44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 29, 2024 02:00PM
- May/29/24 11:33:41 p.m.
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- May/29/24 11:33:48 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I wonder if the minister could answer this for Canadians: Has heroin been legally imported in Canada in the last five years?
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- May/29/24 11:33:57 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as a physician, the member should well know that heroin is used in the standard practice of medicine in terms of pain management.
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- May/29/24 11:34:10 p.m.
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Madam Chair, oddly enough, I did have a pain clinic for 15 years, and that is not true.
Anyway, that being said, did Fair Price Pharma import 15 kilograms of heroin into Canada in November 2021?
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- May/29/24 11:34:24 p.m.
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Madam Chair, just to correct the record, it is true that heroin is used in medical practice. However, no, Health Canada did not import 15 kilograms of heroin.
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- May/29/24 11:34:36 p.m.
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Madam Chair, has any private firm been granted a dealer's licence to legally possess, produce, sell and distribute opium or heroin in Canada?
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- May/29/24 11:34:48 p.m.
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Madam Chair, there are licence-holders who can import for research purposes.
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- May/29/24 11:35:07 p.m.
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Madam Chair, that is not what I asked, but “legally possess, produce, sell and distribute opium and heroin in Canada”, were the words. Yes or no.
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- May/29/24 11:35:17 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as mentioned, they have been licensed for research purposes, so the answer would be no.
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- May/29/24 11:35:27 p.m.
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Madam Chair, Canadians should know that Sunshine Earth Labs was granted such a dealer's licence in January 2023. Has any private firm been licensed to legally produce, sell or distribute cocaine in Canada?
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- May/29/24 11:35:47 p.m.
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- May/29/24 11:35:52 p.m.
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Madam Chair, that is absolutely untrue. Sunshine Earth Labs was granted a license in November 2022.
How about Ecstasy?
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- May/29/24 11:35:59 p.m.
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Again, Madam Chair, Health Canada licences are for research purposes only.
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- May/29/24 11:36:07 p.m.
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Madam Chair, that is untrue. In January 2024, they were allowed to manufacture up to 20 kilograms of Ecstasy.
How many applications for a dealer's licence are currently pending?
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- May/29/24 11:36:17 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I would be more than happy to get back to the member with an exact answer from officials.
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- May/29/24 11:36:24 p.m.
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Madam Chair, would the minister reject further licences for MDMA, or Ecstasy, cocaine and heroin?
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- May/29/24 11:36:32 p.m.
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Madam Chair, as heroin, as mentioned before, is used for medical purposes, we cannot withhold those licenses. However, we will continue to work to ensure there are strict regulatory mechanisms in place.
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- May/29/24 11:37:01 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is such an opportunity to speak tonight in this important conversation about health care and health outcomes in this country. I have been listening all night to the questions and answers on a broad range of health-related issues, and the pattern of questions from the Conservative Party members all have a similar theme.
On the one hand, Conservative members have questioned the federal government about investments that they feel have not been ambitious enough, like the member of Parliament for Bay of Quinte, who implied that the federal government has not spent enough to help the Province of Ontario deliver effective treatment for substance use disorders, yet he has voted against every measure to support the over $600 million to Ontario to do exactly that. No wonder Premier Ford is worried about what a Conservative federal government would do if they were elected.
It is important that the federal government continues to support communities across the country, yet, despite their rhetoric, it is clear that the members opposite do not support any of the measures that doctors, community health providers, law enforcement professionals, researchers or even other orders of government say are critically important to save lives and to help people reach toward the light of recovery.
However, people like Carolyn Karle in Thunder Bay, who lost her daughter Dayna almost a year into Dayna's recovery, know that recovery is fragile and that compassion, love and ongoing support are what it takes to recover from substance use addiction. Her daughter Dayna relapsed on alcohol one night, took one dose of a substance that she thought was cocaine and died of an opioid overdose that night, in her own bedroom, like the majority of people who die of opioid overdose: alone. This devastating tragedy left her mother determined to help others who struggle with substance use disorder, a condition that far too many of us know is chronic and reoccurring, but treatable.
Lest we think it is only substance use disorder treatment that the Conservatives are opposing, they have also voted en bloc against pharmacare and the Canadian dental care plan. No matter what Canadians need or ask for, Conservatives' main response is that they are on their own, yet Canadians have always believed in taking care of each other. Indeed, if we ask Canadians what they think sets our country apart from others, many will say it is our public health care system.
