44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2024 10:00AM
- May/9/24 11:07:47 a.m.
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moved:
That, given that since the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister took office, opioid overdose deaths across Canada have increased by 166% according to the most recent data available, the House call on the Prime Minister to:
(a) proactively reject the City of Toronto's request to the federal government to make deadly hard drugs like crack, cocaine, heroin, and meth legal;
(b) reject the City of Montreal's vote calling on the federal government to make deadly hard drugs legal;
(c) deny any active or future requests from provinces, territories and municipalities seeking federal approval to make deadly hard drugs legal in their jurisdiction; and
(d) end taxpayer funded narcotics and redirect this money into treatment and recovery programs for drug addiction.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.
A couple of years ago, I paid a visit to the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, and I was both shocked and surprised. The shock is self-evident. Anyone who has been there would have seen the carnage of our fellow citizens lying face-first on the pavement in overdoses, the many more who stand on two feet with their heads between their legs, bent over in a spine-twisting posture that is common among those who are maxed out on fentanyl. These are spine-twisting postures that leave them bent forward, often for the rest of their lives. Those lives are often shortened, as the game of Russian roulette of using fentanyl risks ending their breathing every time they do it.
There is an unmistakable smell of too many people and too few bathrooms, with tents that go block after block after block. The police pointed to one tent, identifying it as the headquarters of the “United Nations”, a self-described gang that supplies the guns and other deadly weapons for the street. There are people screaming at the top of their lungs, having lost control of themselves while in a static state of near overdose. These things are all stunning to witness, even though one might have expected, knowing the stats, that they were all there.
We know that the Downtown Eastside was an experiment brought in by NDP municipal and provincial governments, but it was an experiment that the Prime Minister saw and said needed to be expanded right across the country. He has succeeded as, now, these tent encampments are regular in every part of the country. In your home province, Mr. Speaker, Halifax has 35 homeless encampments. That is 35 encampments in quaint, beautiful, peaceful Halifax. Every Canadian knows of such an encampment in their community, even though nine years ago it was unthinkable.
The unmistakable link between this policy and the results that I just described play out now in the rare but courageous journalism that has begun, finally, to expose the cause. I point to an article in the National Post that reads, “Miller says that her daughter Madison told her that they 'could go up to a drug addict and ask for dillies and they’d have bottles of them, because they would go into pharmacies, get them filled up and sell them to the kids.'” “Dillies” is slang for the hydromorphone that is funded by government.
A National Post article from March 11 reads:
“I had several patients who were drug-free for a long time and just couldn't resist the temptation of this very cheap hydromorphone that was now on the street,” said Dr. Michael Lester, a Toronto-based addiction physician. “Every addiction medicine doctor I have spoken to has told me that, on a daily basis in their offices, they're dealing with diverted hydromorphone, either from new clients coming in who are addicted to it, or patients of theirs that are using it as a drug of abuse.”
Global News provided rare, courageous journalism on this as well, showing that the price for a hydromorphone pill on the streets of Vancouver has dropped from $10 to 25¢ since the government began subsidizing and spreading the drug far and wide. There are reports of dealers standing outside of pharmacies waiting for those who have the prescription to get the so-called safe supply to immediately deliver it to the dealers who can then sell it to finance other terrible drugs. Then, of course, we have the overdoses that result as people graduate from those drugs.
The Prime Minister has all of this evidence. He has the evidence that, since he took office, overdose deaths are up 166% nationwide. They are up the most in the places where his and the NDP's radical policies have been most enthusiastically embraced. That is in British Columbia, where it has grown by 380%. Only with an election on the horizon did the B.C. government admit its failing and try to reverse the policy, just in time to go to the polls. However, still, Toronto and Montreal are applying for the same decriminalization of hard, illicit, unregulated drugs that caused such carnage in British Columbia, a request that the Prime Minister steadfastly refuses to rule out.
