SoVote

May/9/24 12:32:20 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, what I should say to add to my earlier answer is that harm reduction existed well before today's overdose crisis. When the Conservatives say that what we are seeing now is the result of harm reduction, they are wrong. The problem is the illicit drug overdose crisis. People working on the ground told us that we needed to do something for people like the mother who came to see us, saying that if her son had had access to a safe supply program when he was going through withdrawal, he would not have died. He lost all the tolerance he had built up because he went through withdrawal and ended up taking illicit drugs. He died right away, without having the chance to become the good citizen he wanted to be. I will avoid making things worse here. I could accuse the Conservatives of many things, but I will not. I just want us to talk, to tell the truth and to discuss evidence and data without letting political ideology get in the way, and especially without blaming the people who have died, their families and those who are currently suffering from addiction.

196 words

Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ)

May/9/24 12:33:48 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Montcalm for his speech, which was enlightening as always, because he himself is enlightened and well versed in his files. It is a pleasure to hear him speak. This morning, several of us tried to get the Conservatives to explain the difference between decriminalization, legalization and diversion. They were unwilling to answer the question. However, we got the beginnings of a response when I asked one of my colleagues whether we were witnessing a public health crisis and he replied that drug addiction is a chronic disease. My question is simple: Once we start to view drug addiction as a chronic disease, how can we do anything but decriminalize addicts' behaviour if we want to ensure that they receive proper treatment instead of throwing them in jail?

137 words

Mr. Luc Thériault

May/9/24 12:34:33 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, decriminalization, British Columbia's pilot project, has nothing to do with overdoses, but it did make it possible to divert these people away from jail and the justice system. We need to be careful, though. Yes, this is true, but drug consumption can qualify for diversion too, because in co-operation with community projects, we can ensure that police intervene, that they be authorized to intervene, but that they refrain from arresting the individual. Perhaps this is what B.C. is returning to. The fact remains that we agree on one thing: These people must receive care, but above all, we need the resources to give them care, and we must stop feeling like we have done enough by simply diverting the individual, because we are leaving them in the street alone with their problems. We need to invest heavily in health care. The government has been miserly about investing in health care, and so have the Conservatives. Health transfers need to be increased, because the provinces and Quebec are the ones that are taking care of these people and that have to treat them, and they are crying poverty. We must not undermine all the good things that are being done to take care of these people with the inadequate means at hand. This needs to be heard in our debate.

