SoVote

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/2/22 11:48:01 p.m.
Watch

As I understand it, the member is raising a point of order on relevance. I presume the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni will get there in his speech.

29 words

Mr. Gord Johns

May/2/22 11:48:13 p.m.
Watch
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.

1105 words

All Topics

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

May/2/22 11:54:57 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, I must say that I really appreciate the passion that this member has displayed today. I would agree with him that this is an extremely important issue. I really hope that we can see better funding come forward and better action taken towards dealing with this serious crisis that we have. The member talked about the tour that he has been on in support of his private member's bill. I wonder if he can relay to the House what he has been hearing. What are some of the real-life experiences and stories that he has been hearing from people as he has been touring around the country? What they are saying, and what does he think they would want the House to know?

127 words

Mr. Gord Johns

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.

157 words

Mr. Jamie Schmale (Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, CPC)

May/2/22 11:56:43 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from the NDP for his very passionate speech and his commitment to those suffering with addictions. As the member mentioned, the theme of Mental Health Week, which is this week, is empathy. I think it has been said many times that the shortest distance between two people is in fact empathy, and that we can actually start to bridge some of the divides and heal our communities. Can the member expand on some of the things he has been hearing in his consultations across the country on treatment and helping people get off some of their addictions?

103 words

All Topics

Mr. Gord Johns

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.

195 words

All Topics

Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

May/2/22 11:58:25 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech, which was indeed very passionate. It is obvious that he cares deeply about that issue. I do not think that this is the first time he has talked about this problem in the House. Was my colleague surprised that the government asked him questions about what should be done? The government has been in power for six years, but it clearly has not done anything to improve the situation.

79 words

All Topics

Mr. Gord Johns

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.

200 words

All Topics

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/3/22 12:00:05 a.m.
Watch

It being midnight, pursuant to order made on Monday, May 2, 2022, this House stands adjourned until later this day at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 12 a.m.)

37 words

SoVote

House Hansard - 62