44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 29, 2024 11:00AM
- Apr/29/24 2:16:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this very week, exactly a year ago, I brought up open drug use in parks and playgrounds, how our communities were less safe and how there were serious safety concerns, with law enforcement saying it was being handcuffed, yet the Liberal and NDP MPs clapped vigorously to support their drug policies. In B.C. there are more people dying, more diversion of government drugs, more unsafe drug paraphernalia littering our neighbourhoods and more challenges for our law enforcement.
The B.C. NDP government finally acknowledged its failed drug experiment and just announced massive changes, asking the Prime Minister to reverse his drug policies.
After nine years, the Prime Minister's extremist policies allowed for deadly hard drugs to be used in public spaces, like parks, coffee shops, beaches and hospitals. The NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. Conservatives would ban hard drugs, stop taxpayer-funded drugs and put money into detox and recovery.
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- Apr/29/24 2:21:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the Prime Minister is not worth the drugs, disorder, death and destruction. In May 2022, he granted the B.C. NDP government's request for a Criminal Code exemption to allow crack, meth, heroin and fentanyl use in parks, coffee shops, hospitals and beaches. Overdose deaths since have exploded to a record-smashing 2,500 lost lives.
The B.C. NDP government has reversed course and asked the federal government to recriminalize some hard drugs. Why will the Prime Minister not recriminalize these deadly drugs?
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- 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 2:22:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister is wasting time while people are dying.
In the year after this radical Prime Minister granted the decriminalization of crack, heroin and other hard drugs in parks and hospitals, 2,500 people died. Overdose deaths, during the nine years of the Prime Minister, have tripled, the fastest rising of the 11 countries studied by the Commonwealth Fund. Nurses are afraid to go to work because they have to put up with addicts using meth, crack and weapons in their hospital rooms. Nurses are having to give up on breastfeeding, because they are worried their kids will be contaminated with the drugs they breathe in.
What the hell are they thinking over there?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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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 3:11:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week, B.C. police chiefs told us that it was deadly street drugs laced with fentanyl that were killing thousands, not the diversion of safer supply. They clearly have advised that preventing people from using drugs in public and preventing toxic drug deaths requires more, not fewer, safe consumption sites. B.C. has listened to the police call for more tools to deal with public use of illicit substances.
When will the Liberals ignore Conservative disinformation, recall the expert task force and formulate a comprehensive plan to end the toxic drug crisis?
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- Apr/29/24 5:29:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as the hon. member knows, earlier today the opposition party asked the Speaker to grant an emergency debate on the issue related to drugs in the member's home province of British Columbia.
The government can schedule a debate on this issue if it chooses. Would the hon. member support not just an emergency debate, but a debate on the catastrophic drug issue going on in his home province?
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- Apr/29/24 5:30:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Conservative members are more than welcome to debate this topic in the budget debate as much as they want. When it comes to this particular topic, I think this was done at the request of the Vancouver Police Department, along with other police chiefs and the Province of British Columbia. This was their call and their request to decriminalize certain aspects, certain drugs in certain quantities. The federal government and the Minister of Health responded accordingly. They have now requested amendments, and our government will similarly respond to that based on the needs and requests of the people in the province of British Columbia.
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Madam Speaker, I will begin my speech this evening with two images. The first is that the cure is worse than the disease. The second is that we should not use a bazooka to kill a fly, but rather the appropriate tool, in other words, a fly swatter.
The government is being sneaky about it; that is the worst part. That is the story behind Bill C‑368. The government introduced this provision under the radar, in an annex to budget 2023, in Bill C‑47. From day one we have always made a distinction between natural health products and drugs, and rightly so. In the drug industry, in the pharmaceutical industry, people may have to bear the recovery costs, but they have 20-year patents. They are able to break even. What is more, there are no taxes on drugs.
The government makes a lot of money in taxes on natural health products so it can afford to pay for an inspection service that will guarantee the effectiveness and safety of natural health products. When we met in September, everyone agreed that consumers deserve to have effective products that are safe. Health Canada has to do its job in that respect.
