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House Hansard - 49

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 30, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 49 - Mar/30/22
Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)
  • Mar/30/22 6:53:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to again highlight the government's failure to address the poisoned drug supply in this country, which has cost 27,000 lives, and the government's inaction. The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions was at the Standing Committee on Health and said that decriminalizing heroin and other street drugs was no answer to preventing deaths. She also said that the legalization of marijuana did not stop users from buying on the black market and that decriminalization still meant people went to the street to get their drugs. I am going to speak a bit about how there is no silver bullet to tackling this crisis. It is going to take a multi-faceted approach, and decriminalization is a critical step. Saving lives, like I said, is going to take multiple actions. I agree that decriminalization alone will not be enough, but saving lives will require relieving drug users of the fear and shame of criminal behaviour. For many drug users, this is a necessary prerequisite to accessing a regulated safer supply or stepping forward for trauma-based treatment or help from health care providers. As long as users are living in the shadows of criminal behaviour and are afraid of losing their supply, their employment, their income, their freedom or their social relationships, the likelihood of them trusting essential harm reduction services is very low. That is a fact. We all need to understand that cherry-picking one or another public policy reform will simply not be enough. Responding to overdose deaths, which are epidemic in our country, requires a multi-faceted response with interlinked and complementary measures that will provide a safe, social environment for users. It cannot be either-or. We cannot say yes to safer supply and no to criminalization. It cannot be one or the other. It cannot be yes to treatment but no to a safer supply, or no to expungement of criminal convictions for simple possession. It cannot be that. The measures recommended by the government's expert task force on substance use are intended to work in concert. We can walk and chew gum here in this country. Accessing safe substances will save lives, but walking through the door of a government-sponsored safe injection site takes courage when the very act of using drugs is a criminal offence. Decriminalization will reduce barriers to accessing a regulated safer supply. Expungement of criminal records will help Canadians overcome the barriers to employment, housing and child custody created by criminalization. Universal access to trauma-based treatment will help many recover from the consequences of substance use and allow them to live lives free of the consequences of substance use. Decriminalization, providing a low-barrier regulated safer supply for users, expunging records of criminal conviction and providing universal access to treatment are all policies that must go hand in hand. A multi-faceted response is needed to a multi-faceted crisis in our society that is taking lives. I want to thank The Globe and Mail's editorial board, which outlined the failed policies of the government and the lack of priority in taking action to tackle this endemic, which is taking the lives of our daughters, sons, mothers, fathers and community members in this country. It says: ...in the House of Commons there is an NDP private member's bill, C-216, that proposes decriminalization, as well as a national strategy on substance use that includes “low-barrier access to a safe supply of medically regulated substances” and “universal access to recovery, treatment and harm reduction services for problematic substance use.” C-216 sits in the purgatory of second reading. How to change the course of a ruthless epidemic of overdose deaths is right there in front of all MPs. The pile of evidence, from too many deaths to the policies to save lives, is sitting right there. I hope the government will listen to that.
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