224 words

Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

May/9/24 12:36:12 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise today to speak about the leading health crisis, toxic drugs. Certainly in my own province, it is the leading cause of death for those under the age of 59. This issue is not just close to me; it is close to everyone in my home province, and it is a terrible tragedy. Highly contaminated toxic drugs are raging across the country and killing people every single day. Over 20 people a day are dying. I can tell members personally, coming from Vancouver Island and my hometown, of the impact it has had on everybody in my community. Nobody where I live is untouched. I cannot count on two hands the number of my friends' kids who have died, never mind friends. It is a terrible tragedy that is happening, and we can do better. We hear this huge debate about harm reduction versus treatment and recovery. However, we have to do both; they go hand in hand. We cannot help people who are dead, as my good friend from Vancouver East constantly reminds me. We need to move forward with policies that are grounded on evidence or evidence-generated and supported policy. The evidence says that what we are doing is not working. That is the evidence right across this country. We are now dealing with new substances that are highly toxic and addictive. Never before in our history have we seen such challenging times when it comes to dangerous substances. They are obviously lethal, because they are unregulated; they are manufactured, marketed and sold by organized crime. We have had a number of expert reports on how we should respond to this crisis, including from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Expert Task Force on Substance Use, which was created by Health Canada to inform politicians on how to move forward in responding to this terrible crisis. All of them are consistent in that we need to stop criminalizing people who use substances, as it causes more harm and is rooted in stigma. We need to create a safer supply of substances to replace the toxic street supply. We need to scale up treatment and recovery; to make sure that we are meeting people where they are, with those systems in place and ready; and to spend money on education and prevention. However, we have not done that, and I say this all the time: The Liberals are taking an incremental approach in a health crisis, which is costing lives. Conservatives are spreading disinformation, which is deadly in a health crisis. We need to move forward and listen to the experts. I will talk a bit about what is actually happening and the facts about some of the concerns we are hearing from the Conservatives. It is their motion today, and I will speak to them primarily. The Conservatives have created a moral panic. They are fundraising off the tragedies of families. It is absolutely unbelievable. It is so harmful. If they were truly here to try to help people, they would be bringing forward concrete solutions. However, I have not heard that from any of their speeches today. I asked the leader of the official opposition why he would not meet with the mothers of the victims of this crisis. I sat with them and listened to them, and their stories are informed. They know better than anyone how toxic the drugs are. They know how hard it is to support someone who is going through difficult challenges when living with a substance use disorder and navigating a system that is completely broken. They know better. We hear the Conservatives in terms of their moral panic that they have created around this issue. I will talk a little about what is actually going on in western Canada, where we are hearing primarily from Conservative MPs. Is my home province of British Columbia doing enough? No, it is absolutely not. Is any province or territory in this country doing enough? No, but they require a federal partner. Vancouver, British Columbia, has been ground zero for over 100 years when it comes to high amounts of substance use. It dates back to the opioid crisis in 1908. This is not new to us in our communities, but what is new is the toxicity of the drugs. It has been challenging because we have been at ground zero facing this terrible tragedy. When the B.C. Liberals were in government, in 2014, we went from 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people to 30.3 in just a matter of four years, a 383% increase. From 2017, we actually went up from 30.3 per 100,000, peaking at over 47 deaths per 100,000. That is absolutely brutal. After the last 11 or 12 months, we have seen an 11% decline in deaths. That is the trajectory right now for British Columbia. I am not celebrating that, but it is a relief. This is a tragedy. Every death is preventable. Every single one of these deaths is preventable. We are breathing a sigh of relief that we are heading in the right trajectory, but it needs to go down much faster. We need to come together and work together on that. We went from 7.4 people dying a day in my own province to 6.2. Six families are going to get a call today. I look at Alberta. The Conservative government got elected in 2019. Alberta had 15 deaths per 100,000 people; now it is at 41 deaths per 100,000. Alberta is leading the country in terms of deaths per capita. Alberta's death rate is skyrocketing. I will give some examples. In Lethbridge, which closed the safe consumption site, the death rate is 137 per 100,000. That is more than triple that of British Columbia. Medicine Hat is at 63.7 deaths, over 50% more than British Columbia. We see reports in the news about Fort McMurray