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 11:01:16 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 11:10:59 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in her speech, the member opposite just said that we need to help keep people alive until they are ready to receive treatment.
I represent the Fraser health region. We had the highest number of deaths caused by opioids last year, and we are on track to pass that number again. Under this policy, it is like death has become normalized.
I agree with part of the member's speech in that we need to have a comprehensive approach. However, right now in British Columbia, there is no comprehensive approach. In fact, in the Fraser health region, there are only eight detox beds. What we have done in Canada is normalize the use of hard drugs without providing any option or capacity for people who want to receive care to get it on demand.
Why has the government failed to provide detox beds in the areas of Canada where there is the highest number of deaths caused by illicit opioids?
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- May/18/23 11:14:15 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that important question, and no, I will not answer him in the same way.
The government's approach is built on four main pillars: harm reduction, supervised consumption sites, treatment and enforcement. This comprehensive and holistic approach provides a variety of solutions for people using drugs. It is a complex problem that affects everyone differently. We do not know why people use drugs. We do not know each person's specific reason. That is why we have to offer them a range of solutions so that they can find the one that works best for them.
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- May/18/23 11:45:39 a.m.
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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.
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- May/18/23 12:06:40 p.m.
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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?
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- May/18/23 12:13:15 p.m.
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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?
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- May/18/23 12:13:49 p.m.
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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.
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- May/18/23 12:14:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when I was listening to the leader of the official opposition give his remarks today, I felt sadness. I feel it is quite insulting when he refers to woke academics or speaks of people who are employed in the “misery industry”. That is insulting to my constituents who have dedicated their life's work to helping people with very real problems.
I have taken the time to tour the streets of my community to speak to those people and meet those who are suffering from trauma. Overwhelmingly, the result is that people who are taking chances with buying their drugs on the street are playing Russian roulette with their lives. Having safe supply and treatment options are not mutually exclusive. We have to meet people where they are at, or it is going to be unsuccessful.
I would really like for my colleague to underline that point because central to today's debate is this trauma-informed approach of meeting people where they are at and keeping people alive long enough so they can come into contact with the services, help and treatment, eventually down the line, that will help them.
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- May/18/23 1:46:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member, as always, for his very poignant explanation of the importance of this mental health crisis in Canada.
There is no disagreement that there need to be four pillars of a drug policy, including treatment. I was wondering if the member would help us as we develop the bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories, the $25 billion that will be there.
For that third pillar on mental health and substance use, other than just wait times on mental health needs, are there other indicators that the member thinks would be helpful, like treatment beds or adequate aftercare, the kinds of complex care for people who we know have serious mental illness and substance use? What would be some of the indicators the member thinks should be in the action plans of the provinces and territories so we can work through all orders of government to address this crisis?
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- May/18/23 2:58:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yet again the failed Conservative policies surface. Without harm reduction, people do not live long enough to get to treatment. Polarizing the difference between treatment and harm reduction is really unhelpful. We need all aspects of internationally accepted drug policy: prevention and education, harm reduction, treatment, and enforcement. Diversion is illegal.
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- May/18/23 4:10:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member her question. I hope she will excuse me for responding in English.
Our government is invested heavily in harm reduction with the four pillars recognized internationally as the necessary, successful substance use strategy, which is based on prevention, enforcement, treatment and harm reduction. However, if people die, there is no way for us to help them or offer them any treatments we provide. Therefore, it is important for us to understand what is needed in our communities to address this opioid crisis.
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- May/18/23 4:11:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we know Conservatives are trying to mischaracterize the entire situation. One of the effects of the harm reduction approach that is being proposed is that it helps connect people to other health services, including the possibility of treatment and rehab. However, if they do not make that connection, that is never going to happen.
My question for the member is this. When Conservatives say we should eliminate harm reduction initiatives, such as safer supply, how on earth would we be able to successfully connect people to other services when we cannot even reach them?
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- May/18/23 4:23:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, shame on that member for what he just stated. There was nothing in what I said that said anything about prisons. That is ridiculous. We are talking about treatment, recovery and support for those who are suffering from addictions. Shame on him.
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- May/18/23 4:26:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have spent a fair amount of time in this space. I was the president of Little House, which is a recovery house in British Columbia, so I have some knowledge on the issue. A continuum of care, of course, has to be part of recovery, support and treatment. However, unlimited safe supply, where people receiving that safe supply are then selling it to kids cheaper and cheaper in order to then use that money for their own harder drugs, is a tragedy. People who run recovery houses like Last Door Recovery Society in New Westminster are on record saying that 100% of the people they deal with who have received safe supply drugs have never used all of the drugs they have received. They are selling them.
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- May/18/23 4:41:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do want to focus on the need for funding, as my friend and colleague alluded to, particularly in the area of treatment and recovery. This is something that Conservatives have been championing for a long time: the need for stronger engagement in funding, treatment and recovery.
We recognize, in the context of scarce resources, that the money is much better spent on treatment and recovery than it is on purchasing dangerous drugs and giving them away. Also, as we seek to fund health care, and as we seek to fund treatment and recovery, as well as mental health challenges that people face, holding bad actors who have caused this problem financially responsible and having them pay a greater share of those recovery bills, rather than taxpayers or the individuals who are victims, makes a lot of sense. Let us have the perpetrators pay for the treatment and recovery.
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- May/18/23 4:45:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with great respect for my colleague, I get evidence from a variety of sources, which sometimes might include the London Free Press but does include broader reading than just one article that cites one physician.
The evidence we have seen over the last number of decades is very clear. When hard, dangerous drugs are destigmatized as substances and made more available and more accessible, then more people get them, more people use them and more people suffer and die as a result. Why would the government fund those kinds of programs when it could instead be investing in treatment and recovery?
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- May/18/23 4:57:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very important question.
Our program for reducing the number of overdoses is based on four pillars: harm reduction, getting drugs off the street, having a safe supply and having a safe treatment program for individuals who have unfortunately fallen dependent on these types of substances. These four pillars need to be working in unison and must be monitored to ensure they are working. We have estimated that the system has saved the lives of 46,000 people, which is something we need to speak to and look at.
We can always strengthen the system, yes, but we need to do it with an evidence-based approach.
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- May/18/23 4:58:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear a very specific answer to this question: How many treatment beds has the government added in its wonderful program, and how does the member justify the $3.5 million spent on vending machines to dispense high-potency opioids like hydromorphone?
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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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