- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Courtenay—Alberni
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $148,159.67
- Government Page
- May/9/24 12:36:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise today to speak about the leading health crisis, toxic drugs. Certainly in my own province, it is the leading cause of death for those under the age of 59.
This issue is not just close to me; it is close to everyone in my home province, and it is a terrible tragedy. Highly contaminated toxic drugs are raging across the country and killing people every single day. Over 20 people a day are dying. I can tell members personally, coming from Vancouver Island and my hometown, of the impact it has had on everybody in my community. Nobody where I live is untouched. I cannot count on two hands the number of my friends' kids who have died, never mind friends. It is a terrible tragedy that is happening, and we can do better.
We hear this huge debate about harm reduction versus treatment and recovery. However, we have to do both; they go hand in hand. We cannot help people who are dead, as my good friend from Vancouver East constantly reminds me. We need to move forward with policies that are grounded on evidence or evidence-generated and supported policy.
The evidence says that what we are doing is not working. That is the evidence right across this country. We are now dealing with new substances that are highly toxic and addictive. Never before in our history have we seen such challenging times when it comes to dangerous substances. They are obviously lethal, because they are unregulated; they are manufactured, marketed and sold by organized crime.
We have had a number of expert reports on how we should respond to this crisis, including from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Expert Task Force on Substance Use, which was created by Health Canada to inform politicians on how to move forward in responding to this terrible crisis. All of them are consistent in that we need to stop criminalizing people who use substances, as it causes more harm and is rooted in stigma. We need to create a safer supply of substances to replace the toxic street supply. We need to scale up treatment and recovery; to make sure that we are meeting people where they are, with those systems in place and ready; and to spend money on education and prevention. However, we have not done that, and I say this all the time: The Liberals are taking an incremental approach in a health crisis, which is costing lives. Conservatives are spreading disinformation, which is deadly in a health crisis. We need to move forward and listen to the experts.
I will talk a bit about what is actually happening and the facts about some of the concerns we are hearing from the Conservatives. It is their motion today, and I will speak to them primarily.
The Conservatives have created a moral panic. They are fundraising off the tragedies of families. It is absolutely unbelievable. It is so harmful. If they were truly here to try to help people, they would be bringing forward concrete solutions. However, I have not heard that from any of their speeches today.
I asked the leader of the official opposition why he would not meet with the mothers of the victims of this crisis. I sat with them and listened to them, and their stories are informed. They know better than anyone how toxic the drugs are. They know how hard it is to support someone who is going through difficult challenges when living with a substance use disorder and navigating a system that is completely broken. They know better.
We hear the Conservatives in terms of their moral panic that they have created around this issue. I will talk a little about what is actually going on in western Canada, where we are hearing primarily from Conservative MPs.
Is my home province of British Columbia doing enough? No, it is absolutely not.
Is any province or territory in this country doing enough? No, but they require a federal partner. Vancouver, British Columbia, has been ground zero for over 100 years when it comes to high amounts of substance use. It dates back to the opioid crisis in 1908. This is not new to us in our communities, but what is new is the toxicity of the drugs. It has been challenging because we have been at ground zero facing this terrible tragedy.
When the B.C. Liberals were in government, in 2014, we went from 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people to 30.3 in just a matter of four years, a 383% increase. From 2017, we actually went up from 30.3 per 100,000, peaking at over 47 deaths per 100,000. That is absolutely brutal. After the last 11 or 12 months, we have seen an 11% decline in deaths. That is the trajectory right now for British Columbia. I am not celebrating that, but it is a relief.
This is a tragedy. Every death is preventable. Every single one of these deaths is preventable. We are breathing a sigh of relief that we are heading in the right trajectory, but it needs to go down much faster. We need to come together and work together on that. We went from 7.4 people dying a day in my own province to 6.2. Six families are going to get a call today.
I look at Alberta. The Conservative government got elected in 2019. Alberta had 15 deaths per 100,000 people; now it is at 41 deaths per 100,000. Alberta is leading the country in terms of deaths per capita. Alberta's death rate is skyrocketing. I will give some examples. In Lethbridge, which closed the safe consumption site, the death rate is 137 per 100,000. That is more than triple that of British Columbia. Medicine Hat is at 63.7 deaths, over 50% more than British Columbia. We see reports in the news about Fort McMurray having a record-breaking year. If we do not have safe consumption sites, then guess where people will go to use. They will use in public, in the back alleys and in the bathrooms of businesses, and they die at home, alone. We know that is deadly, when we have a toxic drug problem.