having a record-breaking year. If we do not have safe consumption sites, then guess where people will go to use. They will use in public, in the back alleys and in the bathrooms of businesses, and they die at home, alone. We know that is deadly, when we have a toxic drug problem. I could speak about Saskatchewan. We constantly hear from members, whether they be the member for Lethbridge or the member for Fort McMurray, pointing a finger at British Columbia. I am not doing that right now. I am just trying to bring some facts so that we can actually have a proper conversation. I will get to that. In terms of Regina, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has pointed a finger at British Columbia, instead of coming here to fight to help people in Regina. That is a failure, while people are dying in his community. The death rate in his city is 66 per 100,000. That is straight from the Regina police force. Those two Conservative provinces are leading the nation in terms of death rates that are skyrocketing. We could look to Alaska, a Republican state, which had a 45% increase last year. There is no harm reduction, no safe supply, no decriminalization in those two provinces and that state. When members want to point fingers at safe supply and decriminalization, what is happening in their provinces, with their one-track, recovery-only model, where they failed to listen to the experts? They talk about wacko. What is wacko is when people ignore experts, ignore evidence, ignore science and ignore the facts. That is wacko. In the U.S., under Donald Trump, toxic drugs deaths doubled in 30 states, but they want to say it is British Columbia, an NDP thing or a Liberal thing. This is not an NDP, Liberal or Conservative thing. This is a societal issue. The problems and the solutions are not going to be based on ideology. They have to be grounded in evidence and supported by the experts, and led by the experts, not by politicians. I cannot think of another health crisis where politicians are deciding how we move forward. This is an issue that we know has been chronically underfunded. The Liberals have spent less than 1% responding to the toxic drug crisis. Why? It is because of the stigma. Are the Conservatives helping contribute to the stigma? Absolutely. We need to get away from that harm. We need to make sure that we listen to the experts. Now, we talk about safer supply. The whole concept of safer supply is that it is to be brought in to replace the toxic drug supply. This is recommended by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. The law and order party does not want to listen to the police. The police testified at the health committee. They said that 85% of poison drug deaths are from fentanyl. Cocaine was found in the bloodstream. However, they said hydromorphone, safer supply, is not what is killing people. In fact, traces of it showed up in 3% of the analyses of toxic drugs in British Columbia. Prescribing pharmaceutical alternatives to toxic street drugs separates people from toxic street drugs and helps them stay alive so they can stabilize their lives and connect to treatment and care. There is no way to know the source of drugs purchased on the streets right now, even if a dealer claims it is from the prescribed alternatives program. The chief coroner of B.C. has indicated that we are not seeing an increase in deaths amongst youth or an increase in diagnosis of opioid use disorder, despite the claims of the Conservatives. The goal of the prescribed alternatives program is to help people at the highest risk of death or harms from the illicit poison drug supply stabilize their lives. Safer supply has not increased the number of people with opioid disorder. In fact, we have seen reductions in all-cause mortality and overdose mortality; reductions in overdose and in the use of unregulated opioids by those on safer supply; a decline in health care costs and fewer hospital visits; an increased engagement in health care and social services; improvements in physical and mental health; improvements in social well-being and stability; reduced use of toxic drugs from the unregulated street supply; improved control over their drug use; reduced injection; reduced involvement in criminal activities. The diversion of hydromorphone is not contributing to opioid-related mortality. In fact, we heard that for those receiving safer supply through the safer supply program, the risk of dying from any of those causes was reduced by 61%, and the risk of dying from overdose was cut in half. If they received four days or more, their overdose risk was further reduced by 89%. I want to go back to who is impacted the most. Indigenous peoples are impacted the most. The opioid epidemic and toxic drug crisis are yet another example of the large gaps in health care outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Indigenous people are disproportionately affected and multiple times more likely to die from toxic drugs. They are seven times more likely to die in Alberta, five times more likely to die in British Columbia, and in some indigenous communities that can skyrocket to as much as 36 times more likely than the general population. We just heard that at the health committee the other day. I am going to read a quote from Dr. Judith Sayers, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council president. She sits on the BC First Nations Justice Council. She said: We want to work with the province in tackling the crisis and be part of a collaborative strategy.... The BCFNJC stands with our partners in healthcare and asserts that the toxic drug crisis