44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 8, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/8/22 2:32:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada's Prime Minister is pandering to politics by division, stoking anger and fear. The rhetoric he used towards those Canadians who support lifting the mandate adds fuel to the fire. These are not the actions of a Prime Minister.
A senior member of the Liberal caucus has publicly criticized his tone, his language and his approach to the pandemic. Will the Prime Minister act like a Prime Minister? Will he listen to the opposition, listen to his own caucus and listen to Canadians, or will he continue with this divisive rhetoric?
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- Feb/8/22 2:33:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians, including a senior member of the Liberal caucus, are speaking loud and clear—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Feb/8/22 2:34:03 p.m.
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Canadians, including senior members of the Liberal caucus, are speaking loud and clear. Canadians are looking for pandemic leadership. Canadians are standing up right now, grabbing this moment in our history, because they know there is something fundamentally wrong when a Prime Minister refuses to listen.
Countries around the world are changing direction, but here in Canada our Prime Minister resorts to playground antics and calling names. If ever there was a time for inspired leadership, it is now. Will the Prime Minister grow up? Will he do his job? Will he listen to Canadians?
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- Feb/8/22 8:19:08 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kelowna—Lake Country.
It is unfortunate that I have to get up once again to speak about the opioid crisis in Canada. Unfortunately, it seems we are doing this on a fairly regular basis.
My colleagues will know that I am not necessarily one to stand up here and talk about statistics and that I try and focus on real stories and anecdotes, but the stats, especially for the province of Alberta, show that opioid deaths have increased substantially over the last couple of years, and suicides are a part of that. Just to put that in perspective, across Canada there were 1,700 apparent opioid toxicity deaths between July and September of 2020. That is the highest quarterly number since we started measuring these stats in 2016. That is a 120% increase from year to year over that same time frame the previous year. There were more than 3,300 apparent opioid toxicity deaths, representing a 74% increase just between the six months of October 2019 and March 2020. That is 1,900 deaths.
These are significant numbers. Yes, they are numbers but they are also friends, relatives, sons, daughters, mother and fathers whom we have lost. I know I am not the only one in the House, many of my colleagues and friends have also lost loved ones, friends and people who are close to them due to an opioid overdose or suicide. We knew this was a crisis going into the pandemic, but the pandemic has certainly exacerbated the mental health crisis we are facing in Canada, and as a result, the opioid crisis that comes along with that.
Over the past year, I had the honour of chairing a Conservative working group where we focused on the opioid crisis and mental health. We talked to stakeholders across Canada and around the world. We asked them what their insight and advice was to address this, what we were missing and what tools we were overlooking in our tool box. There are a couple of things I want to share in my speech that I learned from those stakeholders, from doctors, nurses, counsellors and family members who had lost loved ones, as well as from those who have been through opioid addiction and recovery.
What I learned is that there is no silver bullet. There is not one program that, as a federal government in partnership with our provinces and territories, we could implement tomorrow that we know would resolve the issue, this crisis. It is not a one-size-fits-all. We need a suite of programs and initiatives to address this crisis, but I think the most important thing is that we need to do it now.
Certainly, we heard some platitudes from the government. I do not want to make this overly partisan, but we heard from many levels of government that they understand it is a crisis, but very few are actually doing something about it. We have had emergency debates on it in the House in the past and I have not seen a lot of changes. That is concerning. We cannot carry on like this.
The one thing we have heard is that the programs have been underfunded and there has not been a true priority put on addressing the opioid crisis. When I say “underfunded”, I do not think, from what we have heard from stakeholders, there is a lack of funds going to some of these programs and initiatives that are out there. The problem is underfunding with respect to setting priorities. One of the things we heard from just about every single stakeholder we spoke with during the last year and a bit, going through this discussion, was that there are no metrics to measure which programs are successful and which are not.
We could take a shotgun approach and throw money at just about every program that is out there, but unless we have a way to measure what is working and what is not, we are wasting our time and money. That is what we heard from so many of these groups. It is not that we are lacking resources, but there are so many programs out there, Some of them are working and some of them are working exceptionally well, but some of them are not. We want to ensure that those that are getting the funds are doing a good job. It also empowers them to make sure they are using taxpayer dollars to the very best benefit.
Another example we heard from many of the stakeholders is the need for a 988 national suicide hotline. This would be a very easy solution that the Liberal government could implement immediately and the House could support unanimously. How can Canadians trust the Liberal government to take this seriously if it cannot even implement a simple 988 suicide hotline?
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- Feb/8/22 8:25:10 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I appreciate that we have had discussions on this, but one thing is missing. I also appreciate what the member is trying to say. Some colleagues have brought up the Portugal model, for example, but the thing they forget to mention about Portugal, where drugs were decriminalized, is that it has invested substantially in treatment and recovery. The number of beds it has for treatment and recovery far outweigh what we have here in Canada. If we want to talk about decriminalization and safe supply, the first thing we have to talk about, which must be in place first, is a strategy and regime around treatment and recovery, and ensuring we have the resources in place for those who are going to need it.
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- Feb/8/22 8:26:56 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I appreciate the member's question, and I hope she listened to my speech when I said there is no silver bullet that resolves this problem. There has to be a suite of different programs, and harm reduction is one of them.
The issue that bothers me with this position is that harm reduction and an increased safe supply is the one and only solution. However, it is not a solution at all. All it would do is perpetuate addiction, unless we have a focus on programs that ensure there is a way to divert people who are using supervised safe injection sites to recovery and treatment. That is the key element that is missing in too many of these programs, and there is a perpetual cycle. We must be able to divert people who need it into treatment or recovery. Otherwise the cycle does not end.
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- Feb/8/22 8:28:38 p.m.
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Madam Chair, the member brings up a very good point. The pharmaceutical companies that have been peddling these opioids have to be held accountable. They are saying there is a 90% chance a person will not get addicted, but it is a ridiculous stat and we know the consequences of it.
Something I would like to propose is the establishment of a centre of excellence for mental health and addictions. This would be the hub where these programs would ask for funding and it would be funnelled through them. We would have metrics of success, and would also be able to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for what should be out there and what should not. There would be consequences in place if they are misleading Canadians on the addiction levels of the products they are peddling.
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- Feb/8/22 8:45:23 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I want to thank my colleague. As I have said, we have had lots of discussions about this, and I certainly appreciate his passion.
However, many of the members in the House continue to mislead a bit on the comments by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, when they talk about their support for decriminalization. The one key to their statement was that they would support decriminalization if police officers across the country had the resources to divert those who needed it into sufficient treatment and recovery, which does not exist right now.
Would my colleague not agree that it is critical, if we are going to go down this road, for the chiefs of police and police forces across Canada to ensure that proper treatment and recovery beds are in place first if we are going to divert people into those programs?
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