I could speak about Saskatchewan. We constantly hear from members, whether they be the member for Lethbridge or the member for Fort McMurray, pointing a finger at British Columbia. I am not doing that right now. I am just trying to bring some facts so that we can actually have a proper conversation. I will get to that.
In terms of Regina, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has pointed a finger at British Columbia, instead of coming here to fight to help people in Regina. That is a failure, while people are dying in his community. The death rate in his city is 66 per 100,000. That is straight from the Regina police force.
Those two Conservative provinces are leading the nation in terms of death rates that are skyrocketing. We could look to Alaska, a Republican state, which had a 45% increase last year. There is no harm reduction, no safe supply, no decriminalization in those two provinces and that state. When members want to point fingers at safe supply and decriminalization, what is happening in their provinces, with their one-track, recovery-only model, where they failed to listen to the experts? They talk about wacko. What is wacko is when people ignore experts, ignore evidence, ignore science and ignore the facts. That is wacko.
In the U.S., under Donald Trump, toxic drugs deaths doubled in 30 states, but they want to say it is British Columbia, an NDP thing or a Liberal thing. This is not an NDP, Liberal or Conservative thing. This is a societal issue. The problems and the solutions are not going to be based on ideology. They have to be grounded in evidence and supported by the experts, and led by the experts, not by politicians. I cannot think of another health crisis where politicians are deciding how we move forward.
This is an issue that we know has been chronically underfunded. The Liberals have spent less than 1% responding to the toxic drug crisis. Why? It is because of the stigma. Are the Conservatives helping contribute to the stigma? Absolutely. We need to get away from that harm. We need to make sure that we listen to the experts.
Now, we talk about safer supply. The whole concept of safer supply is that it is to be brought in to replace the toxic drug supply. This is recommended by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. The law and order party does not want to listen to the police. The police testified at the health committee. They said that 85% of poison drug deaths are from fentanyl. Cocaine was found in the bloodstream. However, they said hydromorphone, safer supply, is not what is killing people. In fact, traces of it showed up in 3% of the analyses of toxic drugs in British Columbia.
Prescribing pharmaceutical alternatives to toxic street drugs separates people from toxic street drugs and helps them stay alive so they can stabilize their lives and connect to treatment and care. There is no way to know the source of drugs purchased on the streets right now, even if a dealer claims it is from the prescribed alternatives program.
The chief coroner of B.C. has indicated that we are not seeing an increase in deaths amongst youth or an increase in diagnosis of opioid use disorder, despite the claims of the Conservatives. The goal of the prescribed alternatives program is to help people at the highest risk of death or harms from the illicit poison drug supply stabilize their lives.
Safer supply has not increased the number of people with opioid disorder. In fact, we have seen reductions in all-cause mortality and overdose mortality; reductions in overdose and in the use of unregulated opioids by those on safer supply; a decline in health care costs and fewer hospital visits; an increased engagement in health care and social services; improvements in physical and mental health; improvements in social well-being and stability; reduced use of toxic drugs from the unregulated street supply; improved control over their drug use; reduced injection; reduced involvement in criminal activities. The diversion of hydromorphone is not contributing to opioid-related mortality. In fact, we heard that for those receiving safer supply through the safer supply program, the risk of dying from any of those causes was reduced by 61%, and the risk of dying from overdose was cut in half. If they received four days or more, their overdose risk was further reduced by 89%.
I want to go back to who is impacted the most. Indigenous peoples are impacted the most. The opioid epidemic and toxic drug crisis are yet another example of the large gaps in health care outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Indigenous people are disproportionately affected and multiple times more likely to die from toxic drugs. They are seven times more likely to die in Alberta, five times more likely to die in British Columbia, and in some indigenous communities that can skyrocket to as much as 36 times more likely than the general population. We just heard that at the health committee the other day.
I am going to read a quote from Dr. Judith Sayers, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council president. She sits on the BC First Nations Justice Council. She said:
We want to work with the province in tackling the crisis and be part of a collaborative strategy.... The BCFNJC stands with our partners in healthcare and asserts that the toxic drug crisis needs to be treated and addressed as a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue. The criminal justice system is not the solution to a problem that, instead, needs to be addressed through healing.
We have to stop this colonial approach and listen to indigenous people, who are more likely to die from this crisis.