needs to be treated and addressed as a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue. The criminal justice system is not the solution to a problem that, instead, needs to be addressed through healing. We have to stop this colonial approach and listen to indigenous people, who are more likely to die from this crisis. I have a quote from the police, which, again, the law and order party wants to ignore. The deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said: As noted, in some of our supervised consumption sites or overdose prevention sites, there are no inhalation rooms or there is no ability to inhale. We find that most of our overdose deaths are related to fentanyl and to inhalation, so we need to provide spaces, I think, that would allow for that, but it can't be a space where someone has to take a bus for four kilometres and go across the city to find that space. Those spaces need to be readily available. This is against the Lethbridge model. I will talk about Fiona Wilson, president of the British Columbia Association of Chiefs of Police. She is a deputy chief in the Vancouver Police Department. She said, “85% of overdose deaths are attributable to fentanyl.... [T]hat's what people are dying from according to the coroner's data. They're not dying from diverted safe supply and they're not actually dying from diverted prescription medication”. She also said, “the reality is that there are seven people per day dying in British Columbia as a result of the toxic drug crisis. They are not dying as a result of prescription-diverted medication; they are dying because of the poisonous drug supply that is on our streets.” Lastly, she said, “we do not want to criminalize people by virtue of their personal drug use. Those days are gone. We want to support a health-led approach.... [W]e strongly support the notion of not trying to arrest ourselves out of this crisis. That is not going to save lives. In fact, it does quite a bit of harm”. That is from the police. I will talk about going to Portugal. I went to Portugal last summer, on my own dime, and I was very fortunate to have the Embassy of Portugal line up a deep-dive itinerary so I could go there and learn. Why did I choose to go to Portugal? My good colleague from the Bloc talked about Portugal, and I really appreciate his insight. I went there to learn from them. They had a death rate of over 1,000 people in a population of only 10 million, primarily from intravenous drug use. Heroin, as we know, was impacting their community. They had over 100,000 chronic daily heroin users. As my colleague cited, over a million people had tried heroin. They were able to bring their numbers down to 23,000 chronic users. They brought the number of deaths from 1,000 to 60. I thought it would be prudent for me to go and learn and listen to them. This is how they responded to their health emergency when they decided to treat it as that, instead of a criminal issue. They went from 250 people using methadone to 35,000 in two years. How did they do that? They engaged the military to build labs. They engaged the military to do that so they could reduce the price, get those labs up and running, and save lives. That is how one responds in a health emergency. They built treatment facilities right across the country so that there was no wait, no barrier to treatment, and it was covered under the universal health care system, not like the Alberta model. Good luck getting treatment in Alberta in a short period of time. It is not going to happen. We heard loud and clear from witnesses, including Petra Schulz from Moms Stop the Harm, who talked about the gaps in the system, and there are gaps in our system. Portugal also spent a lot of money on recovery, because we know that relapse is part of dealing with recovery. They caught people when they landed. They invested in a four-year follow-up cycle, when people came through treatment. We know that connection is a deep and important part of dealing with the underlying trauma. They made sure that people had housing, and they decriminalized drug use and treated it as a health issue. One hears my title as the NDP critic for mental health and harm reduction. We do not just see harm reduction as safe consumption sites and safe supply. Those are critical components. However, housing and all the different social determinants of health are also reducing harm. Our goal should be to reduce harm. We hear the Liberals talk about meeting the moment. They did not respond like Portugal. They have not moved in an expedient way. We need a coordinated, integrated, compassionate approach like that of Portugal. Portugal created an expert task force. That expert task force morphed into the oversight body for government to move forward. I will tell members why the politicians in Portugal were heroes: They got out of the way. They decided it was a health issue and they let the experts lead. They moved forward with their policy and implemented it. The politicians' role was to make sure that they had the resources to do it. That was the job of the politicians. We are not doing that today. We need to get to that point, because we know that over 20 people are going to die today. Over 20 moms are going to get a call. It needs to stop. The disinformation, the fundraising, the moral panic need to stop. People need to meet with the moms. The Conservative leader is the only leader who refuses to meet with Moms Stop the Harm. He cannot explain himself. They are informed. The Liberal government needs to treat this and to meet the moment, like it says. It needs to scale up resources and meet the moment.

