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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 321

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 30, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24
Mrs. Élisabeth Brière (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, Lib.)
  • May/30/24 3:03:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what we have been hearing from the Conservative side is dehumanizing. They are basically saying that we need to clean up the streets because these people are a bother. On this side of the House, we are here to help people who use drugs. They did not choose to become addicts. They did not wake up one morning and say that they were going to start using drugs. The important thing is to give them a range of options so that they can find their way forward and overcome their addiction, which is not a criminal law problem. It is a mental health problem.
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Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/31/24
Mrs. Tracy Gray (Kelowna—Lake Country, CPC)
  • May/31/24 12:37:45 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country. To anyone in my community who might be watching at this late hour, now early the next day, I say hello. I rise today to speak to the worsening addiction crisis in my province of British Columbian. Specifically, I will speak to the tragic failure of the NDP-Liberal government's drug decriminalization experiment. The addiction crisis is something I raised in my very first speech in the House of Commons. It is an issue of importance to every resident of Kelowna—Lake Country and British Columbia. The NDP-Liberal approach to addiction promised to reduce overdose deaths. However, according to the B.C.'s coroner's office, since 2015, the overdose rate has skyrocketed. In 2015, 20 residents of Kelowna and 529 British Columbians tragically perished from drug overdoses. In 2023, the first year of the NDP-Liberal B.C. decriminalization experiment, the coroner's office reported 2,511 deaths, the highest rate of overdose deaths in British Columbia's history. Roughly one person is fatally overdosing every four hours. In Kelowna, overdose deaths have been recorded in the triple digits for the very first time. These are not just statistics. These are our family members and our neighbours. What the government is doing is not working. The Liberal and NDP members ignore solutions to get addiction treatment and recovery to people suffering from addiction. They did this when they voted down my private member's bill, the end the revolving door act. Dozens of leading addiction physicians have come out imploring the federal government to cancel or amend Canada's “safe supply” policies, citing that the federal government is misrepresenting the programs to the public. All this, yet the Liberal minister responsible for government-funded supply doubles down on their reckless drug policies. I have spoken in the House on this tragic issue many times and asked how the NDP-Liberal government could continue with its decriminalization experiment, even when B.C.'s top doctor said that so-called safe supply is landing into street-level trafficking and ending up in the hands of children. That was not the first time I raised this government's failed policies concerning child safety. Last spring, on behalf of parents in my community and from across B.C., I raised concerns about bringing their children to parks and playgrounds because the government was allowing open drug use. Liberal and NDP members chose to applaud themselves at the time rather than listen to the voices of the parents scared for the safety of their children. Crime has become rampant in our neighbourhoods, hurting families and small businesses. Now, we have the serious problem of government-supplied, taxpayer-funded hard drugs. They are getting into the hands of organised crime to be trafficked in the black market across Canada, fuelling the toxic drug crisis. The RCMP in Campbell River, B.C., and in Prince George, B.C., seized thousands of prescription drug pills, many of which were reported as being diverted from the B.C. government-funded supply program. Powdered fentanyl was seized that had been shaped into dinosaur gummies. B.C. nurses have strongly spoken out against the results in hospitals of the illicit drug policy experiment, which was approved by the Liberal government. The B.C. NDP stepped back some of its drug policies due to an impending election. The Liberals will not commit to never approving again a similar request in another jurisdiction in this country. Things are getting worse. More people are getting addicted. Families are losing more loved ones, and drug overdose is now the number one cause of death for British Columbia youth. Will this government stop its radical drug policies?
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