can do. There is more that we should do.
Part of this is expanding and building on what we are already achieving across the country. Currently, there are effective practices in place that can be scaled up and shared.
In addition, it is time that we formally consider decriminalization as a national policy. Decriminalization, simply put, means that we would no longer be considering simple possession of narcotic drugs and other controlled substances to be a criminal act. Rather, such possession speaks to a health issue that must be treated as a health issue.
It is important to say what this is not. Those who commit serious offences, including trafficking, will continue to receive serious sentences.
This bill would amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to repeal a provision that makes it an offence to possess certain substances and make consequential amendments to other acts. In addition, it would enact the expungement of certain drug-related convictions act, which establishes a procedure for expunging certain drug-related convictions and provides for the destruction or removal of the judicial records of those convictions that are in federal repositories and systems. Finally, it would enact the national strategy on substance use act, which would require the Minister of Health to develop a national strategy to address the harm caused by problematic substance use.
The hon. Minister of Mental Health and Addictions was correct when she said that decriminalization on its own, with a toxic drug supply, will not save the lives that we need to. The key words here are “on its own”. The important step of decriminalization must be in step with all the other components, building on the work done over the previous years by all levels of government on safe supply, on education and reducing stigmatization, on access to treatment and on better clinical management.
We need to provide better training for frontline workers responding to these crises and perhaps need to consider education and training for other community members, particularly for isolated communities. Safe supply, supervised consumption, better access to treatment, effective prevention and decriminalization are all approaches that, combined, can help prevent more deaths.
As we know, B.C., Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto are all calling for the decriminalization of the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The country’s largest mental health teaching hospital, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, is also pressing for it, and we know it is a position shared by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. It is also the position of the Canadian Medical Association and, in my riding, the Yukon Medical Association.
In addition to all that the government has done to address this crisis in recent years, we need an approach that will consider a broader approach to the issue, including decriminalization. These are critical discussions we must have, which is why I am happy to speak to my colleague’s bill, support it and help it get to committee. It is the direction we need to move in, and I look forward to working on it with members of the House.
To move forward, we need to speak passionately, show compassion and make sure we are doing all we can to get the evidence across as clearly as possible. Our decisions in this House should always put doing what is right for Canadians first by following the evidence and facts, medical or otherwise. People are dying. We must act.
This bill must be carefully and critically considered, and I am very pleased that my colleague brought this forward. I very much look forward to working with the hon. member opposite on this critical issue, as well as any other measures to address this opioid crisis.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Courtenay—Alberni for his passionate work on this file. We share an idea of seeing a world free from addiction.
I would also like to thank two very dear friends of mine, Eric and Sheldon, for their assistance with this speech today, especially for sharing their experience, strength and hope with those suffering from addiction and helping them find a path toward recovery.
Addiction is an indiscriminate disease that is ravaging Canadian communities with horrifying momentum. It steals the lives of so many Canadians each and every day. The deadliest year on record for opioid-related overdoses was 2021. Statistics Canada has said that 2022 is on track to be another record-setting year.
Conservatives believe that addiction is a health issue and must be treated as such. We believe there needs to be an increase in resources for treatment and a shift in our focus towards recovery. Conservatives put forward a recovery-focused approach, one that puts focus on treating addictions as a health condition, directly into our recent election platform. Had we formed government, we wanted to revise the federal government substance abuse policy framework to make recovery an overarching goal. We would have reoriented the Canadian drug and substance strategy towards ensuring that everyone suffering from addictions had an opportunity to recover and lead a drug-free life, and that all policies that would fall under this strategy would have reduction of harm and promotion of recovery as their objectives.
We proposed concrete and detailed examples of how we would realize these goals, such as making a number of investments to create residential drug treatment beds and build recovery centres, including land-based treatment programs developed and managed by indigenous communities. Canada currently has a serious lack of addiction treatment space. There are often long wait-lists and many barriers that prevent Canadians with addictions from receiving the support they need.
I want to paint a picture of what I mean by pointing to some amazing work that is being done in my home province of Alberta, where there has been a marked change in approach over the last few years when it comes to addiction. Alberta has become focused on building a recovery-oriented system of care, one that helps people move from a life of addiction into a life of recovery. Over the last three years, it has made key investments to achieve the goal of recovery.