I have a quote from the police, which, again, the law and order party wants to ignore. The deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said:
As noted, in some of our supervised consumption sites or overdose prevention sites, there are no inhalation rooms or there is no ability to inhale. We find that most of our overdose deaths are related to fentanyl and to inhalation, so we need to provide spaces, I think, that would allow for that, but it can't be a space where someone has to take a bus for four kilometres and go across the city to find that space. Those spaces need to be readily available.
This is against the Lethbridge model.
I will talk about Fiona Wilson, president of the British Columbia Association of Chiefs of Police. She is a deputy chief in the Vancouver Police Department. She said, “85% of overdose deaths are attributable to fentanyl.... [T]hat's what people are dying from according to the coroner's data. They're not dying from diverted safe supply and they're not actually dying from diverted prescription medication”. She also said, “the reality is that there are seven people per day dying in British Columbia as a result of the toxic drug crisis. They are not dying as a result of prescription-diverted medication; they are dying because of the poisonous drug supply that is on our streets.” Lastly, she said, “we do not want to criminalize people by virtue of their personal drug use. Those days are gone. We want to support a health-led approach.... [W]e strongly support the notion of not trying to arrest ourselves out of this crisis. That is not going to save lives. In fact, it does quite a bit of harm”. That is from the police.
I will talk about going to Portugal. I went to Portugal last summer, on my own dime, and I was very fortunate to have the Embassy of Portugal line up a deep-dive itinerary so I could go there and learn.
Why did I choose to go to Portugal? My good colleague from the Bloc talked about Portugal, and I really appreciate his insight. I went there to learn from them. They had a death rate of over 1,000 people in a population of only 10 million, primarily from intravenous drug use. Heroin, as we know, was impacting their community. They had over 100,000 chronic daily heroin users. As my colleague cited, over a million people had tried heroin. They were able to bring their numbers down to 23,000 chronic users. They brought the number of deaths from 1,000 to 60.
I thought it would be prudent for me to go and learn and listen to them. This is how they responded to their health emergency when they decided to treat it as that, instead of a criminal issue. They went from 250 people using methadone to 35,000 in two years. How did they do that? They engaged the military to build labs. They engaged the military to do that so they could reduce the price, get those labs up and running, and save lives. That is how one responds in a health emergency. They built treatment facilities right across the country so that there was no wait, no barrier to treatment, and it was covered under the universal health care system, not like the Alberta model. Good luck getting treatment in Alberta in a short period of time. It is not going to happen.
We heard loud and clear from witnesses, including Petra Schulz from Moms Stop the Harm, who talked about the gaps in the system, and there are gaps in our system.
Portugal also spent a lot of money on recovery, because we know that relapse is part of dealing with recovery. They caught people when they landed. They invested in a four-year follow-up cycle, when people came through treatment. We know that connection is a deep and important part of dealing with the underlying trauma. They made sure that people had housing, and they decriminalized drug use and treated it as a health issue.
One hears my title as the NDP critic for mental health and harm reduction. We do not just see harm reduction as safe consumption sites and safe supply. Those are critical components. However, housing and all the different social determinants of health are also reducing harm. Our goal should be to reduce harm.
We hear the Liberals talk about meeting the moment. They did not respond like Portugal. They have not moved in an expedient way. We need a coordinated, integrated, compassionate approach like that of Portugal.
Portugal created an expert task force. That expert task force morphed into the oversight body for government to move forward. I will tell members why the politicians in Portugal were heroes: They got out of the way. They decided it was a health issue and they let the experts lead. They moved forward with their policy and implemented it. The politicians' role was to make sure that they had the resources to do it. That was the job of the politicians.
We are not doing that today. We need to get to that point, because we know that over 20 people are going to die today. Over 20 moms are going to get a call. It needs to stop. The disinformation, the fundraising, the moral panic need to stop. People need to meet with the moms. The Conservative leader is the only leader who refuses to meet with Moms Stop the Harm. He cannot explain himself. They are informed.
The Liberal government needs to treat this and to meet the moment, like it says. It needs to scale up resources and meet the moment.
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- May/9/24 11:51:14 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 42,000 people have died from the toxic drug crisis, which is more than the Canadians who died in World War II. That is not meeting the moment. Spending less than 1% of what we spent in response to COVID-19 is not meeting the moment.
