SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 200 - May/18/23

Mrs. Rosemarie Falk (Battlefords—Lloydminster, CPC)

May/18/23 11:28:05 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her very real, human speech. It is unfortunate, what this is turning into. I am hearing words like “rigidness” and “judgment”, and that is not at all the case. I know, here on this side, we heard one of our colleagues talk about the importance of community, connectedness and hope. We believe in the value of every single person. Dignity is so important, like the member said, absolutely. Empowerment is so important; the policies that are being put in place at every single level of government are there to empower the person. I know I did hear the member talk about services. I definitely believe in the importance of wraparound services, such as housing, counselling and psychotherapy. Could she expand on whether she believes in the importance of these services as well to help people overcome addictions?

150 words

Mrs. Julie Vignola

May/18/23 11:29:19 a.m.
Watch

Yes, Mr. Speaker, those services are essential. There are functioning addicts, people who have housing but are at risk of losing it if their addiction gets worse. They need support. They may be addicted because of pain. That pain, be it physical or psychological, needs to be managed. Sometimes people need help to learn how to manage their pain and live with it. Those services are essential, and better funding is urgently needed.

73 words

Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

May/18/23 11:29:54 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, these are heartfelt realities that are happening to families across this country, and I am just so moved by the member's speech today. I am disappointed, though, in the Liberals and the Conservatives, in their actions over the last 30 years in regard to investments, which the member spoke about in her speech, like housing, pharmacare and all those investments that matter to the well-being of people. Could the member speak about the lack of investments and how it is affecting communities?

86 words

Mrs. Julie Vignola

May/18/23 11:30:33 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the level of investment over the past few decades has been disappointingly low, but, as I said at the beginning of my speech, at this point, we have to say we have succeeded, we are aware of the problem and we are aware of the solutions. After all, when we invest in housing, health and mental health, we are investing in the economy, because when these people are adequately housed and their basic needs are met, they manage to make something of themselves and get back into the labour market, or at least into society, to contribute in their own way. These investments are not losses. They make our society more beautiful.