I said that I was shocked and surprised. What surprised me when I went to the Downtown Eastside were the people who greeted me there. They were not the addicts. They were not the police. They were a small platoon of activists who somehow learned of my arrival, even though it was unannounced and was not posted anywhere for either the media or the social networks. They were there to record and to follow me, and to heckle me, which is fine. I can deal with that. I do it every day.
However, it confused me. Who is paying for all this? Where is the money coming from for the activists who are pushing this? It turns out that there is a lot of money being made. Let me read a headline. “Prof, former public health officer launch company to produce legal heroin for treatment”.
Martin Schechter, who led the study, called the the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI), and Perry Kendall, B.C.'s first public health officer, are moving to change that.
Frustrated by the lack of action from government, the two have launched a company called FPP...short for Fair Price Pharma, with the goal of producing an affordable domestic supply of legal, injectable heroin for use in treatment.
More than 5,500 British Columbians have died from illicit drug and overdoses since 2016, including 170 in May.
Dr. Schechter, who is also a professor of the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, said in an e-mail that the overdose poisoning crisis [was a] failure to expand...legal heroin—a proven...cost-effective treatment—in the face of desperate need for safer supply, [that] drove the two doctors to act.
[They said that he has a company] to set up a dedicated facility to manufacture the product and offer it at a cost to interested health care providers, including those in other provinces.
He and Dr. Kendall are expected to meet this month with Health Canada's therapeutic products directorate, which regulates prescription drugs, to determine the tests and evidence needed to obtain a license.... They estimate they will need about $3-million to launch the product.
Of course, they are making money. Later, they would complain. “B.C. doctors upset their 'safe supply' of heroin going unprescribed during overdose crisis”. They began to lobby for more money.
This is from other news articles. Perry Kendall, the former Provincial Health Officer until 2018 is an advocate for safe supply. He founded Fair Price Pharma to distribute heroin.
Mark Tyndall, who was B.C.'s deputy provincial health officer and was an executive medical director, is the founder of MySafe project.
As I said, Martin Schechter was not with the B.C. government directly, but was responsible for the research that led to the so-called safe supply. He founded Fair Price Pharma.
These are the companies that are actually making the money and are intimidating opponents of their plan. This is turning into a gigantic, self-licking ice cream cone, one that needs to end. It is in the service of money-making and not of the public.
That is why common-sense Conservatives would stop funding hard narcotics, would ban hard drugs and would put the money into treatment and recovery services that would bring our loved ones home, drug-free.
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- May/9/24 11:31:39 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate that the party opposite is talking about treatment, because treatment is a critical and definitely core piece of our actions and policy when it comes to addressing the overdose crisis. However, actions speak louder than words. Would the member commit to sustained funding on treatment, unlike the previous Conservative government that cut two-thirds of drug treatment funding?
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- May/9/24 11:34:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wish the member for Kitchener Centre would follow my social media a little more closely. I have met with dozens of parents who have lost their kids to the overdose crisis.
In fact in the last year I met with a mother whose son had overdosed while at a treatment home because open drug use was allowed there. That mother lost her child. Afterwards, on the one-year anniversary of his death, I went to a reception hosted by the mother to feed some of the people her son used to hang out with, at the Diamond Head Motor Inn in Mission. I asked some of the people currently addicted to drugs, and those who have been addicted, whether safe supply is making a difference. They said, “The government is just laughable because we are just selling the drugs. What has happened is a joke, a complete joke.” They know it and we know it. We need to stop it.
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- May/9/24 11:52:12 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his continued advocacy and really collaborative work with us on this side of the House to address this moment that we are in and the toxic drug supply and the overdose crisis we are in.
We have made significant investments since 2016, a billion dollars toward this crisis. We have committed, in this budget alone, to have additional supports like the $150-million emergency treatment fund. We have signed bilateral agreements with every province and territory, with the key component being mental health and substance use, because health care is the way out of this. That is where provinces and jurisdictions come in to scale their health care systems.