It created 8,000 treatment spaces, meaning that over 8,000 Albertans can access detox, treatment and recovery services every single year. Importantly, all of these new spaces are at no cost to Albertans since Alberta is the first province in Canada to completely eliminate user fees for publicly funded addictions treatment. It has made gold standard opioid-treatment drugs available on demand through the virtual opioid dependency program so that any Albertan can access evidence-based medications from anywhere in the province. It is building five new recovery communities that will add an additional 400 beds to our provincial treatment capacity.
While I do not believe that jail is the best place to address addiction, I think we really need to think carefully about how we proceed, and I have some concerns about the approach put forward by the member for Courtenay—Alberni. In fact, the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police has been clear that it does not support decriminalization without first having necessary prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery supports in place. Decriminalizing without having the appropriate access to treatment and supports in place is akin to putting the cart before the horse.
People often like to point to jurisdictions such as Portugal when they talk about decriminalization, but what is often failed to be realized is that in Portugal drugs remain illegal and people who are in possession of deadly and dangerous drugs still face administrative penalties while they are being offered treatment. Portugal also took the time to transition carefully to a recovery model so as not to leave addicts stuck in limbo at the risk of overdose. The Portugal model is effectively a diversionary tool to assertively help people access treatment and recovery. Most importantly, Portugal has a freely and rapidly accessible treatment system.
We cannot simply take away penalties and expect things to get better. We need a comprehensive recovery-oriented system of care in place before we can even start to talk about decriminalization. The problem at the moment is that the system of care across Canada is simply not adequate to be able to handle the number of people who would be diverted into treatment if this approach were to be adopted.
We can point to Oregon as an example of where decriminalization was brought forward without adequate capacity in place. Unfortunately, it is not going very well. Its model was marketed as a tool to help people access treatment and recovery, but it did not focus on building health care capacity. What we now see in Oregon is a dysfunctional and underfunded system that lacks adequate space for treatment and recovery. Essentially, its health care system was not prepared for it and does not have the resources available to implement it properly. Canada needs a government that will invest in offering recovery and healing with a substance abuse policy framework that makes recovery from substance dependency its primary purpose.
It is worth pointing out that the Government of Alberta is currently undertaking an evidence-based study through Alberta's Select Special Committee to Examine Safe Supply. In this study, members are hearing testimony from a number of witnesses. I want to point to one particular witness, Dr. Keith Humphreys. He is currently the chair of the Stanford-Lancet commission and was the White House drug policy adviser to former president Obama. In his policy assertion, he states that safe supply is not based in evidence, and I think it is really important to make sure we are keeping that in mind. I want to remind the House that OxyContin, the very drug that is responsible for so much of the opioid dependency issues we have today, was billed as safe supply when it was originally brought forward. It is effectively a marketing tool, rather than a medical term.
There is not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to recovery and addiction. We need a suite of programs and initiatives to address this crisis. However, the most important thing is that we need to expand access to a range of treatments right now. These services have to be provided in a manner that is fair to the community, assertive in dealing with the illness of addiction and compassionate to the person who is struggling. Recovery must always be recognized as an achievable goal, and patients need to be assertively encouraged to pursue it. This means innovative treatment and recovery healing modalities that are not band-aid solutions that manage addiction but neglect root causes. Until recovery is as easy to access as drugs, we should not even think about moving in this direction.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C‑216 from the member for Courtenay—Alberni, whom I like very much and have known since 2015. He is a noble-hearted man. I am confident that he brings his bill to us today, at the passage-in-principle stage, because he hopes to address this acutely alarming issue.
I will read out the summary because the bill has three parts. I would have thought the government would want to put these eggs in its Bill C‑5 basket, but apparently not. I am just thinking out loud, but the fact remains that the Bloc Québécois falls somewhere in between. I will explain its position.
First, this enactment amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to repeal a provision that makes it an offence to possess certain substances. It also makes consequential amendments to other acts.
Second, it enacts the Expungement of Certain Drug-related Convictions Act. We debated this and talked about how someone who gets stopped for simple possession is in trouble not only on human level, because they have substance abuse issues, but also because they are left with a criminal record and all the associated stigma.
The third part is important in my opinion. Substance use is a complex problem and phenomenon, and a national strategy on substance use is important, but what I find most intriguing is that the bill requires the Minister of Health to develop a national strategy to address the harm caused by problematic substance use.