114 words

Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

May/18/23 11:31:33 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised by the direction of the debate this morning. Actually, I am not that surprised. The debate is difficult, emotional, sensitive and human, and it affects people deeply. I know what I am talking about because I had first-hand experience with addiction in my family. I was exposed to different kinds of addictions throughout my childhood. There is no denying that no one ever truly recovers from an addiction. The struggle lasts a lifetime. People who are addicted to drugs continue to be addicts for the rest of their lives, whether they use or not. It is something people are born with, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. Some people are born with addictive tendencies, just as others are born with brown eyes, the ability to run 100 metres in 10 seconds, or to become a soccer champion, a doctor, a major international researcher or a Nobel Prize laureate. People are born with this thing inside them and have to live with it. Judgment has no place in the conversation. The problem with the Conservatives is that their approach is always a bit dogmatic. It is never easy. However, I would like to point out that they at least deserve some credit for raising difficult, complicated and important issues on their opposition days. In the past few weeks, they have addressed the housing crisis, which is another major crisis that we are dealing with in Quebec and Canada, and even around the world right now. It is a huge issue. The problem is their proposed solution. Another Conservative opposition day focused on the carbon tax. They want to eliminate the carbon tax. The Conservatives were broaching another important issue of our time, another fundamental crisis that we are dealing with, the climate crisis. They suggested eliminating the carbon tax, but they did not suggest any other solutions. Is it the same thing for the housing crisis. What solution did the Conservatives suggest? They suggested eliminating municipal governments. According to the Conservatives, there is one level of government too many in this country. We agree with the fact that there is one level of government too many. We could get on board with the option of eliminating one. However, we disagree with the Conservatives as to which level of government is unnecessary. The Conservatives are raising these important issues, but they are presenting simplistic solutions that we are not sure will get us anywhere. The United States tried the “tough on crime” approach. My colleague spoke about it earlier. The Conservatives are suggesting being tough on drug addicts. They always want to take a punitive, prohibitive approach. If they see something as a problem, then they want to get rid of it. However, as I said earlier, when someone is born with this problem, they have to live with it every day. The United States, a country recognized for its strict drug policies, has not managed to stem drug consumption. In the United States, opioid-related deaths increased from 50,000 in 2015 to almost 100,000 in 2021. This punitive approach towards drug users has had no impact on drug consumption in the United States. That is more or less the Conservatives' approach this morning. That is roughly what they are proposing. The U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and that is connected with drugs and drug consumption. This record disproves the ideological approach introduced by Nixon long ago. As mentioned earlier, some areas of the United States have changed tack, adopting an approach similar to those developed by Switzerland and Portugal. In 2001, Portugal changed its approach to combatting drug consumption and the accompanying HIV epidemic by decriminalizing simple possession of drugs. This worked in Portugal. In the many studies that have followed, a new paradigm has emerged. We are familiar with it, and the Bloc supports it. Drug consumption is not just a criminal justice issue, it is first and foremost a public health issue. Let us talk about public health. The Conservatives can be criticized for being dogmatic in their approach today. However, if we start from the paradigm that this is a public health and mental health issue, because it is, then health care needs to be funded properly. We need to help people, support them in the process, but that takes money. It takes people to support them, like psychologists and nursing aids. It takes centres where they will be supported. It is a mental health and public health problem. For that, health care needs to be properly funded. What have we seen in the past few months? Over the past 30 years, every province in this country has been complaining non-stop about the lack of adequate funding for health care. There were negotiations recently. What happened? Quebec asked for $6 billion a year. We got barely $1 billion. Is that how we acknowledge the work of people who work in this field? Is that how we acknowledge even the most basic needs on the ground right now? The answer is: of course not. On one hand, the Liberals have an approach we can agree on, but it is largely underfunded, so we are left with a problem. With substance use comes poverty. As my colleague mentioned earlier, this is another important issue related to the opioid crisis. With poverty comes difficulty finding housing. Difficulty finding housing means there is a housing crisis. There is a housing crisis in this country. How many times have we talked about it? I cannot believe how many times we have to repeat the same things in the House. I am going to talk about the housing crisis because it is fundamental and it is related to what we are talking about today, although those on the other side of the House will not admit it. On Monday night, I was here in committee of the whole with the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion on the other side, the director of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, and all the senior officials from the department, and it was a pathetic display. I have no doubt that the Minister of Housing is a very nice person. I do not want to be partisan in saying this, and I apologize, but he does not have the know-how to deal with the crisis that we are facing right now. That was very clear on Monday night. We were asking some very pertinent questions. The challenge is real. Even the Liberals know it. The minister identified the housing problem that we have in this country. We must build 3.5 million housing units by 2030. He said so himself. We do not even need to tell him what the challenge is; he knows what it is. What is happening? According to the National Housing Council, 115,000 housing units have been built since the national housing strategy was launched. I will remind members that we need 3.5 million units. We have built 115,000 units, but members might want to hold on to their hats, because according to the National Housing Council, we have lost 550,000 affordable housing units. We are in the red. Over the past five years, the government has implemented an $82‑billion program. Not only are housing units not being built, but people have less access to housing. People with addictions could benefit from social housing with supports. It is desperately needed. Let me close with this. As I mentioned earlier, an economist at the CMHC said that, in Quebec alone, 1.1 million housing units need to be built in the next 10 years. On its own, the market will build 500,000 units. Everyone needs to mobilize, all of us here in the House and all levels of government, to find a way to build 600,000 units in the next 10 years. That means 60,000 a year. Only 115,000 have been built in the last five years, so we are nowhere near that goal. There are a number of considerations, including funding for housing and health care. There is also a human element underlying all of this. There are tragedies and families who have lost loved ones. We need to mobilize. Unfortunately, dogmatic motions like the one the Conservatives introduced this morning will not move the debate forward.

1414 words

Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)

May/18/23 11:41:57 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I was reminded, while the member was speaking, that a few years back there was an article in the local paper in the St. John's area of Newfoundland, The Telegram. A former school teacher had lost his job and lost his family all because of drugs, and the drug of choice at that time was cocaine. In the article he said, “If you use it once, you're addicted, because you can't wait to get back to the place where it puts you.” The member mentioned we need to do more, and I agree we need to do a lot more. As he said, there is housing, mental health and addictions services. We need to do more because this is a crisis. We just came through a pandemic and are still dealing with parts of it. This is going to be a bigger pandemic if we just sit down and do nothing about it.