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- May/9/24 11:53:00 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am really happy that we are having this debate because, today, I am thinking of so many loved ones across this country who are grieving the loss of their family member or friend, people like Carolyn Karle in Thunder Bay, who lost her daughter Dayna almost a year into her recovery. Dayna relapsed one night with alcohol. Then she took one dose of a substance that she thought was cocaine and tragically died of an opioid overdose later that night. That devastating loss left her mother determined to help others who struggle with substance use disorder, a condition that far too many of us know is chronic and reoccurring, but treatable.
Substance use-related disorder has been with us for a very long time. Opioid overdoses have been climbing over the past two decades, but since the pandemic, deaths have risen to an alarming 22 people a day. That is 22 circles of devastated friends and families a day. The drug crisis is marked by pain and a desperate need to do something. Easy solutions that sound like they are tough on crime have been found to do nothing to reduce harm and to save lives. We cannot incarcerate our way out of this pain and loss.
Unfortunately, today, we are debating a tired idea that has actually contributed to the ongoing crisis, an idea to starve out the problem, ignore any science and go back, way back, to a manner of talking about drugs that is harmful and ignorant, that will create more shame and disgust for substance users. The Conservative Party need not worry. I have yet to meet someone who uses substances problematically that is not already suffering from those feelings, and I have yet to meet a grieving parent who would not do anything at all to help their children see their value and reach towards recovery.
To treat substance use and reduce related harms for people and communities, there is no one silver bullet. In the early 2000s, I was the author of the Thunder Bay drug strategy. Through that work with treatment professionals, law enforcement, support workers and public health prevention experts, we came to model our strategy on the international research that says, to save lives and reduce harm to people and communities, we need to follow four pillars that work together: prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction. Indeed, we added a fifth pillar of housing, as it became clear that a place to call home was the foundation of healing. I note that Conservative members have voted against housing approaches as well.
Last fall, our government launched the renewed Canada drugs and substances strategy, which offers a comprehensive, collaborative, compassionate and evidence-based drug policy. Using the advice of that strategy, informed by the cross-section of professionals, the Government of Canada announced over $1 billion in funding, including almost $600 million through Health Canada's substance use and addictions program. This supports frontline workers for treatment, harm reduction, prevention and to reduce stigma. That is money going directly to people and their families, so that they can heal. The money also funds research and surveillance initiatives and supports stronger law enforcement capacity to address illegal drug production and trafficking.
Substance use is a complex issue and Canadians use drugs for many reasons. Not everyone who uses drugs is suffering from an addiction. Indeed, many people who use drugs are sporadic users, which is why the toxic supply is so dangerous.
For people with addictions, the right kinds of treatment services may not be available or affordable. Barriers to treatment are often unseen. Some people face particular challenges, based on their own unique circumstances. Marginalized groups are often victims of stigmatization or prejudice, which places them at higher risk, including youth, indigenous peoples, racialized communities and LGBTQ+ people.
Putting one's hand up for help is very hard. Society still places huge judgment on people with addictions and throwing around words like “addict”, a word we have heard far too frequently from the Leader of the Opposition, actually continues that pattern of shaming. Shame is toxic too. It drives solitary use, silence and withdrawal from family and community.
Recovery looks different for everyone. I ask everyone in the House if they have ever struggled with a problematic substance or behaviour. Do they eat too much? Do they shop too much? Have they ever felt out of control with gambling? The list goes on. It is helpful for us to think of those times when we have been out of balance, because it gives us a glimpse into the “why” of addiction and empathy for the struggle to regain balance.
I can tell members that every person I have met who has lost a loved one would do anything to have another chance to keep that individual alive. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this crisis. We need a range of supports that help, no matter if a person is using, contemplating how to get better or ready to step into recovery.
That is why harm reduction is so important, because we cannot treat someone if he or she is dead. Harm-reduction measures, such as supervised consumption sites and in-person or virtual spotting services, take-home naloxone and drug-checking technologies, keep people connected to services so they know they matter.
In 2016, there was only one supervised consumption site in Canada, and Stephen Harper tried over and over to shut it down. Thankfully, the courts agreed that the lives of drug users matter too.