The thing is, in the bill itself, it says this whole strategy, including the decriminalization of simple possession, will be implemented the year after the act comes into force. For now, I need to think about this because it raises some issues.
I am going to do something I have never done in the House. Medical assistance in dying is another difficult issue, but I have never shared a personal experience. I want people to understand that things have evolved. There is a thing called sociology of law. We have come a long way, and it is great to hear all members of the House because nowadays, in 2022, we no longer see problems associated with drug use as a crime issue; we see them as a public health issue, a socioeconomic issue and, sometimes, a mental health issue.
I had the privilege of having an experience in my life that made me grow. It was in 1998, 24 years ago. After that, I could never again look at a homeless person with multiple addictions in the same way when I saw them on the street. Why?
I had some communications students come to me and ask me for some ethical guidance. They told me about a place called Chez ma cousine Evelyn, which served as a kind of buffer zone. Speaking of diversion, there was a pilot project at the time. In order to get a bed, a place, a room in that house—and there were not many beds—you had to be homeless, an addict, and HIV positive. You had to have all three of those problems.
We set out looking for people like that downtown, and we identified a huge number of young people under 35 who met those criteria. Unfortunately, there were no resources.
We approached these people and got them to speak with us. They could be anyone, including me or anyone here, a grandson, my daughter or a neighbour's daughter. These people had a life story that had nothing to do with their current state. Some were remarkable. I remember one person who had studied at Oxford. We would have coffee very early in the morning and she would teach me about philosophy, even though she was at the point where she did not care about anything other than her substance use.
These people were well known to the local police and therefore could go to sleep at Chez ma cousine Évelyne, consume substances there and be supervised by workers who helped manage their consumption. What is interesting, they told us, is that the first few times they injected, they would hide in the bedroom to do it, even though they were allowed do it there without any problem. If the police saw them on the street late at night, needing a ride, the police would bring them back to Chez ma cousine Évelyne.
To make a long story short, we worked with them for three months and only then, and not before, were we able to turn on the cameras. When they talked to us, it was as though the cameras were not there. We learned a lot during that time. Chez ma cousine Évelyne was able to take them in when they had hit rock bottom, felt defeated and had a millstone around their necks. Some people believe that all it takes is resolve and keeping one's head above water, but these people kept going under right away.
Seeing this reality was quite the experience for me. When these people hit bottom, there is no one there for them. They themselves acknowledge that they have alienated everyone. In some cases, we were able to ensure that the individual could die at Chez ma cousine Évelyne surrounded by family members, with whom they had managed to reconnect. Those were intensely human moments.
Because of this experience, I am saying yes to decriminalization. However, we need a way to achieve that. A very interesting report by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction points out that legislative intervention, meaning decriminalization, is ultimately only one of the pillars of a comprehensive approach, which takes time and effort to implement. Portugal, for example, scaled up prevention, treatment and harm reduction services two years prior to decriminalization.
Implementation of a pan-Canadian strategy should therefore precede decriminalization to ensure that the federal government or other levels of government do not shirk their responsibility by arguing that those people are no longer in the legal system.
That is the main problem we see in this bill. It is also the reason we would like to improve it. We will reflect on this.
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Madam Speaker, I am deeply honoured to rise today to speak to Bill C-216, the health-based approach to the substance use act.
I would like to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, for introducing this legislation and for his tireless efforts to advance compassionate and evidenced-based drug policy in this country.
In the shadow of COVID-19, the overdose epidemic has rapidly worsened across Canada, and it is hard to believe that could have happened. In British Columbia, 2,224 died from overdoses in 2021 alone. This represents the deadliest year on record in Canadian history, and a 26% increase from 2020. December 2021 was also the deadliest month on record in British Columbia, with 215 people losing their lives that month alone from an opioid-poisoned drug death. That is the equivalent of about seven deaths per day. Across Canada, over 25,000 Canadians have lost their lives to the overdose epidemic in the last six years alone.
Although COVID-19 has fuelled this crisis, it did not create it. Decades of criminalization; a toxic, poisoned, illicit supply; and a lack of timely access to harm reduction, treatment and recovery services have caused this ongoing catastrophe.
The Liberal government claims that its response to COVID-19 has been evidenced-based and informed by science and the advice of public health experts. It is time to apply that approach to Canada's other epidemic. It is time to treat substance use addictions as the health issues they truly are. The legislation before the House today would do exactly that.
