44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 18, 2023 10:00AM
- May/18/23 10:08:00 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today in which the petitioners state that Canada is home to the largest Punjabi diaspora in the world of nearly one million people, many of whom are of the Sikh faith. The current government neglected to include Punjab in its open skies agreement that covers direct flights between Canada and India. Amritsar is an important religious site, a major commercial and cultural hub and the second-largest city in Punjab. Therefore, petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to fix the open skies agreement and establish direct flights between Amritsar and Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Cariboo—Prince George. Today, I stand before members to express my deep concerns about Canada's mental health and addiction crisis.
After eight years of the Prime Minister, everything feels broken. Life costs more. Work does not pay. Housing costs have doubled. The Prime Minister divides to control the people. Worst of all, crime and chaos, drugs and disorder rage in our streets. Nowhere is this worse than the opioid overdose crisis that has expanded so dramatically in the last several years.
Many Canadians continue to be repeatedly traumatized by the Liberal government and its failed policies. As a result, we are dealing with a mental health and addiction crisis. Canadians struggling with addiction deserve compassion with access to appropriate treatments and a plan for recovery.
Addiction is a public health issue and Canada’s drug laws must target individuals who prey on Canadians struggling with addictions, more specifically those who engage in trafficking and the sale of illegal drugs. My Conservative colleagues and I oppose removing deterrence measures for those who exploit Canadians struggling with addiction.
Expanding access to treatments and recovery programs should be a health care priority to get help to people struggling with addiction. While the Liberals continue to push their own narrative, there is not even one real definition of “safe supply”. How are dangerous, toxic drugs safe?
The safe supply is continuing to destroy lives. It has led to more addiction, more deaths and more despair. We believe that we must stop taxpayer-funded hard drugs, and instead fund treatment and recovery, and bring home our people drug-free.
Liberal safe-supply policies do nothing to bridge people toward recovery. Instead, people are being trapped in a cycle of addiction. In March of 2020, an article titled “Is All 'Safe Supply' Safe?” was published by the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine. The Liberal-NDP coalition has given up on Canadians struggling with addiction and has essentially put them straight into palliative care.
The greater societal cost is playing out with this experiment in British Columbia. The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions referred, in this place, to following proper indicators without saying what they are. I am not sure what those indicators are because according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, since tax-funded drug supply was ramped up in 2020, opioid deaths have only gone up.
In 2021, more than 8,000 people died of opioid overdoses, while fewer than 3,000 people died of overdoses in 2016. In British Columbia alone, yearly drug overdose deaths have increased by 330% between 2015 and 2023.
In addition, just ahead of the seventh anniversary of B.C. declaring a public health emergency, B.C. Emergency Health Services released grim statistics last month. B.C. set records in March, two months ago, for the most overdose calls in one day, the highest 30-day average of overdose calls and the most consecutive days where paramedics attended 100 or more poisonings. Our first responders are overburdened and exhausted.
This is with drug decriminalization and so-called safe supply in place. B.C. is apparently also on pace to set a new record for poisoning calls in a year and match its annual record for the most naloxone doses administered to reverse the effects of opioids. Those are the facts.
Recently, a Global News reporter in east Vancouver was able to buy 26 hits for $30, in just 30 minutes, of a dangerous and highly addictive opioid that is distributed in tax-funded drug supply programs. It is flooding our streets with cheap opioids.
A new black market has been created and this is perpetuating the cycle of addiction. It has been reported that physicians are saying this is even leading to a rise in new addictions, particularly among youth and those recovering from addictions. Those are the facts.
These are the results of the Liberal drug policies. These are more lives lost. Our streets are less safe and people are dying. The other day, here in the House of Commons, I was appalled by the shouting and applause that the Liberal and NDP MPs showed as I mentioned the terrible effects of open drug use in parks and playgrounds, which they support. I had to start my question three times because of the disruption. These are policies that harm children’s safety, as people are getting high and leaving syringes and other drug paraphernalia in playgrounds.
Open drug use in parks and playgrounds where children play is unacceptable, and it is evident that the federal Liberal government is not taking public safety seriously.
On this side of the House, we do take this issue very seriously. We recognize the need to approach these issues with compassion. That is why we will continue to advocate for stopping the flood of dangerous drugs on our streets and also advocate for recovery, treatment and rehabilitation.