Since then, our focus on saving lives means that we have approved 41 consumption sites in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. At these sites, workers have prevented over 53,000 overdoses, with close to 4.5 million independent visits. That is a lot of people who want to live, but this motion says they are not worthy of that support, that they do not get another chance for a healthier day.
We also support a network of 45 treatment centres and services in the majority of first nations and Inuit communities across Canada: 82 sites that provide wraparound treatment and 75 mental wellness teams that serve 385 first nations and Inuit communities.
Although the Conservative opposition will tell people otherwise, harm reduction is actually treatment. When people feel seen and supported, they make connections. When people use a clean needle or inject a substance under the watch of a nurse, it means they want to live. At supervised consumption sites in Canada, there have been more than 424,000 referrals to health and social services. Harm reduction is a bridge to a better day.
The Leader of the Opposition wants to go back to the days of the war on drugs, but what he is actually proposing is a war on substance users, people and their families, people who suffer and people who hope for a brighter tomorrow.
Today, I say these words in defence of the families grieving the loss of their loved ones. I say it for the parents, like my dear friend Calvin Fors in Thunder Bay, who lost his young son to an accidental overdose; we remember Reilly. No more deaths like Reilly or Dayna, that has to be the focus. Compassion matters, evidence matters, connection matters and cruelty will not help people heal. It never has, and we have that evidence loud and clear.
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- May/9/24 12:32:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what I should say to add to my earlier answer is that harm reduction existed well before today's overdose crisis. When the Conservatives say that what we are seeing now is the result of harm reduction, they are wrong.
The problem is the illicit drug overdose crisis. People working on the ground told us that we needed to do something for people like the mother who came to see us, saying that if her son had had access to a safe supply program when he was going through withdrawal, he would not have died. He lost all the tolerance he had built up because he went through withdrawal and ended up taking illicit drugs. He died right away, without having the chance to become the good citizen he wanted to be.
I will avoid making things worse here. I could accuse the Conservatives of many things, but I will not. I just want us to talk, to tell the truth and to discuss evidence and data without letting political ideology get in the way, and especially without blaming the people who have died, their families and those who are currently suffering from addiction.
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- May/9/24 1:21:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister, aided and abetted by the NDP, has spent nine years implementing his radical vision of Canada. He would like everyone to believe that this agenda is normal.
There is record food bank usage, out-of-control gas prices and a housing market that has priced young Canadians out of the dream of home ownership. The government is censoring the Internet by controlling what people can see or say online. There is a 39% increase in violent crime; catch-and-release bail that sees offenders arrested in the morning, out by noon, and then rearrested later that very same day; and the legalization of meth, cocaine, heroin and opioids in British Columbia. Parents are worried that their children could step on used needles in a playground. None of this is normal. These are the outcomes of the radical policies brought to us by the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister. His legacy is one of crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. The results of his hard-drug legalization experiment and taxpayer-funded narcotics policy have been tragic but entirely predictable.
Since 2015, over 42,000 Canadians have died from drug overdoses. Opioid overdose deaths have increased 186% across Canada under the Prime Minister's watch. A record 2,500 British Columbians died from drug overdoses last year. That is up 380% in nine years. That is six entirely preventable deaths, every day, of friends and colleagues, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. Each of them had a story, and every one of these deaths is a tragedy. These are human beings.
Drug overdose is now the number one cause of death in B.C., with more fatalities than crime, accidents and disease combined. It is also the number one cause of death among kids aged 10 to 17. I have 11-year-old twin grandsons. This is personal, and this is not normal.
The story of 14-year-old Kamilah Sword of Port Coquitlam is heartbreaking. Kamilah tragically overdosed in her bedroom in August 2022. According to her father, the coroner found three drugs in her system: MDMA, cocaine and hydromorphone. Hydromorphone is an opiate prescribed under B.C.'s so-called safe supply program.