3016 words

Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, Lib.)

May/9/24 12:56:19 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his ongoing work in this field and for his obvious depth of knowledge and relationship with individuals who are working to save lives. I am glad that he raised Moms Stop The Harm. I have met with Moms Stop The Harm and various spinoff organizations comprised of parents. “Moms” is in the name, but there are certainly dads involved in those groups, and other family members. Have you heard from Moms Stop The Harm and other groups like it, of family members who are working hard to help provide that safety for other families. Have you heard how they feel about the conversation the Conservatives are having?

117 words

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/9/24 12:56:56 p.m.
Watch

I will remind the hon. member that I have not heard, as it was the hon. member who made the speech. The hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni.

28 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/9/24 12:57:03 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I wanted to learn about this issues, because it is causing so much harm in my home community and I am so deeply impacted by it as well. I travelled the country, going to 13 different cities. I met with moms at very stop and at every stop, they said the same thing: That we needed to listen to the experts and that this needed to be grounded in evidence. They want the government to act like this is a national health emergency, to declare a public health emergency and to reinstate the expert task force. We have not had a summit, a first ministers' meeting, on this crisis; 42,000 people have died. We have had an auto theft summit. I am not saying that is not an important issue, but clearly this is a health emergency. Where is the emergency action from the Liberals? What did the moms say about the Conservatives? They want to meet with the Conservative leader. He is afraid to look them in the eye and hear the truth. He is afraid because he knows what he is doing is immoral, the disinformation he is spreading. He knows it is not grounded in evidence. The moms have the evidence; their kids are dead.

211 words

Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)

May/9/24 12:58:14 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, it is hard to rise and talk to a topic like this one, as so many young people are dying across our country. There has been a 166% increase in deaths since the Prime Minister took over in 2015 to 2024. That is what we are talking about. People's loved ones have died. The member politicized his speech and said that our leader was afraid to meet with mothers, when he has met with mothers across the country. That is actually beneath the member. I have a lot of respect for the member, but his speech was beneath him. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Mr. Warren Steinley: The House leader of the NDP can yell as much as he wants. Madam Speaker, Dr. Nickie Mathew met with the health committee members and said that there was a 22% increase in B.C. youth with hydromorphone in their system. That comes from the safe supply. In B.C., there is a 22% increase in hydromorphone in the bloodstream of deceased B.C. youth. How can the member possibly say that safe supply is not affecting and killing B.C. youth?

192 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/9/24 12:59:27 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, that member comes from Regina, where there are 66 deaths per 100,000. That is more than 50% higher than British Columbia. Kids are dying from poisoned drugs in his community by accessing unregulated street drugs. In Saskatoon, where brownies are being sold to keep the doors open of safe consumption sites, the deaths are half of what is going on in Regina. When it comes to youth, it is extremely rare for any young person to be prescribed pharmaceutical alternatives and it is always led by physicians. To the member's question, young people can access street drugs anywhere, any time. The streets are flooded with drugs. The police have said that safe supply is not what is killing youth. That is not what is getting youth addicted to drugs. Addiction with youth has not gone up since safe supply moved forward. That is a fact; it is published data. The Conservatives do not believe in peer-reviewed published data. They only support anecdotes. That is what they do. They push it out, and it is harmful and dangerous. It is costing us lives in our country.

190 words

Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ)

May/9/24 1:00:37 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passionate and informative speech. With their motion, we are hearing the Conservatives trying to convince us that their proposal will solve everything, that fentanyl will disappear overnight from the illicit drugs sold in the street, that drug addiction problems will be solved overnight and that the handful of treatment procedures they are suggesting will have a 100% success rate. This leaves me with the impression that, at best, they are engaging in magical thinking, but at worst, and this is the impression I am getting, they are approaching a social issue from a purely partisan perspective and trying to score cheap political points off people's misery.

115 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/9/24 1:01:29 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the evidence is in on how the Conservatives' policy is playing out. Alberta is leading the country per capita for death rates due to toxic drugs, and its rate is skyrocketing. In Saskatchewan, it is skyrocketing. Alaska has the same program of no safe supply and no decriminalization. The Conservatives want to point the finger at British Columbia. All they need to do is go to Lethbridge where a safe consumption site was closed. Even if the federal government wants to open one, the Province of Alberta will fine it $10,000 a day to save lives. It will be charged $10,000 a day to open a facility to stop public use and ensure people get connected to services so they stay alive by getting their drugs tested if they are using and being connected to treatment and recovery. However, the Conservatives do not want to do that. In fact, the Premier of Alberta is even going to block research and studying the critical benefits of safer supply. It is out of control. The federal government needs to step in. This is a raging crisis in those provinces. We know how the Conservatives will operate if they are in government and how they will deal with this crisis. They are basically saying that people can only go to treatment and recovery, where often they will wait or they will die. That is the only option.

