44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 18, 2023 10:00AM
- May/18/23 10:58:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated the approach my colleague used in her speech. It is true that this is a complex issue, a human issue. Behind the statistics and the numbers there are some very serious realities.
It is a really important issue. I have experience with this problem in my family. It is hard to talk about without getting emotional. I think that we agree with my colleague on the fact that it is a public health problem and that the Conservatives' approach to this crisis is a bit dogmatic. Public health is health.
Recently there were negotiations with Quebec on the matter of health transfers. Unfortunately, Quebec and the provinces, who were asking for $6 billion, barely got $1 billion. If we really want to help people, in this case addicts, on the ground, there needs to be an increase in health transfers.
When will the government increase the transfers?
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- 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 11:01:16 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the really important distinction, as the polarization of harm reduction versus treatment is extraordinarily unhelpful. We know people need access to treatment at the moment they are ready. However, we also know they need adequate aftercare so they do not fall back into the environment that made them sick in the first place.
As we move forward, as the member well knows, over $100 million has been designated for safe supply in this last budget. We received another $144 million for the substance use and addiction programs, as well as $25 billion going to the provinces and territories, where one of the four pillars is mental health and substance use. We hope that the provinces will be able to use that on the issues of complex care, treatment beds and aftercare.
I look forward to working with the member as we tackle the flawed ideology of the other side.
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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 12:43:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will seize on what my colleague just read. I believe it is important to have a holistic and comprehensive view of the situation in order to support people with addictions and help them find a way out, while ensuring that we undercut the black market and resellers.
I would like my colleague's opinion about the importance of investing in mental health and support for people with addictions and making investments to deal with the black market.
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- May/18/23 1:15:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to say that the purpose of this motion is not to increase safe supply.
Based on everything we have heard this morning, including some powerful testimony and a mixed bag of speeches that were nonetheless telling, the point is that what we really need is the health transfers. Today, the Coalition des psychologues du réseau public québécois, Quebec's coalition of publicly funded psychologists, said that it is impossible to meet mental health needs.
People who are struggling with addictions need adequate support and services. How will the government go about transferring the money to the provinces as promised?
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- May/18/23 1:16:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is one of the reasons why I say that a part of this is recognizing that it is just not the federal government alone. That is what I like about Insite. With Insite, what we saw was the Province of British Columbia, the City of Vancouver and Ottawa working with many different stakeholders, making sure that we would be able to have a successful consumption site. It has been exceptionally successful over the last couple of decades.
There is a need to go beyond that, because we can talk about health treatment. That is why we have seen a national government invest in mental health and give generational support, somewhere close to $200 billion over the next 10 years, so that we will be able to have a quality health care system. It is very much a health care issue. We have a national government that is investing billions of dollars in housing and supporting provinces and being able to provide appropriate housing.
There are all sorts of—
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- May/18/23 1:43:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker. It is a bit odd, because at one point my colleague said that this is really a non-partisan issue, yet he spent 10 minutes criticizing the Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP. I agree that it is somewhat partisan, but it is primarily a public health issue. At least, that is the Bloc's take on this. Addiction is a mental health and public health issue.
As soon as we talk about health care, we are talking about funding for the health care system. The federal government may not pay doctors, train nurses or run hospitals, but it has the means to help the provincial health care systems deal with crises like the opioid crisis we are experiencing right now.
I have never really heard the Conservatives take a position on health care funding or on the provinces' demands for health transfers. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.
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- May/18/23 3:56:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the motion that we are debating today, I get the impression that no one is budging from their position.
When I was teaching I used a book as an analogy. If I describe a cover and the person across from me describes the other cover, we will not have the same description. However, in the end, what matters are the pages between those two covers. Here, the objective is to find and implement everything we can to help people who have an addiction, whether that is services, protected sites or safe supply.
I would like my colleague to talk about the importance of health transfers for ensuring adequate service delivery to people who are addicted.
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- May/18/23 4:59:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester for his advocacy on health matters. I believe he is the health critic for the official opposition.
I will say this. Our government is continuing to invest money in treatment programs and a safe supply program for individuals who are unfortunately dependent on these drugs.
I remember many years ago walking into a Shoppers Drug Mart in the town my wife is from, and two young individuals were there getting a yellow mixture of water and a powder because they were dependent. We need to make sure these individuals avoid getting dependent on the substances they are on and that there is an available safe supply. That is exactly what they were doing that day, and I bet we saved their lives.
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- May/18/23 5:15:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things I like about the pilot projects created by Health Canada is the range of services provided to users. I am mainly referring to medical care and mental health counselling. The federal government certainly has a part to play in the fight against the opioid crisis, but I think that Quebec and the provinces do as well.
That requires federal health transfers. The 10-year funding that the provinces and Quebec asked for is not at all what they got. The federal government only gave them one-sixth of what they were asking for. Currently, in Quebec alone, more than 20,000 people are on a wait list for mental health services.
I think that what is being established at this time is very good, but does my colleague agree with me that the federal government must provide more funding for health care?
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- May/18/23 5:16:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, at supervised consumption sites in Canada, there have been more than 236,000 referrals to health and social services. These referrals are supporting individuals on their path to recovery and wellness, so that means the plan is working.
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