The health-based approach to the substance use act would comprehensively address Canada's overdose epidemic as follows: It would decriminalize personal drug possession; it would provide for record expungement; it would ensure a low-barrier access to a regulated, safe supply; and it would expand access to harm reduction, treatment and recovery services across Canada while also focusing on prevention and education.
Decriminalization is one of those issues on which I believe voters are far ahead of politicians. It is a policy area where public opinion more accurately reflects the empirical data than our laws do. That is because not a single community across Canada is untouched by addiction. Everyone has a mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, cousin, grandparent, partner, friend, neighbour, coworker, child who has struggled with problematic substance use or substance use disorder, or maybe it is even they themself. Indeed, Canadians understand intuitively something that is critically important to acknowledge in the House tonight: Those who are suffering are not criminals. Rather, they are vulnerable people experiencing tremendous pain.
In his years working in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Dr. Gabor Maté, whom I consider to be an expert of global stature and a great Canadian, has found that childhood trauma and emotional pain lie at the root of addiction. Dr. Maté said, “This is not a war on drugs. This is a war on drug addicts.”
Addiction can never be understood if looked at through the lens of moralism and judgment. It is time, as a society, that we ask not why the addiction but instead why the pain. Indeed, if we accept that pain and trauma are at the root of addiction, then criminalization can only be seen as cruel and counterproductive, because it compounds the very problem it seeks to correct. Stigma, shame and abuse are the core emotional issues for those suffering from substance disorder, and criminalizing their behaviour exacerbates and deepens that shame and stigma. This is obvious.
Criminal sanctions are society's way of imposing maximum trauma on individuals. They get harassed by the police; they go through the indignity of arrest; they go into the very serious, intimidating context of a court; they go through a trial; they go to jail. This system is designed to impose the most serious pressure society can possibly impose. In other words, when we criminalize substance use, we retraumatize people who are already struggling to cope with trauma.
Moreover, decades of evidence have demonstrated that criminalization serves to keep people who use drugs away from prevention and early treatment health services due to fear of being arrested, labelled or outed. Criminalization also pushes people who use drugs to rely on an illicit and obviously toxic drug supply.
If criminalizing drug use worked, we would have eliminated it years ago, but instead we have spent billions of dollars, harmed millions of people, torn families and communities apart, ruined individuals' lives and achieved nothing. It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. If that is the case, decades of lawmakers in the House have been and are insane.
Part 1 of this legislation would end Canada's war on drugs once and for all by striking the prohibition against personal possession from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It would end the insanity of the war on drugs.
Furthermore, criminal records amplify the harms of criminalization by exposing people who use drugs to ongoing discrimination and create barriers to housing, gainful employment, travel and community involvement. This in turn leads to further stigmatization and marginalization.
The disproportionate impact of criminal records on racialized and indigenous communities has also been well documented. That is why part 2 of this legislation is so essential to a health-based approach to drug use. It would ensure that criminal records from previous offences related to personal possession would be fully expunged, so that someone does not carry stigmatization for the rest of their lives. Unlike the current Liberal government's failed policy on cannabis pardons, the process outlined in this bill would provide for an automatic, cost-free and complete deletion of records.
Finally, part 3 of this legislation would require the development and implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to address the harm caused by problematic substance use. It would get at the real cause of the deaths. This strategy would be developed in collaboration with key stakeholders, including advocacy organizations, frontline health care providers; and, importantly, individuals with lived experience. It would address the root causes of problematic substance use; ensure access to a safe, regulated supply; provide universal access to recovery, treatment and harm reduction services; and reduce the stigma associated with substance use. There is an urgent need for low-barrier access to a safe supply of pharmaceutical-grade alternatives to illegal street drugs of all types for everyone now. Given that the main driver of the overdose crisis is the fact that the illicit, poisoned drug supply is toxic and unpredictable, experts have been clear that the death toll cannot be abated without this evidence-based measure.
Although limited access to safe supply has been provided in some jurisdictions, existing programs do not come anywhere even close to meeting demand across the country. To emphasize, it is the toxic, poisoned street supply of drugs run by criminalized manufacturers with no regulation that is killing Canadians by the thousands. Any law that does not address this reality is not health-based; it is contributing to fatalities.