238 words

Ms. Lisa Marie Barron (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP)

May/9/24 1:02:52 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his never-ending advocacy and support, and bringing forward the voices of experts in field and families. Prior to becoming a member of Parliament, I worked in mental health and addictions, working directly with youth, families and those who supported them to provide wraparound supports. It was not good enough to offer a youth-only treatment, or only housing or only mental health support. It was essential that they were provided with the wraparound, person-centred supports people require to work through what was going on with them. The other piece was culture, tradition and connections to families. We need to be looking at wraparound, person-centred supports. Could the member please share with us the importance of having a multi-tiered approach in supporting people who are struggling with substance misuse and how that is the path forward in preventing more deaths?

150 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/9/24 1:03:57 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, my colleague is grounded in experience. She worked in the field, on the front line, with young people, seeing the barriers and navigating a broken system. She also understands the importance of connection, peer support, the critical investments and having an integrated, coordinated, compassionate approach. However, that has to be funded. It has to be supported by government. Right now, people are asking why they should pay for all of the harm reduction, treatment, recovery and housing supports. I can tell the taxpayers at home who are watching that they are paying for it, and then some, much more. This is critical when we get into prevention, especially when it comes to young people. We have to scale up prevention and education. We have to support the people on the ground doing the hard work. We have to support peer support and ensure we have a coordinated, integrated and compassionate approach.

153 words

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

May/9/24 1:04:58 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, in my riding of Kingston and the Islands, there is a safe injection site. About an hour down Highway 401, in Belleville, there is not one. We know, because it made national news only a few months ago, that in a 24-hour period, Belleville had well over 12 overdoses. It was extremely alarming and very scary. I recognize that my example is anecdotal, at best, but I cannot help but wonder why an area that does have a safe injection site does not experience the same thing that happened down Highway 401, where there is no safe injection site. Could the member speak to what he thinks about that?

112 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/9/24 1:05:43 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I can go to Lethbridge, which has a death rate of 137 per 100,000; it closed the safe consumption site. Imagine being a parent of a child in Lethbridge, where there is no safe supply, where it does not support decriminalization and where it closed safe consumption sites, or a parent in Belleville who needs safe consumption sites. Police are saying we need more, not less, safe consumption sites. They save lives. We have to listen to the experts and respond with urgency. The federal government has a role to play when it comes to safe consumption sites.

101 words

Ms. Melissa Lantsman (Thornhill, CPC)