This is some of what my private member's bill, Bill C-283, the end the revolving door act, sought to do. It sought to create a common-sense framework for the commissioner of Correctional Service Canada to be able to designate all or a part of a federal correctional facility as an addiction treatment facility. If individuals met certain parameters at the time of sentencing, a judge could offer the choice to be sentenced to participate in a mental health assessment and addictions treatment inside a federal penitentiary while they served out their sentence.
Bill C-283 was in line with the House of Common’s support for Bill C-228 in the previous Parliament to establish a federal framework to reduce recidivism, where healing is the best path toward reducing recidivism in Canada.
I received much positive feedback and support on this bill from across the country, from business groups, from those working in criminal justice and from those working in recovery, like the founder of Freedom's Door. I also received unanimous support through a resolution of the City of Kelowna.
This common-sense legislation was voted down by the Liberal and NDP members. They are not focusing on recovery and treatment and are quite fine with the status quo.
After eight years of Liberal incompetence, Canadians are suffering. I hear from parents in my riding all the time who want their child to access support and rehabilitation. It is heartbreaking the government has given up on some of the most vulnerable in our society and has put them straight into what one could consider perpetual addiction and palliative care.
In B.C., it is unbelievable, due to how open drug use is now rampant and playing out in our communities, that we even need to have a conversation that open drug use should be banned from playgrounds and parks. These drug decriminalization policies have affected neighbourhoods in B.C., as this three-year drug decriminalization experiment is playing out.
Municipal governments across B.C. have been forced to look at how to make their communities more safe for their citizens, and in particular in parks and playgrounds. Municipalities that have either already implemented bylaws, were looking at bylaws and/or have advocated to the provincial government include Kamloops, Kelowna, Sicamous, Campbell River, Nanaimo, Maple Ridge and Prince George, and there may be others.
However, it is not just at the human level that the Liberals refuse to show compassion. The Prime Minister refuses to stand up to the greedy pharmaceutical companies that cynically marketed addictive drugs as pain medication. That is why we in the official opposition are committed to bringing home justice for the victims of addiction.
Our Conservative leader announced months ago a commitment to launching a massive federal lawsuit against big pharma and their consultants, and to joining the active B.C. lawsuit to cover the costs of the epidemic to our border security, courts, the criminal justice system, indigenous programs, lost federal tax revenue and massively expanded treatment programs. The intention with this is the money recovered from this massive lawsuit will fund treatment and recovery programs for people struggling with addiction. It is from big pharma that originally safe supply came from.
The Conservatives are focused on turning hurt into hope by presenting common-sense solutions to address the addictions crisis facing our communities and the revolving door in our justice system. While the Liberal-NDP group has turned its back on society's most vulnerable, the Conservatives will continue to advocate for support, compassion and rehabilitation so we can bring home our family members and fight back against this horrible addiction crisis, which the Liberals have fuelled by their failed policies.
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- May/18/23 1:29:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what we are talking about today is safe supply. As I spoke about in my intervention, in British Columbia we have been seeing what is playing out on our streets between safe supply and decriminalization.
Mayors from all over the province have come forward to put together bylaws in order to attempt to make their cities more safe. People are afraid to take their kids to parks and playgrounds. That is what is actually playing out on the streets.
As I was mentioning, we are seeing people taking that safe supply and selling it out on the streets. It is creating this whole black market where people are taking that money and buying more dangerous drugs, like fentanyl. It is perpetuating a more difficult situation, and the numbers are increasing. The facts are what they are.
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- May/18/23 1:31:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned at the very outset of my speech, people are in a really desperate space. It is leading to this addiction and mental health crisis.
People cannot afford to live. They cannot afford to feed themselves. They cannot afford medicines. The price of everything is going up. Inflation is affecting people's everyday lives. I hear about this in my riding. People cannot even afford their rent or mortgage. Everything has doubled. Rents and mortgages have doubled. People are getting into a very desperate space.
This is fuelling the addiction and mental health crisis. We need to deal with the economic side, while we also deal with this very serious addiction issue.
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- May/18/23 1:33:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have people reaching out to me all the time, people who have boots on the ground and are seeing the results of this. They reviving people who are taking safe supply over and over again.
There is a lot written about this. I know people can be selective in what they are reading. I mentioned one of the articles about safe supply in my intervention. There are many articles about this. My time is up, but I have—
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