Some in the current government say they believe in treating addiction as a health issue and not a criminal one. I have heard three consecutive Liberal health ministers and a Liberal Prime Minister say this many times, but they refuse to act on this claim. The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is the law that criminalizes drug use and addiction, and it is a federal law.
I am calling out every member of the House, especially Liberals, on that contradiction tonight, because this is a contradiction that kills. They cannot say they treat drug use and addiction as a health issue and leave it criminalized on the federal books to continue to kill people.
I hope all parliamentarians stop the insanity. Let us start treating drug use and addiction as the health issue that it really is.
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- Mar/2/22 6:41:52 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has four minutes.
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Madam Speaker, in reflection, whether it is the Prime Minister, as the member just pointed out, or ministers of health of this government, members of the Liberal caucus, my colleague from the north, members from British Columbia or members from the province of Quebec, it is safe to say that in all regions of our country we have recognized that this is a national public health crisis that we are talking about.
At the same time, we recognize that it is a public health issue. We have consistently said that through the years. I can remember being in the opposition benches when I talked about the importance of supervised safe injection sites, citing Vancouver as an example. We saw different levels of government, first responders and many different advocates dealing with the types of issues that we are talking about coming together and ultimately setting the stage to say that it is a health issue and that we need to work collectively together in order to be able to take on that issue.
We have seen great success. It has already been referenced today that no one has actually died of an overdose at one of these supervised safe injection sites. We are talking about well over two million visits in a year.
We have to be aware that we are not talking about the odd person who has an addiction. There are people with serious addictions living in all of our communities, and that is why we talk about it being a public health crisis. It is a health issue, and—
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The hon. member still has seven and a half minutes to pursue his speech on the matter when the bill next comes to the House.
The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.
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- Mar/2/22 6:45:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is the third episode of this 20-minute speech.
In the first episode on Monday, I talked about the impacts of the occupation on the people of Ottawa. Other members have spoken to this as well, telling profoundly disturbing stories from the people of Ottawa as the occupation, in so many cases, wrecked their quality of life. Particularly poignant were the stories of seniors and people with disabilities who were unable to get essential services and unable to get groceries delivered, things that should not be treated lightly at all. Plus there were the thousands of jobs lost, the hundreds of businesses that had to close, the assaults and the vandalism. All of that took place in a general condition of lawlessness that many members of Parliament witnessed first hand, as I did, being in Ottawa for the entire three weeks of the occupation.
We know of course that the blockades across the country were causing similar hardships. Of course, in the case of Coutts, Alberta, that blockade has led to criminal charges, one of which is conspiracy to commit murder, one of the most serious charges that one can imagine. There were four charges laid of conspiracy to commit murder against police officers, which is so very, very serious.
That was the first part of my speech.
The second part of my speech, which took place earlier this afternoon, was about the importance of getting the parliamentary review committee immediately in place. The balance of the committee is highly appropriate. There is the fact that there would be co-chairs, both of whom are members of Parliament. There would one who was in support of and one who was in opposition to the Emergencies Act in the vote. The balance there is highly appropriate, as is the composition of the committee itself, as it makes sure that all of the four Senate groups are represented and the House of Commons. The Conservatives, if we actually include ex-Conservatives, have higher representation than any other party. It is important to get this immediately into place so that the parliamentary review can begin.
I still wonder why we are in a situation where Conservatives are trying to hold this up and not trying to get to the point where we can have this committee in place tomorrow and starting to work tomorrow. It should have been yesterday. It should have been Monday. However, we can move now. We need to move now on this parliamentary review.
Of course within that parliamentary review the statutes are clear that we need to be looking at the Emergencies Act, how it was applied and how it may have helped. Detractors might say how it might have hindered, but we need to make sure that we are aware. That parliamentary review committee needs to be put in place immediately to take every aspect and look at the measures and their effectiveness. We also believe that this parliamentary review committee must be doing a number of other things. With the imposition of the Emergencies Act, it also needs to look at what transpired in the three weeks prior.
There are questions that Canadians want answers to, the first being how the convoy was able to establish itself and cut off downtown Ottawa, cut off thousands of residents from essential services, close businesses and throw thousands of people out of work. How was that able to happen? What were the policing measures that were not taken that allowed this occupation to occur with the incredible hardship that so many people in Ottawa lived through and the constant threat of violence. As colleagues know, there were assaults. There were a number of cases of businesses being vandalized. The threat of violence was something that was over the city for the entire period. How did policing apply in those cases?