May/9/24 1:06:28 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am going to split my time with the chief opposition whip, who is my favourite chief opposition whip. I want to start with those who are suffering, the parents, brothers, sisters and families involved. Our hearts are with them. I want those who are watching to know that there is a better way. There is carnage out there. There are bodies in the streets, their skin punctured by weapons, their veins filled with dangerous chemicals. Surrounding them are debris and unimaginable scenes of human suffering. We have seen it across the country and in no place is it more prevalent than in British Columbia today. This is not a depiction of some horror movie; it is a depiction of what is happening in our streets. It is not because of violence, a scene curated by an award-winning director or special effects. This is what is really happening. It would make us think that we were watching the worst thing we could possibly watch on TV, the government giving away free drugs. It is, frankly, investing in street-level palliative care is what it looks like. We do not have to look much further than the debate we are having today to know how badly the Liberals and the NDP have strayed from consensus on this topic. After nine years of the Liberal-NDP government, and after nine years of the drugs, disorder, chaos and crime, members of Parliament in this place are actively defending and promoting the legalization of hard drugs, like crack, heroin and meth, in hospitals, parks and on buses. It is clear that this is no longer our mothers' Liberal Party. It has an extremist view on this, and so many other issues. Contrary to everything we see every day in our communities, the people who are lying face down on the sidewalks, the endless tent cities, the needles littering playgrounds and public transit, the Liberal-NDP MPs continue to press on with an ideological purity, even as evidence, advocates, their own party members, moms and dads and those in the community tell them that their extremist experiment has failed. It is not hard to find evidence why. It is everywhere. Beyond the scenes we are witnessing in parks, our communities and our own neighbourhoods, the facts and the testimony are everywhere. After the government supported Premier Eby's socialist experiment and plot to legalize the consumption of hard drugs like heroin in public places, overdose deaths went up 380%. That is six people every day in one province. It has become so out of line in hospitals that they were soon mandated to allow drug use even next to cancer patients and newborn babies. Let us picture our grandmothers lying in bed next to a room where a guy is smoking meth. That is where we are at. Not to mention that the B.C. crime rates have gone up seven out of eight years that the Prime Minister has been in power. The problem with the so-called safe supply is not just a British Columbia problem; it is an everywhere problem. Thanks to the government flooding the streets with opioids, powerful and dangerous drugs that used to cost 50 bucks a pill are now being sold for less than two dollars on street corners. Those who are struggling with addiction can sell their fentanyl prescription minutes after getting it and then use the money to buy even harder and more potent drugs. As a result, more and more people are getting sucked into the violent cycle of addiction. People as young as 14 years old are dying from overdoses because they were entrapped into trying these drugs by friends, neighbours and even strangers who they met on the Internet, drugs that were easy to get, easy to sell and easy to get hooked on. It is something the minister actually said was not happening. We can see that what those radical Liberal-NDP MPs are promoting is not a safe supply, but an unsafe supply. It is unsafe for those who use drugs, because instead of treatment they get even more drugs to keep them using for a lifetime, all the while it takes hundreds of days to find a detox bed in almost any city. It is unsafe for individuals recovering from the use of drugs, as relapses and temptations become more common thanks to the flood of fentanyl in our streets. It is unsafe for the communities at large, as kids dodge needles on playgrounds and nurses stop breastfeeding for fear of contaminating their babies after a full day of treating those who use drugs openly in their hospitals. Even in the face of all of this, the Liberals and the NDP want to continue pushing forward and defending their failed record, literally to death. It is not just a hallmark of the government, which ignores and labels everyone it disagrees with while telling Canadians that left is right and up is down. It is emblematic of a government that fundamentally minimizes the value and the dignity of every human being and anybody who wants to get better. It is a government that offers medical assistance in dying to veterans who served our nation, that separated Canadians into categories of vaccinated and unvaccinated, and that called them misogynists. It is a government that would rather pump pills instead of helping people get better. On this side of the House, we believe that every human has value and that everybody, with support, care and compassion, can turn their lives around. We never hear that conversation in the House. We never hear about the ability for somebody to get better. That is why we oppose this misguided plan to legalize free drugs. That is why a Conservative minister of health would invest in treatment and not crack, in recovery and not heroin. However, before there would be a common-sense, Conservative government, there is an even more pressing problem. The Liberals and the NDP want to not only defend their record on drugs but also expand it. If they did not, they would have said that. They still have not rejected requests from cities such as Montreal and Toronto to do exactly what was done in B.C., with exactly the same consequences. The Minister of Health says that the application is dormant, and I suspect that it is dormant until exactly after the next election. As a Toronto-area MP, I know the problems that we have with illegal drugs. I know how bad they are, and I think about what making them legal would do. There would be open drug use and more violence on the TTC; more human suffering right out in the open on our streets, in our parks, in our hospitals, on our buses and on our subways; and more crime, chaos, drugs and disorder in our neighbourhoods that used to feel safe. This has all been propagated by the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, who is from Toronto, and who is selling out her own constituents who want to go to work, raise a family and just live in peace. This is a minister who will not protect her constituents from the reckless drug use, the same minister who has failed to protect the very people who brought her here, and it is not the first time. Even in this crazy world, I thought more people would have the guts and brains to look around at what is happening, look around at what is going on in B.C. and everywhere else, and say no to these irrational free-drug schemes that have proven not to work. Twenty-five hundred people in B.C. have been lost, which is six people a day, and there is even more evidence after nine years of this Liberal-NDP coalition. The Liberals have absolutely lost their minds on this. Worse, if somebody, 10 years ago, accused the Prime Minister of legalizing the smoking of crack in a hospital room, I would call them crazy and say that he would never do that. However, here we are today, where it was legal up until the request, and up until the 11 days it took the government to come back on that request, and it still has not ruled it out for other cities. I would call him insane. I would call that experiment insane, yet it is true today. What is more insane, if we are going to call it for what it is, and it is the most insane policy this government has ever put forward, is that the Liberals will call us insane for saying that, which is gaslighting to the nth degree. I look forward to a day when the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, the member for York Centre, is no longer allowed to give away free drugs; when people, in their darkest moments, can get the help they need, treatment, to bring home their loved ones drug-free; and when communities, kids and neighbourhoods are fully protected from this scourge. The Liberals' views are extreme, and do not let anybody ever tell those who are watching that this is not anything but extreme. They have become an extremist party with extremist policies.