That is the difference here. We see an ongoing pattern of attack on the health of Canadians who need the most help, those who cannot afford medication, those who have lived with dental pain and decay for years, those who need care for their sons and daughters to keep them alive another day as they strive to heal from the burden and trauma of substance use, yet what I still hear, despite the Conservatives' insistence on abandoning each other, is a deep and abiding love by Canadians of their neighbours, friends and community members. It is what I love the most about this country: a deep commitment to each other that sets us apart from many other places in the world.
The questions tonight have ranged from ill-informed, like the member for Souris—Moose Mountain, who failed to understand the jurisdictional right and responsibility of provinces to improve health care, to the many others, including the member for Thornhill, who implied that the government should not ever meet with diverse experts, companies and stakeholders. As a member of Parliament and a minister, it is my job to hear diverse perspectives, even the ones I do not agree with, on a range of issues. This line of questioning implies some stakeholders should be shut out from their representatives because we do not agree with them. By the way, it is indicative of the record under the previous Harper government.
In my former role as health promotion planner in Thunder Bay, I was the author of a grant proposal to Health Canada. Stephen Harper was the prime minister and Leona Aglukkaq was the health minister. Thunder Bay wanted to develop a drug strategy that would help coordinate its efforts to reduce substance-related harms. The funding program prohibited proposals that included harmful alcohol or opioid use. Imagine that. It was the two most harmful substances that constituents in Thunder Bay and around Canada were facing, and the then Conservative government refused projects across the country that dealt with any of them. We lost a decade in this work, as the leadership on opioid use was missing. To treat substance use and reduce related harms for people and communities, there really is not one silver bullet.
The Thunder Bay drug strategy was modelled on evidence and advice that says to save lives and reduce harm to people and communities, the four pillars of prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction must be in place. Indeed, our community added a fifth, housing, because it became clear that a place to call home was the foundation of healing. I note that Conservative members have voted against housing measures as well.
Last fall, our government launched the renewed Canadian drugs and substances strategy, which offers a comprehensive, collaborative, compassionate and evidence-based drug policy. Using the advice of the Canadian drugs and substances strategy, informed by the cross-section of professionals needed to address this issue, the Government of Canada announced over $1 billion in funding, including almost $600 million, through Health Canada's substance use and addictions program. This money supports community-based treatment, harm reduction, prevention and stigma reduction. That is money going directly to the front line of supporting people and their families to heal. The money funds research and surveillance initiatives and supports stronger law enforcement capacity to address illegal drug production and trafficking.
Despite the concern that some Conservative members have raised tonight about enforcement and safety, like the member for Cariboo—Prince George, and the member for Kelowna—Lake Country, Conservative members have consistently voted against funding support for enforcement activities. I guess they do not believe in putting the money where their mouths are.
Tonight, we have heard recriminations about not doing enough to save lives. In 2016, there was only one supervised consumption site in Canada and Stephen Harper tried over and over to shut it down. Thankfully, the courts agreed that the lives of drug users matter too. Since then, our focus on life-saving means that we have approved 41 of these sites in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. At these sites there are workers, who, I have to say, are really amazing, hard workers. They are on the front lines of witnessing suffering. I want to take a moment to thank them right now for that incredibly gruelling work. These workers have prevented more than 53,000 overdoses, with close to 4.5 million visits. That is a lot of people who want to live that these Conservative members say do not matter.
From substance use treatment to dental care, to coverage for birth control and diabetes medication, to support for provinces and territories to bolster their health care systems over and over, the Conservative members vote against. It is hard not to see these questions tonight as being cynical. Canadians have always rallied around each other and taken care of each other. The idea that some lives do not matter, that our children do not deserve absolutely any measure that saves lives, is opposite to the Canadian way.
I have these questions for the ministers. First, to the Minister of Health, can you share why diabetes medication was chosen as one of the first medications to be covered by the national pharmacare plan?
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- May/29/24 11:45:23 p.m.
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I want to remind the hon. minister that she is to address questions and comments through the Chair and not directly to the minister.
The hon. Minister of Health.
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- May/29/24 11:45:37 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is precisely because diabetes is a precursor illness, that diabetes, when improperly managed, leads to heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure and amputation. It is unfortunately right now costing, as of the latest estimate, from 2018, $28 billion to our health system. It is estimated in a 10-year period to increase to $37 billion.
We have to turn the tide. We need to make sure that people are effectively managing their diabetes so that we do not get those bad outcomes, so that it costs the system less. Fundamentally, it really is an issue of prevention.
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