160 words

Mr. Denis Trudel

May/18/23 11:43:03 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure there was a question in my colleague's comments, but that is fine. It is a real and very serious crisis. As I said, it is something very personal to me. I experienced this up close. This comes with a human cost to the families. I have heard plenty of stories. I have met many people who have gone through this: Sons who lie and steal from their own mother in order to use drugs, which is just tragic; fathers whose fridge is empty and who use their rent money to pay for drugs. I could tell stories like that for hours. These are truly unspeakable tragedies. We all need to come together. It is important and I want say it again: The Conservatives have a knack for raising important issues. The problem is that they rarely have good solutions. We all need to work together to come up with solutions.

157 words

Mr. Colin Carrie (Oshawa, CPC)

May/18/23 11:44:20 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his very sincere speech, because this is about real people. I would like to share with him that in my family we have struggled with this. I want to discuss what he accuses us of, which is strict dogma. The term “safe supply” was a marketing term by Purdue Pharma in order to get people to feel these opioids are safe. In the case in my family, it was not street drugs, it was prescription drugs. There may be less dangerous ways of managing them, but they are not safe. They are dangerous and they kill people. A friend of mine who runs a recovery clinic said that with the Liberal approach the challenge is addicts are drowning. He said when they come in to see him it is like he pulls them out of the water and asks if they are okay. They say that they are and they thank him very much, and then he throws them back in for another day. If he listened to our leader's speech, we were talking about recovery communities. Get them off the opioids and give them hope for the future. Does he agree the Liberal approach is not working and we have to invest in recovery and treatment in order to make a real difference? Nobody wants to be an addict. No family wants to lose a member because of this addiction.

243 words

Mr. Denis Trudel

May/18/23 11:45:39 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the truth is we need to do everything we can. The current approach being used might not be perfect. It could be improved. However, we are in a crisis, and at least we have something. As everyone is well aware, addicts cannot stop using overnight. That is not how it works. People need to be supported, especially when it comes to hard drugs, drugs that are injected. This requires medical monitoring and support. After-care is also needed. We need treatment centres with psychologists who can provide after-care, but for that to happen, investments in health care are needed. The Liberals's track record is to acknowledge the crisis, but then refuse to provide adequate funding to address the needs. Adequate funding would allow us to create policies that could work.