1551 words

Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, Lib.)

May/9/24 1:16:23 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, we see the same kind of stigmatization with the language used by the member opposite. They talk about horror movies, which is invoking the fear of people who are really struggling in their circumstances, whom I feel such tremendous sadness for. I would ask the member about her premise, which is really to return to a failed war on substance users. It has been the approach. Indeed, it was the approach of the Stephen Harper government. It certainly has been the approach of many other Conservative governments. However, we have not actually seen an alleviation, even in countries that have even a more extreme war on substance users, with up to life imprisonment for those who are struggling and, in some sad cases, even death. Can the member tell me how this new proposal from the Conservatives would work when we have evidence from around the world that it poses a deep burden on families and substance users?

160 words

Ms. Melissa Lantsman

May/9/24 1:17:19 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, this is exactly what I am talking about, which is the extremist view that treatment is somehow war. I want to tell the member something. Thank God my parents circled around me. Those who I worked with and my friends had faith in my own recovery. Thank God I had treatment. Thank God I did not have the safe supply. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Ms. Melissa Lantsman: Madam Speaker, the minister is walking out and yelling because she knows she is wrong. She is an extremist. Thank God there was not the safe supply because I would not be sitting in the front row of Parliament today if it had been up to her.

117 words

Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)

May/9/24 1:18:00 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, one thing I would like to mention and point out to the Conservative members is that dead people do not detox. I have spent probably the vast majority of my political life fighting for a four-pillars approach, which includes prevention, harm reduction, policing and treatment to deal with the opioid crisis. Right now, statistics show, and the numbers do not lie, that Alberta is the leading province in the number of drug poisoning deaths. Alberta does not have decriminalization. That is the reality. What is more important? Is it for Conservatives to play their political games at the expense of people who are struggling and mothers who are losing their loved ones, or is it more important for them to put the facts before them and take a four-pillars approach that includes the harm reduction that saves lives for Canadians?

144 words

Ms. Melissa Lantsman

May/9/24 1:19:25 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, speaking of a political approach, she has an ideological opposition to the province of Alberta and is using the deaths in that province to make a political point. That is gross. If she is talking about detox and treatment, that is exactly what I spoke about. There is none of that in any of their plans, and if there were, we would not be having this conversation. Eventually families, mothers, fathers and the people she talked to could finally bring home their loved ones drug-free, if there were actually any money for treatment in this country.

99 words

SoVote

House Hansard - 312