44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 18, 2023 10:00AM
- May/18/23 10:58:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated the approach my colleague used in her speech. It is true that this is a complex issue, a human issue. Behind the statistics and the numbers there are some very serious realities.
It is a really important issue. I have experience with this problem in my family. It is hard to talk about without getting emotional. I think that we agree with my colleague on the fact that it is a public health problem and that the Conservatives' approach to this crisis is a bit dogmatic. Public health is health.
Recently there were negotiations with Quebec on the matter of health transfers. Unfortunately, Quebec and the provinces, who were asking for $6 billion, barely got $1 billion. If we really want to help people, in this case addicts, on the ground, there needs to be an increase in health transfers.
When will the government increase the transfers?
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- May/18/23 11:31:33 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised by the direction of the debate this morning. Actually, I am not that surprised.
The debate is difficult, emotional, sensitive and human, and it affects people deeply. I know what I am talking about because I had first-hand experience with addiction in my family. I was exposed to different kinds of addictions throughout my childhood.
There is no denying that no one ever truly recovers from an addiction. The struggle lasts a lifetime. People who are addicted to drugs continue to be addicts for the rest of their lives, whether they use or not. It is something people are born with, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. Some people are born with addictive tendencies, just as others are born with brown eyes, the ability to run 100 metres in 10 seconds, or to become a soccer champion, a doctor, a major international researcher or a Nobel Prize laureate. People are born with this thing inside them and have to live with it. Judgment has no place in the conversation.
The problem with the Conservatives is that their approach is always a bit dogmatic. It is never easy. However, I would like to point out that they at least deserve some credit for raising difficult, complicated and important issues on their opposition days. In the past few weeks, they have addressed the housing crisis, which is another major crisis that we are dealing with in Quebec and Canada, and even around the world right now. It is a huge issue. The problem is their proposed solution.
Another Conservative opposition day focused on the carbon tax. They want to eliminate the carbon tax. The Conservatives were broaching another important issue of our time, another fundamental crisis that we are dealing with, the climate crisis. They suggested eliminating the carbon tax, but they did not suggest any other solutions.
Is it the same thing for the housing crisis. What solution did the Conservatives suggest? They suggested eliminating municipal governments. According to the Conservatives, there is one level of government too many in this country. We agree with the fact that there is one level of government too many. We could get on board with the option of eliminating one. However, we disagree with the Conservatives as to which level of government is unnecessary.
The Conservatives are raising these important issues, but they are presenting simplistic solutions that we are not sure will get us anywhere. The United States tried the “tough on crime” approach. My colleague spoke about it earlier. The Conservatives are suggesting being tough on drug addicts. They always want to take a punitive, prohibitive approach. If they see something as a problem, then they want to get rid of it. However, as I said earlier, when someone is born with this problem, they have to live with it every day.
The United States, a country recognized for its strict drug policies, has not managed to stem drug consumption. In the United States, opioid-related deaths increased from 50,000 in 2015 to almost 100,000 in 2021. This punitive approach towards drug users has had no impact on drug consumption in the United States. That is more or less the Conservatives' approach this morning. That is roughly what they are proposing.
The U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and that is connected with drugs and drug consumption. This record disproves the ideological approach introduced by Nixon long ago. As mentioned earlier, some areas of the United States have changed tack, adopting an approach similar to those developed by Switzerland and Portugal.
In 2001, Portugal changed its approach to combatting drug consumption and the accompanying HIV epidemic by decriminalizing simple possession of drugs. This worked in Portugal. In the many studies that have followed, a new paradigm has emerged. We are familiar with it, and the Bloc supports it. Drug consumption is not just a criminal justice issue, it is first and foremost a public health issue.
Let us talk about public health. The Conservatives can be criticized for being dogmatic in their approach today. However, if we start from the paradigm that this is a public health and mental health issue, because it is, then health care needs to be funded properly. We need to help people, support them in the process, but that takes money. It takes people to support them, like psychologists and nursing aids. It takes centres where they will be supported. It is a mental health and public health problem. For that, health care needs to be properly funded.
What have we seen in the past few months? Over the past 30 years, every province in this country has been complaining non-stop about the lack of adequate funding for health care. There were negotiations recently. What happened? Quebec asked for $6 billion a year. We got barely $1 billion. Is that how we acknowledge the work of people who work in this field? Is that how we acknowledge even the most basic needs on the ground right now? The answer is: of course not. On one hand, the Liberals have an approach we can agree on, but it is largely underfunded, so we are left with a problem.
