44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 8, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Chair, it is a pleasure to join this evening's debate. I want to thank the member for Yukon for initiating the very important subject matter we are discussing today in the chamber.
Something my constituents in Parkdale—High Park speak to me about regularly is the issue of opioids, opioid use and the opioid crisis that is claiming lives in Parkdale—High Park, in Toronto, in Ontario and right around the country. The deaths were occurring prior to any of us ever hearing about COVID-19, and they have continued throughout the pandemic, in some months exceeding COVID death rates. Unfortunately, these deaths will likely continue once we have finished with the pandemic. This underscores the urgency of taking action on this pressing issue.
The history of what we have done as a party was underscored very recently in this debate: treating the issue of opioid use, and drug use generally, as a health issue, not a criminal issue. I therefore want to turn back the clock a bit and remind Canadians about where we were prior to the election in the fall of 2015.
At that time, we had a government led by Stephen Harper that was basically denying this health nexus. That government was denying supervised consumption sites, or supervised injection sites as they were then referred to, from proceeding. With the inability of the previous government to grant exemptions under the relevant federal legislation to allow supervised injection sites to occur, this ended up at the Supreme Court of Canada in a case called Canada v. PHS Community Services Society. In a unanimous 9-0 decision, which is somewhat rare for the Supreme Court of Canada, written by the chief justice, the court affirmed the constitutional rights that were at issue and sided soundly with the applicants in the case, going against the Harper government.
I am going to read into the record part of what was said. In paragraph 136 of that decision, the court said, “The Minister made a decision not to extend the exemption from the application of the federal drug laws to Insite.” Insite was the applicant seeking to run the supervised injection site. “The effect of that decision,” the court wrote, “would have been to prevent injection drug users from accessing the health services offered by Insite, threatening the health and indeed the lives of the potential clients.” There is the nexus. By denying that ministerial exemption, drug users' lives were threatened.
The court continued: “The Minister’s decision thus...constitutes a limit on their s. 7 rights,” which would be the rights to life, liberty and security of the person. The court went on to say, “this limit is not in accordance with...fundamental justice. It is arbitrary...[and] grossly disproportionate”. It said, “the potential denial of health services and the correlative increase in the risk of death and disease to injection drug users outweigh any benefit that might be derived from maintaining an absolute prohibition”.
There the court said in a unanimous decision that what we are doing by denying the ability to run a supervised injection site is threatening the lives of Canadians. That is what was so heinous about the approach of the previous government. In October 2015, an election occurred, and we have had a different orientation on this side of the House since we have taken power.
What have we done since then? We got to work and approached this as a health care issue and an addiction issue, as opposed to a criminal matter. We passed legislation in the 42nd Parliament on it, Bill C-37. Rather than withholding discretion, we started to provide discretion, subject to the parameters that were outlined by the court in its jurisprudence. Supervised consumption sites then blossomed.
Since 2016, the record of this government has been to provide 38 different supervised consumption sites, which are operating, and grant the exemptions that have been required. We are trying to empower supervised consumption sites. We are also taking a fundamentally different approach toward diversion and toward treating drug use differently.
As to what that comports with, I can talk about Bill C-5, which has been tabled in this House. I had the honour to speak to it in December. We are taking an approach that is endorsed by the director of public prosecutions, who is at the federal level in the prosecution service, and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. They have said that rather than using police resources to criminalize people who are using drugs, we should be approaching this from a different perspective by offering them treatments and getting them out of the revolving door of the criminal justice system.
That is the approach we have taken, but much more needs to be done. It is why participating in this debate is so critical this evening. I am looking forward to advocating on behalf of my constituents, who want to see the needs of drug users attended to so we can avert the concerns we are facing now with the opioid crisis.
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- Feb/8/22 9:36:38 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I welcome the member for Peterborough—Kawartha to the chamber.
That is absolutely accurate. We need to encourage diversion, but we need available resources. What we are seeing on the part of our government is tens of millions of dollars being committed toward treatment. We saw the appointment of a mental health and addictions cabinet minister, a first in Canadian history. That is the kind of emphasis we are placing on this issue in terms of cabinet appointments and in terms of the dollars we are using to back it up. We need treatment systems and programs available so that diversion can be made to those very programs, and that is indeed what we are doing as a government.
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- Feb/8/22 9:38:30 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I did not hear a question so I will simply comment on the situation my colleague mentioned.
I would like to note that we are here to support the provinces and establish a partnership with those who want to treat this situation as a health problem rather than a criminal justice issue. For example, as I mentioned, we already earmarked $66 million in the 2020 fall economic statement for care related to this specific problem.
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- Feb/8/22 9:40:07 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, on the issue of decriminalization, we know there are applications under section 56 before the minister. They relate to the province of B.C., the city of Vancouver and indeed my city. We know the public health officers in those two cities in particular have taken a strong stance in this regard.
One thing we have been able to do as a government juxtaposes this notion that we are somehow following the Harper model when completely and antithetically we are not: We are providing what is called a safe supply. We know that the majority of drug deaths in the opioid context occur because people simply do not know what they are using, nor the potential dangers of what they are using. In my riding of Parkdale—High Park, I made an announcement of over $550,000, which is dedicated toward providing a safe supply to ensure those who use are using with confidence and with the understanding that what they are using is not laced with fentanyl. That is how we save lives. That is the approach to harm reduction we have taken as a government, and those are the types of policies we will continue to pursue.
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