44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 2, 2022 11:00AM
- May/2/22 11:10:20 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, just to follow up, my Conservative colleague talked about inflation that is impacting not just Canada, but countries globally.
One thing we do not talk enough about is the skyrocketing concentration of wealth and the rampant inequality that is growing in our country. We see that we have the lowest corporate tax rate in the G7. We have tax havens that are designed to protect the super wealthy.
Does my colleague agree that we have a big issue when it comes to the concentration of wealth at the top and that the super wealthy could afford to contribute more so that we could build affordable housing, so that we could make sure that people have pharmacare and so that we could tackle the toxic drug supply and the overdose crisis? I appreciate my colleague for always speaking and trying to find solutions.
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- May/2/22 11:24:07 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I always enjoy my colleague's interventions.
We have talked a lot in the House about the housing crisis in this country. We keep hearing about incentives for developers and different programs for new buyers. We went from 10% non-market housing in the 1970s and 1980s, before the Liberals pulled out of the national housing program, to what we are today at 3%. Europe is at 30%, and Vienna is at 60%. We know the Conservatives' priorities and Liberals' priorities are to get developers to build housing. We are glad to see some co-op housing. We are glad to see some movement on that in this recent budget.
Does my colleague agree that we need to rapidly scale up non-market housing and co-op housing to solve the housing crisis for workers and for people who are homeless, and look at models that are going to make sure people have housing security? We need to take a new approach in how we look at housing and see it not as an investment, but in making sure people have safe, secure and affordable housing.
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- May/2/22 11:44:02 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, it is a huge honour to rise tonight to speak to the fall economic update.
Today, the families and friends of 20 Canadians will get the life-changing news that their loved one has died because of a toxic drug poisoning. Tomorrow, the families and friends of another 20 Canadians will get the same news, and again the next day and the next day.
The expert task force on substance use established by Health Canada accurately described what we are facing when it said:
The war on drugs has led to what ends up looking like a war on people who use drugs. People are dying every day, and the situation in Canada, already particularly deadly, is getting worse, not better. Canada has the fastest growing rate of overdose mortality in the world.
This is from the government's own expert task force.
The pandemic has accelerated the toxic drug supply crisis and there is no end in sight. The Public Health Agency of Canada, in its most recent modelling, predicted that opioid-related deaths will remain high until June and may even increase, yet the government has refused to take the urgent actions needed to stop the losses, including making investments, at the scale that this crisis requires, in addressing the root causes of problematic substance use, education and prevention, harm reduction and safer supply, and treatment on demand and recovery services.
The fall economic update failed to even acknowledge the public health emergency that has been devastating communities for years, and the 2022 budget added a mere $100 million over three years to be spread across the country. That is 10 provinces and three territories. The stigma is not just in policy, nor just in the laws in this country. It is in the amount of money the government spends to tackle this crisis.
The toxic drug supply crisis, which has arisen as a direct result of the failed war on drugs, is not just costing lives; it is costing significant amounts of money to all levels of government. Members have heard me say repeatedly in the House that this is a health and human rights issue, but this is also an economic issue.
The expert task force wrote about the financial burden of the criminalized approach to drugs on the health and criminal justice system. Its report said:
Criminalization leads to higher drug-related health costs because it keeps people who use drugs away from prevention and early treatment health services due to fear of being arrested, labelled, or outed.
“Criminalization drives people underground and means that people are less likely to seek assistance, or have difficulties if they try to obtain assistance.”
Because criminalization pushes people who use drugs to rely on an illegal, often contaminated drug supply, it is also responsible for high hospitalization costs.
“23,240 opioid-related and 10,518 stimulant-related poisoning hospitalizations occurred from January 2016 to September 2020 in Canada (excluding Quebec).”
In its second report, the expert task force put it bluntly, saying, “Current policies are currently costing Canada huge amounts. In—”
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- May/2/22 11:48:13 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, this is again the problem in the House. We have four official political parties and a fifth party, the Green Party, and what parties do not recognize is that when 27,000 people die in this country in six years, this issue should be addressed in the fall economic statement. In B.C. it has killed more people than COVID-19, yet COVID-19 responses are in this budget. Absolutely, this is a fall budget issue and it is missing in this document. It is missing in the funding and it is missing in the response from the government. I am disappointed to hear my colleague think that this issue should not be responded to in the fall economic update.
I am going to go back to my speech, if I can.
The second report says:
Current policies are currently costing Canada huge amounts. In 2017, the estimate of healthcare costs in Canada related to the use of opioids and other depressants and cocaine and other stimulants was one billion dollars, and the cost of policing and legal proceedings related to drug possession exceeded six billion dollars.
These are 2017 numbers. Yes, this is relevant to the fall economic statement.
The task force recommended providing sufficient and ongoing funding to address the issue and stated, “Although a significant initial investment will be required to reshape the system and address the drug toxicity crisis, costs can be expected to decrease over time as the impact of new, more effective policies is felt.”
That there are societal costs to problematic substance use is not news. In 2014, a report of the blue ribbon panel on crime reduction was prepared for the British Columbia provincial government. It states:
Clearly, substance abuse is an expensive societal issue. Drug treatment is also an expensive enterprise. This raises the immediate question as to whether treatment is worth the cost. According to the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, “every dollar invested in addiction treatment programs yields a return of between $4 and $7 in reduced drug-related crime, criminal justice costs, and theft. When savings related to healthcare are included, total savings can exceed costs by a ratio of 12 to 1.”