134 words

Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

May/18/23 11:46:35 a.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-216

Mr. Speaker, much as I am disappointed to see this motion come forward in the manner it has, I am also happy to see that we are having this conversation and debate today, because over 35,000 people have died from a toxic drug supply in this country since 2016. This is not an opioid crisis as the motion states; rather, these deaths have occurred because of a toxic, unregulated drug supply, and I am going to speak to a couple of things in the motion. First, (iii) of the motion states: since tax-funded drug supply was ramped up in 2020, opioid deaths have only gone up, according to the Public Health Agency Yes, of course, they have. Between 2016 and 2020, fentanyl became the predominant drug on the market, meaning more people were accessing it instead of pills like oxycontin. Fentanyl analogs, like carfentanil and benzodiazepines, also appeared in the drug supply at this time. More people have died because the fentanyl supply has become more widely accessible and more volatile. There were fewer than 1,000 people across Canada, probably around 500, accessing safe supply in 2020, with a denominator of tens of thousands of people were using fentanyl, and probably hundreds of thousands. There were 22,000 people who died from an overdose by 2020 under the current government. It is impossible that the 500 people or fewer who were on safe supply, the mass majority of whom are alive in 2023, drove those 22,000 deaths. Conservatives need to learn to do the math and listen to the experts. It states in (iv) of the motion: in 2020, slightly less than 7,000 people died of opioid overdoses, while only 3,000 died of overdoses in 2016, according to the Library of Parliament Again, Conservatives cannot back that up. Those people died from a toxic drug supply. We know these deaths are not occurring because of the government's safe supply and safe injection programs, and to assert that is disinformation. I am going to talk about some of the activists the government has highlighted. It said that activists are leading the safe supply charge. We know that provincial chief coroners and chief medical health officers across the country, like in my home province, and the police have said that. I will read a quote from the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, which made it very clear that its members cannot police their way out of this because it is a health issue. It proposed “diverting people dealing with substance abuse or addiction issues away from the criminal system and toward social services and health care. The association stipulated such a change would need to be synchronized nationally.” The government has not done this. It also cited in its report that it “endorsed access to users of a safe supply pharmaceutical-grade opioids to combat the uncertain composition of illegal street drugs, which is the cause of many opioid overdoses.” “It further made a recommendation in favour of supervised consumption sites — where people could use drugs in a clean, safe environment, under the supervision of health professionals trained in emergency intervention.” The activists are supporting safe supply. This is deeply concerning when I see the Conservative leader cite that it is only activists who are advocating. Also, there is one thing in the speech by the Conservative leader that I would like to correct. He talked about incidents of youth being trafficked safer supply. Today, in The Globe and Mail: Vancouver Police, asked...about the possible sale of such narcotics, said in a recent statement that “there's always a potential” for safe-supply medication to be sold on the illicit market. However, the force added they are not aware of any incidents in Vancouver in which safe supply has been trafficked to youth... This was in response to the comments the Conservative leader has made here in the House of Commons. I can assure the House that the members of the Vancouver police know and are certain that youth are being targeted with illegal, unregulated, poisoned drugs, such as fentanyl, which is not regulated. This is what we are dealing with. In (vi) of the motion it states: recently, a Global News reporter in East Vancouver was able to buy 26 hits for $30 in just 30 minutes of a dangerous and highly addictive opioid that is distributed in tax-funded drug supply programs and flooding our streets with cheap opioids, People can buy anything on that corner and have been able to for decades, at least over 50 years, so it is not great evidence if they go to the most robust drug-selling corner in Canada and that is what they come back with. The photos of what they purchased show that most drugs were in a blister pack. A blister pack is issued to one patient. So, the Global reporter bought most of the 26 pills from just one person, and it is not evidence of a wide-scale diversion to buy from one person. The motion today could have been about calling on the government to create an emergency committee of Parliament to deal with the toxic drug crisis. It is the leading cause of unnatural death in my home province; more than motor vehicle accidents, more than homicide and more than death by suicide. However, the Conservatives did not do that. They chose to bring forward this motion, which creates more stigma and more harm actually. A person who decides to use a single dose of a toxic drug at a weekend party is as vulnerable as any struggling person with problematic substance use, and the result can be the same: a fatal, toxic drug overdose. I know this, because in my home community, we have seen lots of people die, and lots of young men. The average age of people who are dying is 44, and the majority of them are men dying at home alone. Guy Felicella, a peer clinical supervisor at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, said that “People who aren't ready, able or interested in addressing their addiction don't deserve to die from the toxic drug supply.” I agree. I have risen in the House on many occasions, as members know very well, in support of a health-based approach to substance use. I would like to welcome all members from all sides of the House who are joining our call for increased investment to respond to this crisis and for people who are suffering with substance use disorder. The sooner we can actually come together across political lines to make this happen, the sooner we are going to save lives. This is a national health crisis, and we are not acting like that. However, we need to understand what we are dealing with when looking at this crisis. It is not the easy, simplistic approach that the Conservatives are bringing forward. This crisis will never end through just investing in treatment and recovery without recognizing that this is a complex emergency, it is multi-faceted and it requires harm reduction as well, which go hand in hand; they are not pitted against each other. Government members want to say that they are doing everything they can, but they spent less than 1% of what they spent on the COVID-19 health crisis. This is not responding to a health crisis in the way that needs to happen. We saw how they responded to SARS, HIV and COVID, and they need to do what they did there. They need to pull everyone together. They cannot just download treatment and recovery to the provinces. We saw what Portugal did. It stepped up and showed us what courage looks like and what is needed: investments in therapeutic treatment, housing and ensuring that we are dealing with this issue as a health crisis, not a criminal issue. It takes a multi-faceted approach, and I am really encouraging that today, but we need to simply do more of what we talked about. We need to listen to experts. It is so important that everybody in the House listen to the experts. I travelled across this country when I was talking about my bill, Bill C-216, which was just a reflection of the Expert Task Force on Substance Use. I was able to meet with people on the front line of this crisis, such as people who use substance and experts, and the whole time they encouraged us to listen to the report. