44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 18, 2023 10:00AM
- May/18/23 10:59:59 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first we heard the Conservative from Fraser Valley rail against harm reduction when, in fact, they support harm reduction and they support treatment and recovery. There is no war between harm reduction and treatment and recovery. We need them both.
Today, I am seeing the Conservatives spreading misinformation, which is costly in a health crisis. However, we also see the Liberals taking an incremental approach, which costs lives. I asked the minister repeatedly to scale up efforts. This is a national health crisis. The government is spending less than 1% of what it spent on the COVID-19 crisis and the response to that. We have lost almost as many lives.
We look at the money the government spent on the AIDS crisis, on SARS and on other health crises. It goes beyond being pale in comparison. When is the government going to scale up on safe supply? When is it going to get involved in the recovery and treatment on demand? We need the government to get involved. It cannot keep downloading this to the provinces. That is where Portugal stepped up. We need the federal government to scale up with rapid investments so that, when people need help, they get it and we meet them where they are at.
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- May/18/23 11:16:34 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to note that I will share my speaking time with my passionate, interesting and capable colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.
Talking about drugs and their repercussions is not an easy topic for me. It is not easy because I quickly become emotional. When I do not want to be emotional, I get into data and statistics, so I distance the heart from the head. It is not easy because there are people from my past who will no longer be in my present or my future. Yes, it is a topic that is important to me. I need to find a middle ground in all this. Clearly, this morning, I did not find it, but it will be fine.
A full picture of the situation is needed to be able to act properly. The purpose of pilot projects is to obtain data, among other things. The opioid crisis is not a partisan issue or an issue that should become partisan. It is not the type of issue where the terms “me” or “my party” can be used. It is the type of issue that requires phrases like: “together, we succeeded”.
I will briefly recap the data reported in the media while adding a few caveats and stating the purpose of pilot projects and safe supply programs.
The date included in the Conservative Party's motion are true. I will not review them all. The opioid crisis kills 20 people per day.
Since 2016, over 34,000 people have died. Almost all the deaths were accidental. These are people who were supplied by the black market with products that those people did not even know contained fentanyl. In 88% of cases, the deaths involved adults aged 20 to 59, people in the prime of life.
Prior to the pandemic, 10 people per day died of an opioid overdose. That increase may be the result of mental health problems that were exacerbated by the distress experienced during the pandemic.
I heard my Conservative colleagues say that the pandemic has passed. Just because the pandemic has passed does not mean the distress has passed. Just because the pandemic has passed does not mean the addiction has passed.
In the media, it was noted that people were taking hydromorphone to sell it and then buy fentanyl on the black market. Are all hydromorphone users doing that? The answer is no. How many are reselling hydromorphone? We still do not know. I hope it will be possible to find out through the pilot projects and the data collected.
The black market exists because people cannot access something legally, no matter what it is. However, on the black market, it is impossible to control either the amount or quality of drug hits. That is the main problem.
People who become addicted leave the health care system, even if they can function day-to-day. These people quietly leave the system because they will not tell their physicians that they have an addiction and need help. It is a minority who will do this. The system needs to reach these people. How can they be reached? It is by seeking them out where they get their supplies.
Since these products are unfortunately addictive, one way to ensure the health of these people is to give them the opportunity to access products that are controlled in quantity and quality. When they come to pick up these products, there are people there who will listen to them, hear them and learn about their struggles, find out where they come from and quietly try to sort things out. It may take a very long time to overcome an addiction. Some never manage to do so.
Unfortunately, the Conservative motion does not mention the services provided by the pilot projects. These include medical care, mental health support, medical support regarding sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections, employment assistance, and housing assistance. These projects have a holistic and broad vision of the needs of people who are addicted. Their addiction did not just happen, all of a sudden. Something happened.
All these activities within the pilot projects and all these interventions must be based on understanding and openness, not judgment or punishment. We have to consider where the person is at. How did they get there? How can we help them? We need to unravel the knots in the addicted person’s mind.
The Conservative motion does not refer to the fact that, so far, participants who are actually involved in these programs have had many beneficial effects, such as improved health, well-being and quality of life; a lower risk of overdose and reduced use of street drugs, which are inherently dangerous; a willingness to deal with health issues related to their situation; having more energy and being more active; and having more time in their lives. These are all important factors. They are more engaged with themselves. Lastly, these people re-engage not only in their own lives, but in their own societies. Will they be cured for life? Maybe or maybe not, but they do get on the path to recovery.