Kamilah's friends reported that they have witnessed children as young as 11 years of age using hydromorphone. This is completely unacceptable. The street price of hydromorphone has fallen close to 90%, from $20 to two dollars per pill. Basically, any kid can buy them.
How many more children have to die before the government reverses course? Our common-sense, Conservative motion before the House today calls on the Prime Minister to end this unsafe supply program and redirect this money into treatment and recovery programs for those addicted to drugs. This is common sense. This is compassion. The radical approach of the NDP-Liberal government is making the addiction crisis worse and does not put those struggling with addiction on a path to recovery. That should always be the goal. The government's approach only pumps more hard drugs onto our streets, killing our citizens, destroying our families and tearing our communities apart.
The over supply of these free drugs gets in the hands of organized crime, which then sells them to children. If one gets them for free, any return is a profit.
Addictions workers confirm that most users of so-called safe supply are diverting these drugs and reselling them across the country. This is government-funded drug trafficking.
How is this for insanity? In Prince George, the police ran a 10-day surveillance operation on a woman who stood outside a downtown IDA Pharmacy every morning trading her so-called safe supply drugs for harder drugs. Police reported dozens of hand-to-hand transactions. The pharmacy manager told the RCMP that patients are given up to 28 hydromorphone pills per day, equating to approximately $480 a day if resold. He also reported that many patients are accosted by people outside the pharmacy wanting to purchase the safe supply drugs. The insanity is the brainchild of big pharma.
The term “safe supply” is big pharma's sales jargon, its propaganda, meant to secure government contracts and pad the industry's burgeoning pockets. Let us be clear: Safe supply is a lie. There is nothing safe about fentanyl. The radical NDP-Liberal government bought the big lie, and now Canadians are paying the price in dollars and in deaths.
Canadians have the right to know how much they are paying to fuel the crisis. The government refuses to release its contracts with big pharma, covering up the huge cost of this reckless experiment. The radical government does not get it. Its policies are killing Canadians, and it clearly does not care. Despite the death, crime and carnage, the Prime Minister has not ruled out replicating B.C.'s failed drug experiment in other jurisdictions across the country.
Our motion calls on the Prime Minister to proactively reject the City of Toronto’s request to legalize deadly hard drugs like crack, cocaine, heroin and meth. The motion further calls on him to deny any future requests from provinces, territories and municipalities seeking federal approval to legalize hard drugs in their jurisdiction. We do not need to export the drug chaos in B.C. to other jurisdictions.
The Prime Minister should never have granted a reckless exemption to B.C. to allow open, “in your face” hard drug use in public places. Parks, beaches, transit, sports fields, coffee shops and playgrounds in B.C. have become drug-infested nightmares. A two-year-old girl was hospitalized after putting a discarded needle in her mouth at a park. Even our hospitals, once a beacon of safety, are now lawless spaces where health care workers and patients are put at risk.
The B.C. Nurses' Union is sounding the alarm for its members. Patients and staff have been exposed to harmful hard drugs. Meth was even being smoked in a unit just hours after the birth of a newborn baby. This breaks my heart. It should break everyone's hearts. A nurse in Campbell River said she had been exposed to smoke from hard drugs six times. How in God’s name is the government allowing this to happen? I cannot believe I have to say this, but hospitals should be sanctuaries of healing and care, not places of lawlessness and chaos.
After nine years, the extremist NDP-Liberal government is not worth the drugs, disorder and death. Only a common-sense Conservative government will end unsupervised and unprescribed use of hard drugs in hospitals. We will end taxpayer-funded narcotics that are killing our children and poisoning our communities. We will focus on treating Canadians struggling with addiction, providing a path to recovery so we can bring our loved ones home drug-free.
Hope must be restored. Unlike the radical NDP-Liberal government, we will not give up on people. It is compassion and common sense. The extreme, deadly drug experiment must end and never be repeated.
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- May/9/24 1:34:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I categorically reject the premise of the member's question, and I resent the implications.