This is an economic issue. This was an opportunity missed in the fall economic update. The report recommended that quality mental health and addiction services be made more accessible, finding that evidence suggests such investments would lead to significant future savings. It is an economic issue and should have been addressed in the fall economic statement.
Beyond these health and justice system costs, there are less visible costs to communities from the war on drugs. These costs are something I have heard a great deal about, as I have travelled the country to learn about the toxic drug supply crisis and speak about my private member's bill. I have been on a “stop the harm” tour, listening to people in Victoria, Duncan, Nanaimo, Edmonton last week, Saskatoon and Toronto. I was in Montreal today, in my colleague's home province, listening to frontline people. I hope he does the same, because they will tell him it is an economic issue as well as a human rights and health issue. In Halifax I hear the same thing.
I was talking to Jean-Francois Mary at Cactus Montreal today. He said that for someone who gets HIV, it costs $35,000 a year to get medicine. For someone with hepatitis C, it costs about $75,000. He says he gets $250,000 in funding from the province but does not get any federal funding. He is here to stop the spread of HIV and stop hepatitis C, so this is an economic issue.
I also heard this from Kayla DeMong at Prairie Harm Reduction. She said it does not make any economic sense that we are not investing in harm reduction. She just got her funding pulled from the Province of Saskatchewan. They need federal funding.
I could go on, but I will go right to the fact that we need empathy right now. We need to listen to the people. We need to open our hearts on this issue. It is an economic issue and it is a human issue as well.
I listened to Isabelle Fortier this morning, from Moms Stop the Harm. When I was at Dopamine in Montreal, she talked about her daughter Sara-Jane, who was studying law at the University of Ottawa. She got into a depression and started using substances to cope with it. She died 600 metres from a hospital from a preventable overdose. She wanted to volunteer at Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the Red Cross. She lost her dreams.
One thing I have seen from coast to coast to coast in the eyes of the people who are struggling the most with this crisis is that they have fear in common. They are scared. They are scared about where they are going to sleep. They are scared for what they are going to eat. They are scared that they are going to die of drug poisoning. They are scared that they are never going to be whole again, or be with their families, friends and loved ones. They are scared that their dreams are gone.
I am calling on all of us to have empathy. Gandhi said that, “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” I am calling on us to be leaders and to show that we have courage, that we care about the most vulnerable, that we do not fail them and that we unlock their dreams. It is good for the GDP. We have an opportunity. We can look to Portugal, which took a health approach instead of a criminal approach. It is proud of taking on a complex issue with a complex solution. It had courage, it did not have fear, and it was good for the country's economy.
This is a fall economic update issue. It has been a fall economic update issue for six years. It has been a budget update issue for six years, with failed opportunities. I encourage us all to have the love, compassion and courage to make this issue a priority. All of us can dream to open up and unlock the dreams of the people who are dying right now by supporting them, by investing in them and by prioritizing them. We can do this, and I hope we will all do it and stop letting people die unnecessarily.
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- May/2/22 11:55:44 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I think that they want us to listen to the experts, and listen to the evidence and the science. Health Canada has created a task force on substance use. It makes clear recommendations that are reflected in my Bill C-216, the health-based approach to the substance use act. They want to see us actually move forward, to look to other models around the world, to have courage and not put votes ahead of people's lives. That is what they want us to hear.
I encourage everybody in the House to talk to Moms Stop The Harm. It is Mental Health Week, which is built around empathy. I ask members to please listen to the moms, the experts and our chief medical health officer, and to talk to law enforcement. They will tell us that by criminalizing people we are just further harming them, and it does not work. It has not worked.
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- May/2/22 11:57:22 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, there are a couple of things in there.
First, the member talked about mental health. We heard a commitment from this government of $4.5 billion over five years in transfers around mental health. We did not see it in the fall economic statement. In fact, we did not see it in the budget, but we are eagerly anticipating it, given post-COVID or coming out of COVID when we have a serious mental health crisis as never before. We absolutely need to make sure that people get access to those supports.
When it comes to treatment, we need to make sure that it is on demand. Certain provinces do not want to do a safe supply: They do not want to decriminalize and they believe just in treatment as a model, but they are not delivering it. They should go to Edmonton and go to Saskatoon. I was just there. A gentleman I met had dreams and wanted treatment, but he said that it was going to take weeks or months to get treatment. We need to invest. It saves money, and I talked about some of that. We need to invest.
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- May/2/22 11:58:59 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, it is hugely disappointing. I appreciate the member's question. In fact, his father's name came up today. I was meeting with an addictions doctor who was really proud of her relationship with the member's father, because he was a champion for harms reduction when the first safe consumption site came to Montreal. I appreciate his work and advocacy on that.
There has been talk about the need for real investments, action and a national strategy to tackle this issue. The government has talked about that for six years.
My bill comes up for a vote on June 1. I hope this member will do the right thing and support a bill that reflects the government's own expert task force on substance use. If he meets the doctors that I met today, they are going to be asking him to support it. They are going to be asking all members to support it because they know it is going to save lives.
We have to be strong. We have to have courage. We have to put saving peoples' lives, and expert, evidence-based decision-making, ahead of politics. We have to. It is our duty.
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