Drug use is a public health and public safety issue. We must keep in mind that there is no single, simple solution. No single department is responsible. It is everyone’s business.
Interventions must be based on evidence-based best practices and seek to protect the health and dignity of individuals. Dignity is one of the most important factors in the process. It is amazing how the behaviour of people with addictions can be affected by the gaze of others. It is amazing how they are affected by their own gaze, when they look in the mirror and see how much they have deteriorated, destroyed from within. They know it.
They need help in dealing with that, in accepting and seeing the best in themselves. They should not be judged, not be ostracized and, above all, not be allowed to return to the black market with its uncontrolled hits.
Quebec has a strategy comprising seven areas for action that intersect with the interdepartmental action plan: information and awareness; overdose prevention and harm reduction; public policy and regulation; vigilance and monitoring; evaluation, research and training; addiction treatment; and pain treatment.
Those seven areas can be broken down into 15 measures that will consolidate and enhance access to naloxone as well as consolidate and expand the offer of substance use services. The goal is to protect people, even from themselves.
By developing safer supply practices, drug hits can be controlled, as I said before, in terms of quantity and quality. Most importantly, stakeholders are opening the door to recovery for people with addictions by giving them access to support services that would be inaccessible without the pilot projects. Is that perfect? No. Services are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crisis, hence the importance of better and larger health transfers.
In short, the current crisis needs to be taken seriously. We must listen to stakeholders and develop a holistic vision to help people with addictions while cracking down on black market criminals. Above all, we must stop stigmatizing mental illnesses. The Conservative motion is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I would rather keep the baby and raise it right.
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- May/18/23 11:27:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we see someone who appears to be in crisis because they have been using or because they are having mental health issues, we need to see the human being behind that behaviour, not judge them. That is another goal of these pilot projects. That is important.
Sometimes people have hurts and hang-ups that explain the situation they are in now. We need to support them, help them, not judge them.
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- May/18/23 11:43:03 a.m.
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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.
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- May/18/23 12:10:16 p.m.
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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.
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- May/18/23 12:58:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying that, as I stand in the House to speak on behalf of people in London, Ontario who have lost their lives to this crisis, it is tone-deaf for the member opposite to say that we are speaking in rhetoric. It is the Conservatives who are making this a very partisan issue, when we have people from across the country. This is an issue that has no party lines, and the Conservatives have chosen to make it a partisan issue.
Unfortunately for this member, we are sent here to make sure we can speak on behalf of those who can no longer speak on their own behalf. It is important that we continue to talk about how safe supply has saved lives in London, Ontario.
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- May/18/23 12:58:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned a million programs that help people, including with the problem we are discussing this morning, but there is one she did not talk about.
I am currently touring Quebec on the topic of the housing crisis. We are hearing that in this post-pandemic period, and it is connected to addictions, there is more homelessness than there was before and in places where we did not see any before. I am talking about places such as Shawinigan, Rimouski or small towns north of Joliette, where there are absolutely no services.
People always think that homelessness is limited to big cities like Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, but the fact is that we are now seeing visible homelessness, not just hidden, in places like small rural municipalities. There is a severe shortage of funding for homelessness in this country.
My colleague does not seem to realize that we are in a severe housing crisis, which is very much related to the topic we are discussing this morning. Does my colleague not think it is high time for the government to address the root cause of this problem and launch a Marshall-type plan to deal with the housing crisis and homelessness?
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- May/18/23 1:00:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry to have annoyed my colleague opposite for mentioning all the work we are doing to ensure that we deal with this very important crisis affecting the entire country, a crisis that is affecting everyone with children and families.
That said, there are always opportunities to do more and to ensure that we do so in areas that have not yet received funding.
If earlier I mentioned the list of things we have done, it was not to annoy my colleagues, it was to reiterate that we are ready to continue making these investments so that Canadians find themselves in a healthier situation.
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- May/18/23 1:02:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when I talk about how this is an issue that has no party lines, I think my colleague from London—Fanshawe and I can agree that we have worked together to respond to this crisis when I was a city councillor and even now, as members of Parliament.