We are talking about human beings. We are talking about children. We are talking about mothers and fathers, sons and daughters who are at risk. We are talking about a crisis of opioid and other drug overdose deaths in this country. I am from a province where it is so out of control that the provincial government has had to come back to the federal Liberal government to say, “Put a circle around it because it is chaos.”
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- May/9/24 2:53:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we need to take a moment to recognize why this issue is so important for every family that has lost a loved one to this tragic overdose crisis from an illegal toxic drug supply.
People are dying alone from fentanyl. We need policies that work, we need to meet communities where they are and we need to understand that this is public health.
The Conservatives continue to want to criminalize family members rather than getting them harm reduction, prevention and treatment. We are committed to saving lives and getting people health care.
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- May/9/24 2:54:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, according to the most recent data, since the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister took office nine years ago, sadly, opioid overdose deaths across Canada have increased 166%. In B.C., overdose deaths are now the leading cause of death for youth aged 10 to 18.
Addiction doctors came out saying that legalized drugs were being diverted to youth. Unbelievably, today, the Minister for Children refused to answer if she was standing up for children against her government's wacko drug policies.
The Conservatives are calling to end taxpayer-funded narcotics, which are being diverted to our children. Will the Minister for Children stand up for children and vote for our Conservative motion?
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- May/9/24 2:55:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the Prime Minister is not worth the crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. Thanks to his wacko drug policies that have legalized hard drugs like crack, meth and heroin, we are now seeing 22 Canadians die every single day from drug overdose. The Prime Minister has even legalized open drug use in our parks, in our playgrounds and in our schools.
Will the Prime Minister show some compassion, support our motion to ban hard drugs and support treatment so we can bring our loved ones home drug-free?
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- May/9/24 2:56:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to me that across the way they continue to mislead Canadians. Addressing the overdose crisis and the tragic deaths that we are seeing from illegal fentanyl in our streets needs harm reduction, needs prevention, and needs treatment and law enforcement.
We work collaboratively with every jurisdiction to provide health care. Why do the Conservatives continue to think that it is okay to criminalize loved ones who need help?
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- May/9/24 3:27:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague and friend, the member for Bay of Quinte.
After nine years, the Prime Minister and his NDP coalition are not worth the drugs, disorder, death and destruction. There is crime and chaos on the streets, and dangerous, extreme drug policies pushed forward by the NDP-Liberal government have made things so much worse.
Since the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister took office, opiate overdoses across Canada have increased by 166%. In British Columbia, drug deaths were up 380% between 2015 and 2023, from 529 to 2,546. Those are people: loved ones, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, cousins, friends, family and neighbours. Every single life lost is tragic. However, it is important to note that the 380% increase since the Prime Minister started implementing his dangerous and extreme drug policies in B.C. absolutely must be called out.
In British Columbia, more people are dying as taxpayer-funded drugs flood the streets. We see playgrounds littered with crack pipes, dirty needles and drug paraphernalia that abound. All the while, the Liberals have handcuffed law enforcement, making it nearly impossible for the police to just do their job and keep communities safe. We have clearly heard that the Liberals' failed legalization in British Columbia removed tools from police officers, making our streets more dangerous.
Nurses have to deal with plumes of smoke from meth in the hospitals they work in. In fact, one nurse was forced to make a tough choice to end breastfeeding her twins earlier than she wanted to, as a direct result of being exposed to dangerous and deadly drugs in the workplace and her concern about this potentially harming her precious little babies.
In the year after the Prime Minister made it legal to possess crack, heroin, meth, fentanyl and other hard drugs, a record 2,500 British Columbians lost their lives to overdose. Last year, the former Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Carolyn Bennett, assured Canadians that the Liberals would end their experiment if public health and public safety indicators were not met. Fifteen months in, it is clear that we are failing at both, and B.C.'s NDP premier had to plead with the federal government to grant its request and rescue them from the failed policy. It took 11 days before the NDP-Liberal government acted on the pleading request from the B.C. NDP, effectively gutting its extreme policy and admitting that it was a failure.