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police of Canada, as I have cited, has come forward very much in alignment with the expert task force, and actually had a seat on that task force. The task force was unanimous in that we need to stop criminalizing people who use substances, we need to expunge records of people who have been charged with personal possession, and we need to ensure that people have access to a safe supply and treatment on demand. So, we meet them where they are at and we invest in recovery, education and prevention, because we know that when people relapse, we need to catch them, but we also need to meet them where they are at through the whole thing. My bill was defeated, as members know. The Conservatives teamed up with the majority of the Liberals and they voted against my bill, which was supported by the Bloc, the Greens and the NDP. I know that members of the Bloc had some issues with my bill, but they wanted to at least get it to committee and listen to the experts, which both the Conservatives and Liberals would not do, despite the fact that it just reflected the government's own Expert Task Force on Substance Use. Moms Stop the Harm is coming to the Hill on the anniversary of the bill, which comes up not next week, our break week, but when we come back. It will be June 1. They are coming here because they are upset that, a year later, not a lot has changed. That bill would have given the government 12 months to come back with a strategy on how to respond to the expert task force on substance use, but they voted against it. I am hoping that every member in this House will at least meet the moms, and when they go back to their riding, talk to their chief medical health officer. I have not found one chief medical health officer, or a coroner, who does not support taking a multi-faceted approach and supporting safer supply. I also urge the leader of the official opposition to meet with the chiefs of police. Hopefully, again, he will meet with the moms from Moms Stop the Harm. I know that the leader of the official opposition has been using Global News reports, the National Post and even Conrad Black to get his advice on how to move forward in terms of this toxic drug crisis. We really need to get back to ensuring that we are listening to the report by the expert task force. I want to talk about who was on it. There were public health officials; indigenous health leaders; community health leaders; business, labour, university and social service agencies; the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs; public policy thinkers; and people with lived and living experience. They were unanimous in their recommendations. I want to give huge credit and thanks to that task force, because they put a lot of work in. Again, they embraced the four-pillar approach. I understand that it takes courage to make this journey. We saw courage in Vancouver under former senator Larry Campbell. He was a police officer, then the chief coroner for British Columbia and then the mayor of Vancouver. He was the one who brought in Insite and safe consumption sites to save lives. That is the kind of courage we need today from everybody here. Again, we can look to other countries, such as Portugal, for their treatment and recovery programs. We can look at Switzerland, which has a safe supply model. There are models around the world. I hope that we can come together today and talk about how we can find a pathway to actually work together. However, the stigma that is attached to substances is a huge barrier for people when it comes to getting help. We know that even today's motion is triggering a lot of people who use substances and were looking at safe supply as a pathway out of supporting the unregulated toxic drug supply that is coming from the streets. This supply is manufactured, distributed and marketed through organized crime. We know we need to go further. We have to invest in a full spectrum to support people who use substances, including supervised consumption sites; real-time, on-demand public treatment options; and pharmaceutical-grade options and alternatives to illegal street drugs. We also have to ensure that people have housing. I was in the riding of my good colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, and we went to a no-barrier housing place. It was great to see some of the people there being able to access OAT or safer supply, which they could not do when they were homeless, living in the bush or living wherever they could. We need to make sure that this is included. When we call for more treatment services, let us recognize that, first, we must keep people alive by reducing their exposure to the toxicity of illegal street drugs. My good friend, the member for Vancouver East, represents the Downtown Eastside, a community struggling for survival and ravaged by toxic drug deaths. She once told this House that dead people cannot be treated. How true is that? I just want to also do some fact checking here. I am going to read a quote from Corey Ranger. He is a clinical nurse specialist from AIDS Vancouver Island. He cites that there are “more sensationalist media hit-pieces about safe supply than actual safe supply. In BC, well-over 101,000 people are at risk of fatal drug poisonings, and less than 5% of those individuals are able to get a ‘safe supply’”. That is exactly what is happening. This incremental approach by the government is failing people who use substances. We know incrementalism costs lives in a health crisis. However, the Conservatives' misinformation also costs lives. It is deadly. I do appreciate the Conservatives bringing forward this notion to move money from harm reduction to treatment, but even that is not close to enough money. I want to read a quote from Guy Felicella. He says, “I've been to/left treatment over a dozen times to try & stay sober. If it wasn't for harm reduction services like supervised consumption sites, safer alternatives, naloxone and clean supplies to protect me in my relapses, I wouldn't be alive today or have the decade of sobriety that I do. Don't listen to people who attempt to misinform you that harm reduction enables drug use; it enables people to stay alive and for many to try recovery again.” I want to make sure that we talk about the importance of trauma-informed treatment and ensure that it is available to people. A constituent wrote to me and said he was going to have to sell his house to keep his son in treatment; it was $300 a day. That is completely unacceptable. We can look to Portugal, which has taken huge steps on this. In my home community of the Alberni Valley, we lost 20 people by the eight-month mark last year. It is a community of 30,000 people. We are four times the national average, and this disproportionately impacts indigenous people. I think we all know the numbers. I do not need to get too heavily into that. I hope every member of this House will read the report from the expert task force on substance use. I hope everyone will reach out to their community leaders, to their chief medical health officer, to their law enforcement, to the experts in their community and, most importantly, the moms who have lost loved ones, in the week ahead. This is something that I will be advocating for. I am going to talk about safe supply and the pilots that have been happening. Ottawa has had a significant increase. There is a claim that people do not actually use their safe supply and that they just sell it to others. This is a quote from the former Stephen Harper legal adviser, Professor Ben Perrin. He stated, “Participants in the Ottawa safer supply program reduced their use of illicit fentanyl by 85% while on the program.” We have seen great results at Parkdale Queen West. In London, Dr. Sereda has been running a really important program. We know that safer supply reduces the risk of death and overdose, reduces reliance on an unregulated supply of drugs, increases access to engagement with health and social services, improves social well-being and stability, reduces ER visits and hospitalizations, improves physical and mental health, and reduces health care costs. It also reduces criminal activity. Those are the facts from these studies. It certainly helps people get their life back. We have heard some participants speak about what safe supply has done for them. These are some of the things people have said: “My whole lifestyle improved”, “Got my life back”, “My life has improved drastically”, “It saved my life”, “I function productively in society”, “My life is getting better”, “Frees time to do more constructive things”, “More energy and confidence to focus on my art” and “Opened a whole new outlook and positive way of living”. The list is long. I know that what we are doing is not working. We are seeing a government take a very weak approach in responding to a health crisis; the lack of investments and the lack of urgency show the underlying stigma. This is the stigma, right there with the government and its failed approach, as well as its inability to pull together all parties in this crisis. One thing I understand about the Conservatives and what they are bringing forward is frustration. Canadians are frustrated by the lack of action by the government to respond to this crisis. However, this does not mean that the response should be guided by misinformation. It does not mean we cut off safe supply as a tool to keep people alive, to ensure that people are able to get the help they need and to find a pathway to recovery and to treatment. This motion today, to gut the harm reduction program and to stop safe supply in its tracks without proper evidence and science, does not make sense. It goes against what police, chief medical officers, coroners, moms, experts, those the Conservatives deem as activists, and the expert task force on substance use say. I hope this dialogue, this conversation, can be turned around. I hope we can try to come together and find some common ground to deal with this crisis that is right before us. It is impacting everybody here.