Not too long ago, my colleague from London—Fanshawe and I were at a wraparound service housing initiative that had been invested in by the government. We invested in Indwell, and she and I just recently made an announcement together at Indwell. This is to show that we continue not only to care about investing in response to this crisis but also to respond to the entire system, the ecosystem that—
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- May/18/23 1:13:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to this debate intently for the last couple of hours, and this is controlled frustration, anger and seething. I have been vocal and very upfront about how this crisis has impacted my family personally. I lost a brother-in-law. My brother is on the street, gripped with addictions.
The Liberal Party's talking point today is that their program has saved 45,000 people. Safe consumption sites and safe supply are two different things. There are many tools in the tool box.
Of those 45,000 people who overdosed and were brought back, how many are still alive today? I ask, because the first responders I am meeting with are saying they will save somebody in the morning, and then a few hours later that very same person is overdosing again. Those numbers are false, because they do not take into account whether those people are still alive.
What we are saying today is that we have to do more to save these people. Safe supply is one tool in the tool box, but it is not working. We cannot prescribe one without the whole tool box.
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- May/18/23 1:17:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, where I disagree with the Conservatives on this issue is that I personally believe, backed up by evidence in the field, that safe supply and safe consumption have to work in conjunction with treatment and recovery programs. They are part of a continuum of care. We have to meet patients where they are at.
Where I do agree with the Conservatives, though, is with their sense of frustration. That is very real. The situation is not getting better. The numbers on the ground are a stark reminder of how the government has failed to step up to the plate.
Numerous people who are working on the streets, trying to combat this situation, have repeatedly asked the government to step up, commit the funding and commit the resources necessary to fight this epidemic on par with COVID-19 and with the AIDS crisis. That is the criticism that is being levelled at the government today.
Why has it not stepped up and, at the very least, declared this a national health emergency?
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- May/18/23 1:30:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I never imagined I would see people like the mayor of Latulipe‑et‑Gaboury here among us. They came here to learn.
Now, to get back to the opioid crisis debate, I had a chance to talk with these students. We were wondering about a question that I would now like to ask my colleague who was with me yesterday at the entrepreneur caucus meeting. I know she has a special interest in many issues related to personal development. Could we take action in the areas of education and guidance?
In relation to the housing crisis, could we address the opioid crisis more effectively if we were able to provide more accommodation?
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- May/18/23 1:31:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned at the very outset of my speech, people are in a really desperate space. It is leading to this addiction and mental health crisis.
People cannot afford to live. They cannot afford to feed themselves. They cannot afford medicines. The price of everything is going up. Inflation is affecting people's everyday lives. I hear about this in my riding. People cannot even afford their rent or mortgage. Everything has doubled. Rents and mortgages have doubled. People are getting into a very desperate space.
This is fuelling the addiction and mental health crisis. We need to deal with the economic side, while we also deal with this very serious addiction issue.
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- May/18/23 1:33:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to take a breath and calm down a bit. This debate is a powder keg. People on all sides of the House have incredible feelings toward this.
Our colleague from the Bloc, the member for Beauport—Limoilou, spoke passionately about this. Our colleague from Saskatchewan spoke passionately this. My colleague for Kelowna—Lake Country spoke passionately about this. We all know someone, perhaps very close to us, who has been impacted by this.
However, it is very clear that what is taking place today is not working. It is broken. After eight years of trial and error, the record shows that the government has broken the system, and that should not surprise us. Everything the Prime Minister touches breaks. What he does is divide Canadians. Why does he divide Canadians on issues, whether it is vaccines, or the opioid crisis or other things? Because if we are fighting among each other, we are not focused on his blunders. It is dodge and deflect.
Here are the facts. Since 2016, over 35,000 Canadians have lost their lives because of the opioid crisis. In a crisis of incomprehensible scale, the death toll due to illicit drug overdoses rose 300% in my province of British Columbia during the first three months of 2023. That is 596 lives lost in just three months of this year. That is 596 sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Their dreams and hopes are lost. As parliamentarians, we have failed them. Canadians are suffering, Canadians are dying, and we have done nothing.
What is the real issue we are talking about today? It is the opioid crisis, the fentanyl crisis. This drug seemingly floods through our borders, and we are powerless to stop it. I have stood in the House so many times over the last seven and a half years to talk about the opioid crisis, a crisis that at least on this side of the House all across the way we can agree is a national crisis, but the government fails to declare it so.