Now, common-sense Conservatives are calling on the Prime Minister to listen to our common-sense letter and fully reject Toronto's request to legalize hard drugs, and to prevent another tragedy like we have so clearly seen in British Columbia. The Prime Minister must show leadership, completely reject the failed policy and state clearly on the record that he will not allow the dangerous policy to legalize hard drugs in any community across the country. He absolutely needs to not export the failed policy to communities such as Montreal, Toronto or others.
It is so concerning, as many communities across the country have passed resolutions calling for legalization. It is worth noting that this happened after the extremist NDP-Liberal government funded an organization called Moms Stop the Harm, which then quickly launched a national campaign lobbying municipalities and indigenous communities to call on the federal government to develop a plan that includes “legal regulation of illicit drugs to ensure safe supply of pharmaceutical alternatives to toxic street drugs, and decriminalization for personal use.”
Effectively, the federal government funded an advocacy organization to do its dirty work for it, giving it cover to further the dangerous policy. To make matters worse, we have heard many leading addiction physicians, right across the country, state that the Liberal-NDP so-called safe supply continues to fuel new addictions. Courageous physicians from across the country have come forward and demanded an immediate end to programs that were flooding the street with taxpayer-funded high-potency narcotics.
However, what confuses me is that when we start looking into the so-called safe supply and we get to the bottom of it, it is clear that someone must be making money from it. Where is all the money coming from? Where are the activists getting the money to push forward with this? It turns out that there probably is a lot of money being made.
I am going to describe a few people. The first is Dr. Perry Kendall. He was British Columbia's public health officer from 1999 to 2018. In 2017, while still in his role as the public health officer, Dr. Kendall appears to have leveraged his influence to shape Health Canada's regulations to approve diacetylmorphine, that is, heroin, for treatment of opiate use disorder. In 2020, after retiring as public health officer, Dr. Kendall then co-founded a company called Fair Price Pharma to provide diacetylmorphine, that is, heroin, to those at risk of overdose.
In 2021, Fair Price Pharma then imported 15 kilograms of diacetylmorphine that it bought from a licensed European supplier. Fair Price Pharma then contracted a federally licensed dealer's permit to import the heroin. From the time that Dr. Kendall was in office, Fair Price Pharma got upset because there were not enough people using the drug. A headline from one article reads, “BC's first provincial health officer fighting for safe supply of heroin”.
Then there is Dr. Martin Schechter. Dr. Schechter played a leading role in two Canadian studies that were completed in Vancouver, the NAOMI and SALOME studies, which were the basis for the arguments made to bring forward the so-called safe supply. Ironically, Dr. Schechter is the other co-founder of none other than Fair Price Pharma.
To recap, Martin Schechter and Dr. Kendall co-founded a company that led to profit from so-called safe supply. Dr. Tyndall is also involved. He is a former executive medical director of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and former deputy provincial health minister under Dr. Kendall. Dr. Tyndall then started MySafe Society, which provides so-called safe supply hydromorphone from vending machines.
In July 2023, MySafe received $1.3 million in Health Canada's SUAP funding, in addition to $3.5 million it had previously received. At this point, another article came out in British Columbia, with the headline, “BC doctors upset their ‘safe supply’ of heroin going unprescribed during overdose crisis”. It is exceptionally troubling that there are doctors pushing for safe supply and then potentially profiting from it after having created companies to solve the problem.
It is important to share that Conservatives will listen to the experts and shut down the government-supplied drug programs. We will bring hope and a common-sense plan for treatment and recovery. Conservatives believe recovery is possible and that it should be the goal. We believe that every Canadian with an addiction deserves the opportunity to pursue recovery. If the Prime Minister allows Toronto, Montreal or any other community to legalize hard drugs as he did in British Columbia, the only outcome will be leading more vulnerable Canadians to a life of misery and despair.