With substance use comes poverty. As my colleague mentioned earlier, this is another important issue related to the opioid crisis. With poverty comes difficulty finding housing. Difficulty finding housing means there is a housing crisis. There is a housing crisis in this country. How many times have we talked about it? I cannot believe how many times we have to repeat the same things in the House.
I am going to talk about the housing crisis because it is fundamental and it is related to what we are talking about today, although those on the other side of the House will not admit it. On Monday night, I was here in committee of the whole with the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion on the other side, the director of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, and all the senior officials from the department, and it was a pathetic display.
I have no doubt that the Minister of Housing is a very nice person. I do not want to be partisan in saying this, and I apologize, but he does not have the know-how to deal with the crisis that we are facing right now. That was very clear on Monday night. We were asking some very pertinent questions.
The challenge is real. Even the Liberals know it. The minister identified the housing problem that we have in this country. We must build 3.5 million housing units by 2030. He said so himself. We do not even need to tell him what the challenge is; he knows what it is. What is happening?
According to the National Housing Council, 115,000 housing units have been built since the national housing strategy was launched. I will remind members that we need 3.5 million units. We have built 115,000 units, but members might want to hold on to their hats, because according to the National Housing Council, we have lost 550,000 affordable housing units. We are in the red.
Over the past five years, the government has implemented an $82‑billion program. Not only are housing units not being built, but people have less access to housing. People with addictions could benefit from social housing with supports. It is desperately needed.
Let me close with this. As I mentioned earlier, an economist at the CMHC said that, in Quebec alone, 1.1 million housing units need to be built in the next 10 years. On its own, the market will build 500,000 units. Everyone needs to mobilize, all of us here in the House and all levels of government, to find a way to build 600,000 units in the next 10 years. That means 60,000 a year. Only 115,000 have been built in the last five years, so we are nowhere near that goal.
There are a number of considerations, including funding for housing and health care. There is also a human element underlying all of this. There are tragedies and families who have lost loved ones.
We need to mobilize. Unfortunately, dogmatic motions like the one the Conservatives introduced this morning will not move the debate forward.
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- May/18/23 11:43:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure there was a question in my colleague's comments, but that is fine. It is a real and very serious crisis. As I said, it is something very personal to me. I experienced this up close.
This comes with a human cost to the families. I have heard plenty of stories. I have met many people who have gone through this: Sons who lie and steal from their own mother in order to use drugs, which is just tragic; fathers whose fridge is empty and who use their rent money to pay for drugs. I could tell stories like that for hours. These are truly unspeakable tragedies.
We all need to come together. It is important and I want say it again: The Conservatives have a knack for raising important issues. The problem is that they rarely have good solutions. We all need to work together to come up with solutions.
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- May/18/23 11:45:39 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the truth is we need to do everything we can. The current approach being used might not be perfect. It could be improved. However, we are in a crisis, and at least we have something. As everyone is well aware, addicts cannot stop using overnight. That is not how it works. People need to be supported, especially when it comes to hard drugs, drugs that are injected. This requires medical monitoring and support.
After-care is also needed. We need treatment centres with psychologists who can provide after-care, but for that to happen, investments in health care are needed. The Liberals's track record is to acknowledge the crisis, but then refuse to provide adequate funding to address the needs. Adequate funding would allow us to create policies that could work.
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- May/18/23 12:58:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned a million programs that help people, including with the problem we are discussing this morning, but there is one she did not talk about.
I am currently touring Quebec on the topic of the housing crisis. We are hearing that in this post-pandemic period, and it is connected to addictions, there is more homelessness than there was before and in places where we did not see any before. I am talking about places such as Shawinigan, Rimouski or small towns north of Joliette, where there are absolutely no services.
People always think that homelessness is limited to big cities like Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, but the fact is that we are now seeing visible homelessness, not just hidden, in places like small rural municipalities. There is a severe shortage of funding for homelessness in this country.
My colleague does not seem to realize that we are in a severe housing crisis, which is very much related to the topic we are discussing this morning. Does my colleague not think it is high time for the government to address the root cause of this problem and launch a Marshall-type plan to deal with the housing crisis and homelessness?
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- May/18/23 1:43:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker. It is a bit odd, because at one point my colleague said that this is really a non-partisan issue, yet he spent 10 minutes criticizing the Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP. I agree that it is somewhat partisan, but it is primarily a public health issue. At least, that is the Bloc's take on this. Addiction is a mental health and public health issue.
As soon as we talk about health care, we are talking about funding for the health care system. The federal government may not pay doctors, train nurses or run hospitals, but it has the means to help the provincial health care systems deal with crises like the opioid crisis we are experiencing right now.
I have never really heard the Conservatives take a position on health care funding or on the provinces' demands for health transfers. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.
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