Why are we so angry and frustrated? Because the Liberals like to conflate things. We are talking about safe supply. What are they talking about? They are talking about supervised consumption sites. It is so frustrating.
The Liberals made promises on the mental health side of things before getting elected in 2021. They were going to pledge $4.6 billion in a mental health transfer to provinces to help combat mental health and addiction. What happens when they get into government? They renege on that and rethink their promise. This is impacting real people.
In a period of great economic uncertainty, the Prime Minister is spending hundreds of millions of dollars giving out free drugs.
Since 2017, the federal government has spent over $800 million on its failed Canadian drugs and substances strategy, including $100 million in funding for hard-drug supply projects across Canada and an additional $74 million to scale-up these projects over the next five years. That is nearly $1 billion spent on this pilot project.
However, what has this emphasis on safe supply achieved? There are 20 opioid deaths in Canada a day; a 173% increase from where the opioid epidemic began in 2016. Where is the investment on recovery?
The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions has placed that financial burden purely on the provinces and territories. She said earlier today in her speech that they hope that the provinces will see their way to support recovery and create those beds. They hope.
There are no new treatment centres or beds. While somebody who is addicted to drugs is waiting up to a year or more, they can go to a vending unit and get the drugs that they want. Let us talk about vending units for a second. During the gun debate, the Liberals would have members believe that, through the Conservatives' reckless gun laws and policies, people could go to a vending unit and get guns and ammo. Those are pretty simple terms. That is exactly what this Prime Minister tells Canadians and tells the world.
In fact, the Liberals have created a system where pop-up booths in my province are selling crack, cocaine and other drugs on the street. Health Canada approved an organization to produce and distribute cocaine. That is true. Not only that, but vending units are popping up all across our province where people who are struggling with addictions can go and plunk in their coins and get drugs. However, the drugs they are getting are not strong enough for them, so they peel off the labels and sell the drugs so they can get the money to buy the harder drug that they want, fentanyl.
Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. A dose the size of a grain of sand can kill 1,000 people. It is flooding our streets and it is killing our sons, daughters, fathers and mothers and we are doing nothing about it. Why are we frustrated? I heard the Bloc members speak about a dogmatic approach and make comments like that. This is a non-partisan issue for me, but I get frustrated when all we do is stand up here and we pour our hearts out. We want to do better for Canadians.
I have talked about our legacy in mental health and addictions time and again in this House. What do members want their legacy to be when they leave this House? I know I want my legacy to be that I made a difference each and every day in the mental health and well-being of Canadians and that I have used my time here so that we can save lives. I believe hope is always possible. I believe recovery is possible. I do not believe in giving up on someone by just handing them another drug. The Liberals are saying “Are we not keeping them alive?” We are perpetuating their addiction.
My brother was shot twice in June 2021 with a shotgun. We would think that would knock him straight, but that addiction is so strong. Two days later, he was back on the streets. My brother-in-law was killed by an overdose. A player I coached, Chad Staley from the Prince George Spruce Kings, got his tooth knocked out in a hockey game. One of his co-players thought he was giving him oxycodone to help with the pain. Chad was at home with his family, took this pill and was dead within an hour.
That is why we are angry. We are doing nothing.
We will bring hope to these families. We will bring our families home, safe, sound and healthy.
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- May/18/23 5:02:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I offer to my hon. colleague my sincerest condolences.
We all offer our sincerest condolences to any person in Canada who has lost a loved one due to this crisis. We as a government must maintain and look at evidence-based policies, which can assist Canadians from having to go through this scenario. We will be there for them.
In this case, I offer again my sincerest prayers for this young individual whose life was cut short because of this.
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- May/18/23 5:33:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is frustrating that we are here again talking about the opioid crisis, which I think we have had debates on many times in my years as a member of Parliament. It just seems that after eight years of the Prime Minister, everything feels broken. Life costs more, work does not pay, housing costs have doubled and the Prime Minister divides to control the people. Worst of all, crime and chaos, drugs and disorder rage in our streets.
Nowhere is this worse than the opioid overdose crisis, which has expanded so dramatically in the last three years. In fact, during the time we have debated this motion today, another 20 Canadians across this country have died as the result of an overdose death. These are numbers, certainly, but they are also brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, friends and loved ones we have lost as a result of this opioid crisis.