3263 words

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

May/18/23 12:06:40 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his strong advocacy. In April of this year, the BC Coroners Service affirmed that there continues to be no evidence that prescribed safe supply is contributing to illicit drug deaths. In fact, B.C.'s chief coroner said, “safer supply...is absolutely not driving this crisis.” I am disappointed with the misinformation and misconceptions the Conservatives are promoting. We know the street drug supply is toxic and poisoned. Recovery is possible, but it looks different for everyone. Could my colleague speak to how people need to be alive to benefit from treatment?

101 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/18/23 12:07:28 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the choice is this: If they can get access to a safer supply, then there is interaction, which means an opportunity to work with individuals; if they do not have that option, they are going to the street. That means they are getting their drugs from an unregulated supply from organized crime. The motion today would take away safe supply and tell people to go to the street. The police have said that they cannot arrest their way out of this problem; this problem is not going away. We have to listen to the experts. The chief coroner in B.C. is going to be reporting today. She is saying that we need a safe supply program to be rolled out, not this incremental approach, by the way.

130 words

Mr. Rob Morrison (Kootenay—Columbia, CPC)

May/18/23 12:08:15 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, one thing I agree with is that what we are doing today is not working. We know that. The ideological approach of the NDP is causing havoc in my communities of Cranbrook and Nelson. I am wondering if the member can maybe talk a bit about why he and the NDP voted against a private member's bill that would have allowed addicts with two-year sentences to go to facilities that deal with addictions rather than prisons, where there are gangs, organized crime and hardened criminals. Instead, the NDP voted to put addicted individuals in prison rather than having them go to facilities that would help with their addictions. I know personally from my family that people who are addicted to opioids can recover and become part of our communities, yet the NDP voted against that. Could the member explain why?