We need to restore hope to all Canadians. Common-sense Conservatives will stop funding the dangerous taxpayer-funded, so-called safe supply drugs. We will ban hard drugs. We will invest in detox, treatment and recovery services. We will bring our loved ones home drug-free.
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- May/9/24 3:38:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I hardly know where to start in this debate. It is so distressing to hear the Conservatives deliberately distorting and falsifying the information about what is happening in British Columbia and about the role of groups like Moms Stop The Harm.
Overdose deaths have actually dropped in British Columbia over the last three months. They are now 11% lower than they were last year. We are seeing the positive impacts of the programs introduced in British Columbia. Yes, the B.C. government asked for an adjustment on public use of drugs. It did not say this was a failed program. It is not abandoning the program. It did not beg for it to stop.
In fact, groups like Moms Stop The Harm and other people who have lost loved ones want to know what the Conservatives are proposing in provinces like Alberta, which now actually has a higher death rate from overdoses than British Columbia does.
What are the Conservatives proposing to keep people safe in Alberta?
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- May/9/24 3:38:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting that more people have died of overdose in British Columbia in the first three months of 2024 than in all of 2015. More than six people die in British Columbia every day due to an overdose. It is absolutely incumbent on each and every one of us legislators to adopt a recovery-oriented system of care, providing hope for people who are struggling with addiction, and offer them off-ramps so they can pursue recovery.
British Columbia did not just tweak the program; it effectively gutted it, admitting it was an abject failure and demanding the federal government rescue the province from this failure. Unfortunately, I am not going to take any lessons from the Government of B.C. on how to handle the addiction crisis.
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- May/9/24 3:40:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the tragic overdose crisis that is gripping our country, and the addiction crisis, are very serious issues. There are some very stark differences with the approaches on how to handle this serious, tragic issue.
Conservatives believe that people have the capacity to recover from addiction. We believe we need to support people in pursuing recovery through detox, treatment and a recovery-oriented system of care. It is very obvious that the NDP-Liberal coalition does not believe in supporting people in those endeavours. Unfortunately, people's lives are lost as a direct result.
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- May/9/24 4:12:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I did mention in my speech that it absolutely is a health issue. I do not think it is a criminal issue.
One of the things I did not get a chance to mention when I was giving my prepared speech is that a lot of our $200 million of funding is also going into expanding the indigenous engagement platform to engage with first nations, Inuit and Métis people, including urban and indigenous communities. We know indigenous peoples continue to be disproportionately impacted by the overdose crisis, and it is essential that we have partnership with indigenous leaders to address this issue in indigenous communities across our country.
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- May/9/24 5:20:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, with whom I had the privilege of sitting on the health committee for a number of years. I just want to tell him that I am very sorry to hear about his dad. I have lost both of my parents, not to overdose, but I understand the profound pain that comes from losing one's parents. I also understand the profound pain that comes from having family members with addiction.
Addiction is something that is incredibly challenging for each and every one of us. A mom wrote to me, and I shared this today in the health committee. She said, “Hi. Sorry it's been so long. I've been in survival mode, fighting to save my daughter. Her 13-year-old friend just died yesterday, here in rural British Columbia, from an overdose after the local hospital released her from an overdose on Friday. Please help us here. I can't bear going to another child's funeral. These kids deserve so much more than this ignorant system. Doctors should have held her, under the Mental Health Act, until they could have gone to detox. Another family ruined, many who loved her, traumatized, and more deaths to follow if something does not change.”
Does the member agree that there should be an expansion of detox in his home province of British Columbia?
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- May/9/24 5:26:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is exactly it. If the war on drugs were working in the United States, it would be leading the world in sobriety and recovery, and it is not.
We can fight over policy and ideology, but facts count. Which provinces in this country have the worst record, the highest number of deaths and the worst trends for overdose addictions? They are Alberta and Saskatchewan, where they take a criminalized approach. Those are the facts.
We know that, after decades and decades of evidence, criminalizing people with health issues does not work. It is time to dispense with that policy, not only because it is wrong and it wastes money, but also because it destroys lives.
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