Of course we are all thankful that the provisions of the Emergencies Act, I would submit, made sure that there was a peaceful resolution a week and a half ago. It ensured that the occupation was brought to an end. I would submit that the designated areas allowed that peaceful resolution. When the noted racist Pat King called for immediate reinforcements of thousands of people to come to Parliament Hill, the fact that the Emergencies Act provisions were in place stopped those thousands of reinforcements from actually coming to the Hill. It protected demonstrators, protesters and police, and it led to the peaceful resolution we saw.
There is the aspect of essential services. Tow truck drivers who had been intimidated and threatened were, through the provisions of the Emergencies Act, able to do their job without that threat hanging over their heads. They were allowed to tow the trucks away that had stopped activity in Ottawa for weeks.
The financial provisions were used in a few dozen cases, for 200 accounts in total, but the flow of money from foreign sources was cut off. We need to be very conscious of the foreign interference that created such appalling conditions in the city of Ottawa.
We need to ensure that policing is evaluated not only on the basis of the success, but also of comparing it to policing that does not use the same measures. We have seen in cases of indigenous and racialized peoples, there is very clearly a double standard in policing. This needs to be looked at, and we need to learn from this to ensure that the peaceful end to the occupation, which finally occurred through effective policing, also applies in other cases, particularly for indigenous peoples. There is no doubt that interactions with police officers have so often led to tragedy.
Then there is the aspect of this particular convoy and its leaders' messages. The leaders of the convoy extolled unadulterated racism with no compunction at all. They simply blurted it out. At the same time, as we are well aware, their so-called manifesto sought an end to the constitutional and democratically elected government in Canada. We cannot push that under the rug.
We cannot delay this. Some people seem to want to delay consideration of the parliamentary review. This needs to be taken absolutely seriously. For so many Canadians, this poses a clear and direct threat to our democracy, so we have to make sure that the parliamentary review also includes the clear statements of intent from the leaders of this convoy and their despicable, often racist, comments. The elements of why the federal government did not act immediately are profoundly important, as are the provisions of the Emergencies Act itself, how they were applied, what lessons we can learn and what we can bring forward in the future.
The NDP's position is very clear. We need to move quickly. We should have been putting this in place on Monday. It is now Wednesday night. Let us get this vote through. Let us establish the committee and let the committee start its work tomorrow, so we can get to the bottom of all of the important questions Canadians are asking from coast to coast to coast.
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- Mar/2/22 6:53:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly agree with the member on how urgently we need to move on this and get this work started, so we can fully understand exactly what happened for all of the reasons he said.
One of the reasons we are having this debate today is because the Conservatives are unwilling to accept the fact that they will not have a chair position on this committee. The government took the position, or at least this side of the House took the position, that it was probably in the best interest that a member of the governing party not be chair on the committee, nor should the party that seemed to support the occupiers be chair. Instead, we would give that responsibility to the Bloc, the NDP and the Senate to make it as non-partisan as possible.
I would ask the member to reflect on whether he thinks that is a good set-up and scenario, given the circumstances of what has happened over the last number of weeks.
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- Mar/2/22 6:54:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly agree with the member. The consideration of having both sides represented as co-chairs is fundamentally important. We would not have supported having a government chair, as that is not appropriate for a parliamentary review.
I had understood the Conservative position as being similar, but the Conservatives have tragically changed their position so many times over the past few days that I am not even sure where they are at now. In each change of position, there seems to be a willingness to delay. Knowing that there are two constituency weeks, knowing that the decision had to be made this week if we were to get the committee up and running and working promptly this week, so we could start to get answers in the coming weeks, it seems strange to me that a party that said it wanted accountability would want to delay to such an unacceptable extent. It just does not make sense.
I know it would be unparliamentary for me to note that there is not a single Conservative actually debating this motion in the House tonight, so I will not mention that. Very clearly, the Conservatives have not been responsible or appropriate. The other three parties who are recognized in the House of Commons have agreement. The Senate groups have agreement. Let us get on with it, and let us get this committee started.