144 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/18/23 12:09:16 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, my colleague is a former police officer, and today's motion goes against the position of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and many other police forces across this country. I will speak to the bill that the member talked about. The bill was to ensure that people in federal penitentiaries who were serving two years plus a day would get treatment. Here is why New Democrats voted against it: First, it excluded people who had been charged with drug trafficking or violent crime. How many people in federal penitentiaries would that exclude? It would exclude a lot. Second, the bill was not supported by the national organizations that advocate for prisoners and their health in prisons. In fact, Conservatives got caught using quotes without approval from some of those stakeholders and organizations. Those organizations raised that with me and told me not to support that bill or anything like it.

154 words

Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ)

May/18/23 12:10:16 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I think one thing is clear in all of this debate. The debate must, of course, appeal to our emotions, because we are talking about human beings who are in this situation and who are living with this reality. However, at the same time, the debate must also appeal to reason. We need to look at statistics and data and what works and what does not. We need to have this debate, but we need to do so in an intelligent manner. That is why I did not like it when my colleague asked a question earlier and was told “shame on this member” in response. We are here to debate. There is a solution on the table. Just because a member says that they do not agree and that they do not think that the solution will work does not mean that the member is complicit in and fuelling the opioid crisis. In my question to the Leader of the Opposition earlier, I spoke about the American model. At the other end of the spectrum, we have Portugal's model. My colleague mentioned it briefly. Just before coming here, I was reading an excellent academic paper on this subject. It indicated that 20 years after decriminalization, the rate of illegal drug use remains below the EU average and that, although the prevalence of problematic opioid use remains high and persistent, there has been a significant drop in the number of overdose deaths. There has also been a drop in the transmission of viruses, such as HIV and hepatitis. Access to care has improved, as has the availability of risk reduction interventions. Pressure on the court and prison systems was immediately reduced, and legal representation and practices have changed. I think we can learn from that.

301 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/18/23 12:11:50 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, first of all, I do agree that we need to have a proper, respectful dialogue. I just want to backtrack to the question from the Conservative Party. Every person incarcerated deserves health and treatment. That is actually the law in this land. It is not being delivered by the government, so that bill would be ineffective in what it was asking for. It is just an action and, again, the government is failing people who are incarcerated as well. On what my colleague was saying about safe supply, the evidence speaks for itself. We need to continue to be driven by evidence and science in how we design our policies. The expert task force on substance use guided my bill, which was voted against by Conservatives in the House. They voted against the government's own expert task force. They do not want to hear from the experts. They call them “activists”. They call the police chiefs “activists”. They say the chief coroners are “activists, public health officers are “activists”, and moms who have lost their kids are “activists”. They are not activists. They are people with lived experience who understand this issue and have actually done the work.

210 words

Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace River—Westlock, CPC)

May/18/23 12:13:04 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau, we have seen a dramatic increase in opioid deaths—

22 words

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/18/23 12:13:12 p.m.
Watch

We do not use names in the House.

8 words

Names

Mr. Arnold Viersen

May/18/23 12:13:15 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I apologize. After eight years of the Liberal government, we have seen a dramatic increase in opioid overdoses across the country. Obviously, whatever the Liberals are doing right now is not working. Even in the last two years, we have seen dramatic year-over-year increases in overdoses. It is obvious that handing out free drugs to people who are addicted to drugs is not solving the problem. Will the member not agree that this is a failed approach and that we need to return to treatment to get people off of using drugs?

96 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/18/23 12:13:49 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, this is the false dichotomy: that we cannot have harm reduction and we need to have treatment. We need both. We need to meet people where they are at. With respect to the notion that this is failing, it has not even gotten off the ground yet. It is in its infancy. It has basically just started, and the results and evidence are staggering. It is lowering people's involvement in criminal activity, and there are fewer people using the deadly fentanyl. They are not going to organized crime to get their drugs, which is everywhere in this country. Is the government failing? Yes, it is. However, the war-on-drugs approach the Conservatives are bringing forward would be a disaster. We know that.

126 words