44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 29, 2024 11:00AM
- Apr/29/24 2:22:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we answered the call of the B.C. government when it requested the exemption on decriminalization of personal possession of certain illicit drugs. However, what is driving this overdose crisis is the illegal drugs supply. Every life lost is a tragedy. I met with Minister Whiteside this past Friday, and we are reviewing the exemption request.
We have a clear lens on public health and public safety, because we have a plan. They do not.
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- Apr/29/24 2:26:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I unequivocally disavow the guy who spent the first half of his adult life as a practising racist, dressing up in blackface, and who has since accepted the support of Hamas. He has accepted the support of Hamas, and now he has brought on the extremist and radical position of allowing legal drug use in playgrounds, hospitals and coffee shops, which has led to the mass death of our people.
Will he refuse the demand of Toronto to replicate the decriminalization nightmare in B.C.?
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- Apr/29/24 2:33:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, crime, chaos, drugs and disorder are what we have after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government. The extremist policies of the Prime Minister have forced parents in British Columbia to protect their kids from used needles at the playground. Done openly and in our faces, there is drug use in Tim Hortons, on the SkyTrain and even in our hospitals.
The Prime Minister's negligence is killing our citizens. When will he admit that his radical decriminalization experiment has failed and end it?
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- Apr/29/24 2:35:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. After nine years of the Prime Minister's extremist policies, public drug use has become the norm. The Prime Minister has made it legal in British Columbia to smoke meth on the beach beside a family or smoke crack in a hospital beside health care workers. In fact, a nurse in British Columbia stopped breastfeeding her twin girls early, at 13 months, because of being exposed to illicit drugs in the hallway.
When will the NPD-Liberals realize that time is up and end the decriminalization today?
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- Apr/29/24 2:38:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, overdose is the leading cause of death in my province of British Columbia. The NDP-Liberal Prime Minister's extremist drug policies have turned our neighbourhoods into war zones. Hard drugs are being used in playgrounds, coffee shops and even hospitals. Last week, a drug-addled man lit fires and consumed drugs in front of traumatized kids at the Prince George Aquatic Centre. The RCMP was called numerous times, but its hands are tied because of the Liberals' insane drug policies.
Will the Prime Minister end his deadly drug decriminalization today?
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- Apr/29/24 2:40:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. After nine years, the Prime Minister's extremist policy is allowing for deadly hard drugs to be used in public spaces such as parks, coffee shops, beaches and hospitals. A leaked memo in B.C. is now instructing nurses to teach patients how to inject illegal drugs into their intravenous.
Will the Prime Minister end his deadly drug decriminalization experiment today?
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- Apr/29/24 2:41:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we are committed to saving lives and to making sure people who use drugs do not die alone.
We moved forward with a decriminalization pilot project at B.C.'s request and have always maintained it would be rigorously monitored and adjusted as needed. We know that a full suite of tools, including harm reduction, is needed. Even the MP from Cariboo—Prince George knows it. He said himself, “I asked if safe injection sites were helping. They did say that safe injection sites probably do help.”
Every tool, every resource, to save lives is what we are committed to.
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- Apr/29/24 3:46:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a matter of grave, urgent and time-sensitive importance. Your decision on whether to grant this emergency debate will be a life or death decision. If you question that, let me share with you the statistics and the background.
In May 2022, the Prime Minister announced that he was granting British Columbia's NDP government an exemption to the Criminal Code prohibition on crack, heroin, meth and other deadly drugs. In January the following year, 2023, that exemption took effect, which decriminalized those aforementioned drugs and their use in playgrounds, hospitals, parks, transit and other places where children and vulnerable people are exposed to the risks.
The results are now in, and they are irrefutable. In the 12 months that followed the decriminalization of those hard drugs, British Columbia had a record-smashing 2,500 drug overdose deaths. This represents a 380% increase in said deaths since the Prime Minister took office. In other words, in the period since these policies came into effect, we have seen drug overdose deaths increase by a factor of four.
Furthermore, Canada now has the fastest-growing drug overdose death rate and the second-highest total rate of any of the 11 countries reviewed by The Commonwealth Fund. In other words, people are dying as a direct result of these policies. This is not simply my claim; it is now the NDP government's admission. As I said at the outset, it was the NDP government that asked for the decriminalization, which the Prime Minister granted. That provincial government has now reversed itself and has asked for the government to urgently recriminalize drugs in many public places. It is an admission that this policy is taking lives.
This is where the urgency comes in. Every day in British Columbia, six people die of drug overdoses. This is by far the highest overdose rate anywhere in Canada. It is something that even the NDP government is now attributing, in part, to the decriminalization. Unfortunately, that provincial government needs the federal government's permission to reimpose criminal sanctions on those drugs, something that the minister refused to grant today.
That means that even though the NDP government in B.C. wants to recriminalize it, as I stand here and as the clock ticks, decriminalization is in place. Every single day that goes by before the Prime Minister reverses himself, decriminalized drugs will be killing people on the streets of Vancouver, on Vancouver Island, in the Lower Mainland and in other places across the province.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/29/24 3:53:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I also rise to request an emergency debate on the Prime Minister's dangerous and failed drug decriminalization policy. The House heard the Leader of the Opposition speak about the gravity, that it is a grave and urgent matter, and I agree with that. I particularly agree with it as a British Columbian.
B.C. Premier David Eby and his NDP government have finally admitted that these extremist policies are a failure, and now, he has come begging for major changes to the Prime Minister's hard drug decriminalization plan. For Canadians watching who are not from B.C., this plan allows for opioids, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines to be used in public spaces such as parks, coffee shops, one's local Tim Hortons, public transit and even hospitals.
When this policy began in 2023, the province set a devastating record. In that one year, there were over 2,500 drug deaths. After nine years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, more than 40,000 Canadians have tragically died from drug overdoses; those are 40,000 completely preventable deaths.
Taxpayer-funded drugs continue to be handed out by the radical Liberal government, and those deadly drugs are increasingly diverted into the hands of organized crime and into the hands of teenagers, pushing our youth into the destructive cycle of addiction. We see videos about this pretty much daily out of British Columbia. Drug overdose is now the number one cause of death for 10-year-olds to 17-year-olds in B.C. That is pretty devastating.
Until the Prime Minister's extremist drug decriminalization policy is dismantled, it will continue to cause death, chaos and carnage across Canada. Parliament has a responsibility to attend to the ongoing destruction caused by this deadly hard drug policy. I understood from the minister earlier today in question period that they have Premier Eby's request under review. As the Leader of the Opposition just said, every day of review means six more deaths; that is every day.
I trust my request will be considered as the emergency and crisis that it is. In order to save lives, to rebuild families, to eliminate chaos in our streets and to start putting more money into treatment and recovery from drug addiction, we must put an end to these dangerous and deadly policies immediately. I repeat that it is six lives per day, every day. The time to turn this hurt into hope starts now. Please consider this as the urgent matter that it is.
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