Portugal had over 1,000 people die from their drug crisis. It went from 250 people to 35,000 people on morphine in two years. It engaged the military and built labs. It built treatment centres so that people can get treatment on demand, year-long treatment. It spent money on recovery. Yes, it turned it into a health-based issue because it is a health issue, and it stopped criminalizing people.
The government says that it wants to integrate it and coordinate it, with a compassionate approach. Where is the plan? Where are the timelines? Where are the resources to get behind it? Why has the government not declared a national public health emergency? Why?
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- Oct/17/23 6:33:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad the member talked about an integrated approach because the Portuguese model is a coordinated, integrated, compassionate model. Here in Canada, we do not have coordination. There are no resources. In fact, we are in a health crisis.
I will say this: The Liberals' incremental approach costs lives in a health crisis. The disinformation from the Conservatives costs lives in a health crisis. What we need is action. We need a timeline to invest in harm reduction, treatment, recovery, prevention, education and a safer supply to replace the toxic street drugs.
Where is the plan? Where is the timeline? Where is the compassion? When is this going to be a priority? When are they truly going to end the stigma? Do I have to keep coming back here every week to fight the same fight? When is the plan going to be tabled in this House of Commons? The families deserve it.
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- May/31/23 3:22:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a year ago tomorrow, most of the Liberal caucus and all Conservatives teamed up to defeat Bill C-216 for a health-based approach to substance use. If it had passed, today we would have a multi-faceted plan to fight the toxic drug crisis, based on the recommendations of the government's own expert task force. Instead, thousands more families have lost loved ones because of poisoned drugs purchased on the street.
When will the government deliver a comprehensive plan to keep people who use drugs alive and provide no-fee, on-demand treatment for those who need help now?
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- May/18/23 12:13:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is the false dichotomy: that we cannot have harm reduction and we need to have treatment. We need both. We need to meet people where they are at.
With respect to the notion that this is failing, it has not even gotten off the ground yet. It is in its infancy. It has basically just started, and the results and evidence are staggering. It is lowering people's involvement in criminal activity, and there are fewer people using the deadly fentanyl. They are not going to organized crime to get their drugs, which is everywhere in this country.
Is the government failing? Yes, it is. However, the war-on-drugs approach the Conservatives are bringing forward would be a disaster. We know that.
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- May/18/23 10:59:59 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first we heard the Conservative from Fraser Valley rail against harm reduction when, in fact, they support harm reduction and they support treatment and recovery. There is no war between harm reduction and treatment and recovery. We need them both.
Today, I am seeing the Conservatives spreading misinformation, which is costly in a health crisis. However, we also see the Liberals taking an incremental approach, which costs lives. I asked the minister repeatedly to scale up efforts. This is a national health crisis. The government is spending less than 1% of what it spent on the COVID-19 crisis and the response to that. We have lost almost as many lives.
We look at the money the government spent on the AIDS crisis, on SARS and on other health crises. It goes beyond being pale in comparison. When is the government going to scale up on safe supply? When is it going to get involved in the recovery and treatment on demand? We need the government to get involved. It cannot keep downloading this to the provinces. That is where Portugal stepped up. We need the federal government to scale up with rapid investments so that, when people need help, they get it and we meet them where they are at.
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- Feb/16/23 1:32:19 p.m.
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First, Liberals need to stop the loopholes, Madam Speaker. They need to stop provinces from circumnavigating the Canada Health Act and offering privatization. This is creating a two-tiered system that we know is going to harm our ability to attract doctors and nurses to the universal public system and is not going to be affordable for others. They promised a mental health transfer of $5.3 billion, and that has not happened. There are no assurances in their agreements with the provinces that it is going to be delivered.
All the member has to do is talk to the national organizations that are delivering mental health services in the two-tiered mental health care system, because that is what is going on. He also needs to maybe talk to some of the parents who have lost loved ones, who were in treatment or in the hospital and were punted because there were not enough beds for them. Maybe they took their own lives. Maybe he should talk to Moms Stop the Harm. The government needs to talk to them before it pats itself on the back. It needs to listen to them because that is who is calling for this action right now.
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- Jan/30/23 6:49:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know Groundhog Day is not until Thursday, but it sure feels like it, because I keep having to drag the government in here at the end of the day to answer to Canadians on why it has not delivered on its mental health transfer.
