- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Thunder Bay—Rainy River
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $144,359.62
- Government Page
- Feb/8/22 8:18:24 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I will try to reply in French.
I agree, the solution to overdoses of narcotics is indeed naloxone. I think that all first responders should be able to administer naloxone. It really is the right answer to overdose problems.
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Madam Chair, I would like to thank the member for Edmonton Griesbach for his reference to Portugal, where I believe they have decriminalized drug use. Certainly, from what I know, as a result of that decriminalization there has been some improvement in the problem in Portugal, so I think it is certainly an interesting case study. I cannot say I know enough about decriminalization to give any definitive answer about it, but I do think it is something we ought to be seriously considering.
As for Bill C-216, I admit I have not read it, but I look forward to reading it.
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- Feb/8/22 8:15:06 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I certainly agree that we ought to be doing more for this. I have to point out that I think our government has done quite a bit in terms of addressing the opioid problem. Just since the pandemic, there has been $4.5 billion in top-ups to the transfers to the provinces; $100 million for mental health interventions for the people most severely affected by the pandemic; $500 million toward people suffering mental health problems, homelessness and substance abuse; and $66 million was announced in a recent budget for 30 new substance use and addiction programs.
However, I think the real difference is made at the grassroots level, and it is all those people who are working at that level, tirelessly, to try to find a solution where often solutions are not easy to find, who really contribute the most. It is not just all about—
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- Feb/8/22 8:08:48 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am happy to speak to this issue, an issue that I have been involved with one way or another for about 30 years or more.
As a long-time emergency room doctor, many of those years in Thunder Bay but other places as well, I have seen a lot of overdoses. ICU doctors who work in Thunder Bay and also work in a lot of other places tell me that Thunder Bay is second only to Vancouver in terms of the number of people going to the ICU as a result of overdoses.
A few years ago in the Thunder Bay emergency room, we started to notice something different with overdoses. I remember someone coming in unconscious and because of his pinpoint pupils and his slow breathing, I figured he was a narcotics overdose, so I gave him Narcan or Naloxone and sure enough he woke up. After he woke up he asked what happened to him. I said he overdosed on narcotics and he said that he did not because he was smoking crack.
Drug dealers have started putting fentanyl and at times carfentanyl, which is the veterinary drug equivalent, which is far stronger, into all kinds of other drugs. People are getting hooked on narcotics and overdosing, not even knowing that it is narcotics they are doing.
When narcotic overdoses make it to the emergency room, they usually are okay, but a lot of people unfortunately do not make it to the emergency room. They are either pronounced dead in their house or they arrive VSA, vital signs absent. We try to resuscitate them and unfortunately we cannot.
Besides knowing about this problem from my position as an emergency room doctor, I am also familiar with it from my personal experiences. I know a lot of people who have family members and friends who passed away because of overdoses, kids who are growing up without a parent because of an overdose, or parents who lost a child because of an overdose.
I also know about this problem because, going door to door in two successive campaigns, a number of people told me about people they lost, usually their children. I know as a parent there is nothing worse than losing a child. Although I would say that certainly it is probably equally as bad for a child to lose a parent.
I also know the extent to which drug addiction, mental health, homelessness and crime are intertwined. Last year on the INAN committee on which I sat, we had several women tell us of the problem that indigenous women from farther north communities have when they come to Thunder Bay and they meet some guy with flashy clothes and a flashy car who invites them to a party to try drugs. They try drugs and they get addicted to drugs, and then they are asked to go into prostitution to pay for the price of those drugs.
Although our government has done a lot to address addictions, mental health and the opioid crisis, I do not think we have been as successful as we would like to be. Unfortunately, I do not know of any jurisdiction in the world that has been really successful in addressing this problem.
As a doctor, we spend a lot of years treating people with overdoses and hopefully maybe saving a few of them. I know the fix I provided in the emergency room was a temporary fix. People would often overdose again, so what is the answer? As a long-time doctor, I think one of the most important things to say as a doctor when we do not know is “I don't know”. I certainly say I do not know what the answer is to the opioid problem, but I do know that we need to do better.
I also know that there are many people in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario working tirelessly to find solutions on a case-by-case basis, and I really commend them for all their hard work. I would also like to make special mention of one group in my riding, a group who will not take no for an answer and have made it their mission to make a difference and that is Team DEK. DEK stands for Dayna Elizabeth Karle, who died due to an accidental overdose this past September. Her mother, Carolyn, and a bunch of like-minded determined women established Team DEK with the goal of establishing a long-term addiction treatment program for women in Thunder Bay, both indigenous and non-indigenous. This project has a lot of support both in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario.
It is really great to see on the issue of the opioid crisis all parties feeling passionately about this. Although we may have different views as to what the best answer to this problem is, hopefully we can leave partisan politics aside and not let it prevent us from considering all options because the only thing that really matters is preventing more needless deaths.
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- Feb/8/22 7:52:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Edmonton Griesbach, like me, has a riding with a large indigenous population. I wonder how much he thinks the answer to the opioid problem is a matter of directly dealing with opioids and how much of the answer involves dealing with the underlying socio-economic inequality, which is certainly part of the problem and fuels the crisis.
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- Feb/8/22 7:43:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Courtenay—Alberni for his words of wisdom. He seems to know a fair bit about this problem and seems quite passionate about it.
I do not know if he knows anything about this, but I know part of the problem with the opioid crisis is that so many drugs are laced with fentanyl. People will be smoking what they think is crack, but it is laced with fentanyl. As a result, they have an overdose of narcotics and they die of that overdose.
Does the member have any suggestion or know of any policy interventions that can address this problem?
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