What did the Auditor General's report reveal? First, in my opinion, there was a minor methodological problem. Rather than proceeding randomly, products, places and companies were targeted where problems were known to exist. Obviously, if problems are already known to exist, the audit will reveal a high percentage of problems.
There are approximately 91,000 natural health products. Of that number, 75 were analyzed in a targeted way, leading to the conclusion that Health Canada has not been doing its job to ensure product safety since 2014. That is what was found after checking the sampled products. Health Canada was caught with its pants down, so to speak. It played tough, tried to assert its credibility and brought out the big guns.
As legislators, we have always wanted to ensure that there is a balance when it comes to natural health products and access to those products, in order to guarantee free choice for consumers while also ensuring that when Health Canada approves products, it does its job after the fact and inspects those products. From 2004 to 2014, 53 recommendations were made. In September, when we heard from Health Canada representatives and the chief scientist, we realized that the answers were not credible.
I asked whether an impact study had been done on the industry, on small and medium-sized businesses, concerning the recovery costs required. I was told that it was based on Treasury Board guidelines. I imagine that the Treasury Board's main interest is getting its money's worth. What kind of service is it going to provide when, after all this time, and with all the taxes generated by the industry, it has not even been able to ensure an audit or any inspections throughout its mandate?
There are a few problems today. I asked the chief scientist how many adverse reactions there had been to natural health products in 17 years. I asked her to provide the numbers. We have yet to get an answer to that question. I also asked her what the numbers were for adverse reactions to pharmaceutical products. She replied that she had some numbers, but she still has not provided those either.
We know very well that, even though they are approved by Health Canada, pharmaceuticals can still sometimes have very serious side effects. However, that is no reason to discredit the entire industry. We are just doing our job and making sure that we do it properly. Contrary to what people might think and what the government tried to have us believe, the shell game that I am talking about, the one in Bill C‑47, happened in June, when we were voting on the March 2023 budget. Now we are getting letters and the public is starting to find out about this.
As legislators, we do not have any say over the regulations. We vote on laws. Regulations are then drafted on how the legislation should be applied. The problem is that we need Bill C‑368 to be sent to committee so that we can do our job as parliamentarians and look into the regulation that was brought in under which natural health products are now considered therapeutic products under Vanessa's Law.
It is very clear that we would not be where we are today if the government had been a little more transparent, if it had carried out the consultations it needed to and if it had worked with everyone to find some common ground to ensure that no harm would come to an industry that Quebeckers and Canadians have the right to have access to by choice. Natural health products are not forced on anyone through a prescription. No one is forced to buy them. When people choose to buy them, it is because, in a way, they have educated themselves.
It is true that they can pose risks, and it is also true that people have to follow their pharmacist's instructions. There are interactions, true. However, these interactions are between drugs prescribed by a doctor versus a pharmaceutical product that I am going to buy. We are not trying to trivialize anything, but just because there are a few bad apples in one industry does not mean that the entire industry should be discredited. That would undermine small and medium-sized businesses, which want to sell safe products. Their main motivation is people's health.
We would not be here if there had been a bit more transparency and if the people who came to testify in September had the courage to point this out to us. When they were told that their cost-recovery model was modelled on the pharmaceutical industry, they did not say one word, as if we would not figure out Bill C‑47's sleight of hand at some point. They took the entire model from the pharmaceutical industry and transposed it to the natural health products industry without allowing us to debate it. That is why there were two meetings on this. It was to get information about the problem.
There have been no more consultations so far. That is why we are going to vote in favour of Bill C‑368. We want to ensure that the legislator, who never has access to the regulations and can never review them through legislation, brings this to committee. There we will be able to work on it and find a balance regarding the government's claims that 88% of the 91,000 natural health products are deficient and have misleading labelling. This is a serious methodological bias that does not reflect reality, because in 2015, a randomized study showed that more than 90% of products were fully compliant. What happened in the meantime, then?
Maybe if the people at Health Canada did their job and carried out inspections, and maybe if they sent people their criteria, guidelines and information about where they want people to focus so that, during production, they can be certain that the product is okay, we would not be here today. The Bloc Québécois will indeed vote in favour of the bill.
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