We have a system that is overburdened and stretched to the max. I just had the leader of the NDP in my riding. We went to a round table on seniors' health. We listened to the stresses on the system in long-term care, in the health care system, but we also heard from physicians, and members know that in their ridings physicians are saying that they do not have the supports when it comes to mental health and when it comes to social workers and psychotherapy, and this is causing a huge unnecessary burden on the health care system. It is backing up our ERs. We heard that directly from physicians.
I met with the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council, with the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, the Hupacasath and the Sechelt. At Sechelt they hosted a meeting, and they said their top priority is ensuring there are mental health supports.
The New Democrats will kick and scream and drag the government back here every night, if we have to, until the transfer is delivered. We will use every tool in the tool box. The Liberals promised $4.5 billion of new money over five years to help support those with mental health issues.
I not only heard from first nations, but I actually went into my own doctor's office and asked my doctor how it is impacting him in serving his clients and the overall community. He said that over 50% of the people who were coming to his office were having a health-related issue related to either mental health or substance use. He said that he cannot be a social worker. He said that people are leaving the field. He said nurses are leaving the field.
Right now, in a health crisis, we need to do everything we can to take the pressure off those who need supports that are physical-related and ensure those who have mental health issues are getting supports that are mental health-related. Meanwhile, people are dying. I got a message from a good friend of mine who lost her son this week. She said we need treatment centres, not more police. We need investments in mental health supports. The government keeps promising it is going to deliver that.
There was a joint report by the Mental Health Commission of Canada and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. They found that almost 35% of residents reported moderate to severe mental health concerns. Fewer than one in three people experiencing mental health issues were accessing services, and they said that financial constraints were a big part of that. As we know, we are potentially heading into a recession. People are struggling. Mental health issues are getting worse.
Establishing the Canada mental health transfer was a key election promise. It was the second thing on the list in the mandate letter for the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. The government promised that $875 million would be transferred by 2023. There has not been a dollar of new money.
What are we going to hear from the government members? They are going to pat themselves on the back from old money. They are not going to have delivered on the new money they promised. It has not happened. It is costing lives. People are dying, and it is unnecessary. The government needs to do the right thing. The Liberals are wastefully spending money instead of prioritizing the health of Canadians, taking pressure off our health care system and investing in mental health when Canadians need it the most.
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- Dec/6/22 3:10:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are dying and lives are being shattered every day because of a contaminated drug supply. The Conservative leader wants to double down on the failed war on drugs, while the government will not fund the supports people need. The Liberals promised in the last election to send $500 million to the provinces and territories to improve access to evidence-based treatment, but yet again it has not followed through.
When will the government move past the stigma and mount a health-based response to this national crisis?
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- Nov/28/22 2:49:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with the long wait-lists for treatment and the high cost of therapy, Canadians have been left with nowhere to turn. The cost of essentials like food is putting even more stress on Canadians struggling with their mental health.
When will the Liberals finally deliver a mental health transfer so that people can access the health services they need when they need them the most?
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- Sep/22/22 7:44:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, the government announced its intention to establish the $10-a-day child care program, and there were deals with provinces and territories in place within a year. Here we are a year later, and when it comes to mental health transfers, the Liberals still have not delivered their 2021 election promise.
Too many Canadians cannot access appropriate mental health or substance use services in a timely manner, either because they would be required to pay out of pocket or because they face long wait-lists for publicly funded care. The average wait time for adult residential treatment for substance use is 100 days.
In Ontario, there are more than 28,000 children on wait-lists for community-based mental health services that can range from 67 days to more than two and a half years depending on the service, exceeding clinically appropriate wait times. This is unacceptable. These are children.
I am calling on the government to be more transparent and to move rapidly on its $4.5-billion transfer. It is needed now. Mental health care is needed now.
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- May/2/22 11:57:22 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, there are a couple of things in there.
First, the member talked about mental health. We heard a commitment from this government of $4.5 billion over five years in transfers around mental health. We did not see it in the fall economic statement. In fact, we did not see it in the budget, but we are eagerly anticipating it, given post-COVID or coming out of COVID when we have a serious mental health crisis as never before. We absolutely need to make sure that people get access to those supports.
When it comes to treatment, we need to make sure that it is on demand. Certain provinces do not want to do a safe supply: They do not want to decriminalize and they believe just in treatment as a model, but they are not delivering it. They should go to Edmonton and go to Saskatoon. I was just there. A gentleman I met had dreams and wanted treatment, but he said that it was going to take weeks or months to get treatment. We need to invest. It saves money, and I talked about some of that. We need to invest.
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