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- Mar/2/22 6:56:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby and I share a border and the constituents in our ridings have a lot of similar sentiments. I know that, in the riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, Anmore and Belcarra, many people were anxious and scared. They were feeling very uncomfortable with some of the symbols they were seeing, and they were worried about how this was going to potentially infect other communities in Canada and other trade corridors. I know that in B.C., we did experience shutdowns to our borders and trade corridors, all of it very, very difficult for folks to understand. That is why this committee is so important.
One of the things that has come up a lot in the last three weeks is the different treatment of indigenous land defenders and environmental activists who are actively trying to protect their land. There is such a difference in the treatment from law enforcement agencies. I wonder if the member could let people in my community know if they will get answers to that disparity.
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- Mar/2/22 6:57:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam is an extraordinarily strong member of Parliament. She does a great service to the people of Port Moody—Coquitlam, Belcarra and Anmore. These are the kinds of questions she asks that are so effective in the House of Commons.
She is absolutely right. We have seen different treatment of indigenous land defenders, different treatment of environmental activists and different treatment of racialized people. We need to get to the bottom of the differing treatment and ensure that there is a similar high standard of treatment that all Canadians can expect from policing.
It is fair to say that the peaceful resolution of the occupation in many ways could be seen as a model. There were no serious injuries. There was an effective use of policing under the powers of the Emergencies Act to bring a peaceful end. Thank goodness it happened that way.
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- Mar/2/22 6:58:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the hon. member that it was some of the most amazing police work, certainly that we see in the world, when one considers how our police and the RCMP, by the time the operation went forward, removed so many people and vehicles and did so professionally and with such restraint.
How does my hon. friend from New Westminster—Burnaby think it is possible that so many citizens have completely different views of what transpired? Russia Today, for instance, reported massive police brutality. Rebel News reported police brutality, yet those of us who were present in the city and close to what happened, and from talking to RCMP and police, have a completely different understanding of what took place. I ask the hon. member if he does not think this committee can make progress in getting to what we might call an agreed set of facts.
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- Mar/2/22 6:59:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are seeing the radicalization of an increasing number of Canadians, and what they are often getting through social media and through so-called news outlets like Fox News is a very distorted picture of reality. There is no doubt of that. Fox News reported that people were being killed in Ottawa. This is incredibly false information. Some of these other so-called media outlets are pushing propaganda rather than showing the tight journalistic standards that so many Canadian journalists uphold.
I have to pay tribute to what we all saw. Student journalists were often under pressure. Journalists were being attacked, sometimes physically assaulted, spat upon, heckled and harangued. However, they continued to provide the news, despite the threats of violence that so often happened online but also happened physically when they travelled through the occupation.
We need to make sure that we have strong journalistic standards, and we need to make sure that Canadians are getting facts, not propaganda. This is part of the reflection that needs to happen, not just within Parliament but right across the country. We cannot keep having people be radicalized by false information. It is destructive to our democracy and destructive to our country.
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- Mar/2/22 7:01:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Conservatives for not asking a question so that I could ask another one. My question has to do with the level of policing that was involved in this. I genuinely think that when we reflect back and when the committee reflects back on what we saw in terms of the work the police were doing out there, we will determine that this was nothing short of the gold standard in how these operations are supposed to be executed.
Notwithstanding the fact that we are certainly interested in hearing about a lot of the negatives, I think this committee has the opportunity to highlight the positives and what went right. In my opinion, one of those things is the incredible police work that was done. I wonder if the member can comment on that.
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- Mar/2/22 7:02:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, that was my point. There was a methodical, careful use of policing powers over the course of the Friday and Saturday. We all saw it. We were here on the Hill. There were no serious injuries. There was a deliberate attempt to ensure that the law was upheld but in a way that did not cause, in any way, any serious injuries at all. I think we would all like to see that same treatment when it comes to indigenous land defenders, environmental activists and racialized Canadians. We would want to see that high standard become a part of Canadian policing, and hopefully we can see, through this parliamentary review, a way of achieving that.
I will note that in my area in British Columbia, as my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam mentioned, the Pacific Highway crossing was shut down, and prior to the Emergencies Act being put in place, a tank truck busted through a blockade and put RCMP officers in serious danger. The Emergencies Act helped to end that blockade, which also featured journalists being spat upon and assaulted.
This is all part of what this committee needs to start doing as soon as tomorrow, and I certainly call upon my Conservative colleagues to rally to the consensus of all the other parties, put this into place and get to work.
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