What I find most frustrating is that it seems only the Conservatives are fighting for change, a change from the failed experiment that is safe supply, which is destroying families, devastating our towns and cities and ripping families apart. Any metric for any program that has seen a 300% increase in overdose deaths cannot be viewed as a success. That is not science-based. That is ideologically based, and we have to change. We have to rip the veil off the myth that is safe supply.
Our nation is struggling with this ongoing opioid crisis. More than 35,000 Canadians have died an overdose death since 2016. That is unacceptable. Following eight years of the Liberal government, those numbers are only getting worse, and they are getting worse where these policies are embraced the most, in provinces like British Columbia. Many of my colleagues from that province have asked questions and have spoken today, voicing their frustration at what is going on in their ridings and their communities. British Columbia is suffering as a result of the policies of a Liberal federal government and an NDP provincial government.
I know that I am not the only one in the House, as my colleagues have lost friends and loved ones to overdose deaths and suicide, which is why the Conservatives are asking for and demanding an evidence-based approach to address this issue. I had the honour of co-chairing a Conservative working group where we focused on the opioid crisis, and we spoke to experts not only across Canada but around the world. In speaking with those stakeholders, the one thing that was clear was that funding, or lack of funding, is not the issue; the funding is there. The issue is priority, and the priority needs to be on treatment and recovery, and metrics to measure that recovery.
The term “safe supply”, as many of my colleagues have mentioned tonight, describes a policy that is one of the best marketing schemes of all time. There is nothing safe about injecting one's body with the toxic poison that is these drugs. It does not matter what it is; this is not meant to be ingested or injected. Consuming these powerful drugs only leads to a spiral of addiction and despair.
Today, the Liberal government is only exacerbating this crisis. It has spent almost $80 million of taxpayer money subsidizing these drugs, which are flooding our streets with addiction and crime. In this year's budget, the Liberals have announced another $100 million to go to the safe supply. The consequences of this are stark: free drugs, subsidized by the taxpayer. Decriminalizing cocaine, heroin and fentanyl has supercharged the opioid crisis.
I want to tell members a quick story about why this hits so close to home for me. It is about one of the most important people in my entire life. I had to break into her apartment, and I found her on the floor overdosed on fentanyl. It is a picture I want no one in the House to ever have to see, what this drug had done to this person. When I took her to the hospital, perhaps I was naive, as I just expected the doctors and nurses to put her in recovery and treatment right there. However, their answer was, “Yes, she overdosed on fentanyl. She's going to be okay tomorrow, and we will be releasing her in the morning. You can put her on a waiting list of six weeks for a recovery program.” Now, had there not been friends and family who made sure that she was okay, and she has recovered, I cannot imagine if she went back on the street and back on fentanyl.
The focus and the dollars need to go to recovery and treatment, not perpetuating the opioid crisis, as we have seen. I find it very frustrating when the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions keeps saying that the government has saved 42,000 people from overdose. No, it has not. It has prolonged what is likely inevitable. If we keep them on a safe supply, they will overdose eventually, more than likely.
The article in the National Post by Adam Zivo has to be an eye-opener, a shock to Canadians, who are seeing what is actually happening on the ground. Canadian families have to stand up. We cannot be intimidated any longer. Our voices need to be heard. This is the easy way out, and it is clearly not working. Canadian families need to say enough is enough, that they want their streets and their loved ones back.
There is hope. Provinces like Alberta have studied this and realized that safe supply was not the answer. They warned that safe supply could cause the next wave of the addiction crisis. That has happened, and they were right. Between 2021 and 2022, because of the system that Alberta has implemented, drug overdoses have declined by 46%. It invested in 10,000 detox treatment centres that are serving 29,000 Albertans every single year. Imagine the difference we could make if provinces followed that similar model of diverting the funds from safe supply, which is not safe, and focus it on recovery and prevention. Conservatives are asking and demanding that the Liberal government dismantle this failed experiment that it calls “safe supply”.
Addicts are diverting their safe supply. They are selling those drugs on our playgrounds and in our schoolyards, getting the next generation addicted. They are using the proceeds of that revenue and buying fentanyl, cocaine and heroin, which are being decriminalized on the streets. I cannot believe I am saying that.
There is hope. There is hope to end the hurt and get Canadians the treatment and recovery they deserve, but we have to end this failed experiment of safe supply. It is simply not working, and we have to change it now.
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