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Stephen Ellis

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
Conservative

Cumberland—Colchester
Nova Scotia
Voting Attendance: 67%
Expenses Last Quarter: $134,737.37

Government Page

Context: House Hansard - 315 - May/22/24

May/22/24 7:55:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, sadly, the member is obviously misinformed and trying to present disinformation to Canadians. We know of the Harper government, and I am quite glad that the spirit of Mr. Harper lives rent-free in the head of the NDP's costly coalition all the time. They love to bring him up, but on this side of the House, we also know that the funding for health care went up every year under the Harper government. The other thing that we know, again, is of the misinformation and disinformation provided by the member, sadly. I sometimes enjoy working with him as well, but the majority of people in emergency rooms are not showing up because of dental problems. That is just an absolute non-truth, and if they did show up because they could not afford their medications, then presenting to the emergency room is of no benefit. Someone does not get free medications in the emergency room, so it is just a bunch of foolishness to try to keep the government in power.

175 words

Context: House Hansard - 200 - May/18/23

Mr. Stephen Ellis

May/18/23 10:41:30 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there were a few things in the member's question to talk about. The first one is with respect to the 600 people who died in B.C. in the first three months of this year. They do not have an opportunity to get better. The second one is that the member opposite, who is also a physician, quoted a study from London that talked about a study that lost people to follow up on, so we do not know how many of them died. They also gave those people social support, housing support and medical support. That is not what the Liberal government is doing. Those folks received a program. They received prescription medications. The member opposite misled the House and carelessly used facts in that particular case to suggest that the program was the same as what safe supply is and what the vending machines, which the Liberal government spent $4.5 million in Vancouver and Victoria, are giving out on a daily basis. That is a different case and that is wrong.

177 words

Context: House Hansard - 200 - May/18/23

Mr. Stephen Ellis (Cumberland—Colchester, CPC)

May/18/23 10:30:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in my mind, today represents a seminal moment in Canadian history. On one side, we have a Liberal government that wants to flood our country with drugs; on this side of the House, we have a compassionate program for treatment to reduce the hurt and turn it into hope. How can we do that? What is “safe supply”, which we hear so often touted in this House of Commons? It is actually a term that was coined by Purdue Pharma. I am sure every Canadian out there knows what Purdue Pharma is. They would say, “Let us just put some safe opioids out there; it would be better for everybody. These are safe substances.” However, we all know what happened; everybody in this House knows what happened. That was the beginning of the opioid crisis. Even the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions knows that this happened. We fast-forward to a program that was created as a policy in British Columbia in the early days of COVID-19, in 12 days, to create this “safe supply”. This means that now, the Liberal Canadian government is purchasing drugs for people to use. If we think about it, if I wanted to take illegal substances and someone was going to buy them for me, does it make sense that I would take less or that I would take more? I think the common sense of the common people out there would realize that this would compound the problem. This program is beyond the comprehension of a common-sense person. The other important thing to understand is what the metrics are to measure whether it is working. Quite sadly, there are none. There are no outcome measures. There are no metrics. There is nothing to say that this is or is not working. This is a sad but grand social experiment, and it hurts me to say that. I have personal experience in this; I worked in a chronic pain clinic as a physician adviser alongside a psychologist, an occupational therapist and a physiotherapist one day a week for 15 years, which is a long time. A lot of people there were using opioids. One of the things we know very clearly is that when people are suffering, if they do not have connectedness, hope, identity, meaning in their lives and empowerment, they do not do well. They suffer, and shame on the Liberal government for wanting this to continue. One thing we know very clearly is that, in the program, somebody who wants to participate can access 24 eight-milligram tablets of hydromorphone. We look at that and say that 24 tablets are not that much. However, let us put that in perspective: One eight-milligram tablet of hydromorphone is the equivalent of 10 Tylenol #3 tablets. I use that as an example, because people often have their wisdom teeth out or they have a significant injury, and they might have received Tylenol #3 tablets. I would challenge them to take 10 of them. No, I would not. Let us not challenge them, because they could die from it. That is why we do not challenge them. I had my wisdom teeth out, and I took two of them. I slept half the day. This is inappropriate. Let us look at what these 24 eight-milligram tablets look like. That is 192 milligrams a day, which is 960 morphine milligram equivalents. That means the equivalent of 246 tablets of Tylenol #3 a day. Who needs that much? I realize that chronic pain, which is my expertise, and drug addiction are two very different things. I understand that clearly, but we are talking about an equivalency of 246 tablets of Tylenol #3. Let us be clear. When the Liberal minister appeared in committee, we talked about fentanyl. The treatment dose in the emergency room, if someone perhaps dislocates their shoulder, is 100 micrograms or maybe 200 micrograms of fentanyl. When we were doing emergency room procedures, we always had a respiratory therapist there to ensure that, if the person stopped breathing, we could support their breathing. What is this decriminalization experiment excited about? It is 2.5 grams of fentanyl. How many people could be killed with that? The minister went on to say that it is always cut with something. Let us say that 2.5 grams could kill 25,000 people. If we cut it in half again and again, there is enough on one's person to kill 1,000 people. It is beyond comprehension. There is no common sense here. The market is being flooded with opioids. We heard the great Leader of the Opposition speak about the reduction in price. Prices of eight milligrams of hydromorphone have now gone down from historical averages to 25¢. What do we see then? We see that those drugs are being bought for 25¢ from people who have gotten them for free, and they are being distributed around the rest of the country for five dollars a pill. They are also now being sold across the border into the United States. This is absolutely insane. It makes no sense. Then, those people are taking that money and trading up to fentanyl. It is illicit fentanyl, yes, but that is what they want. They want the high from fentanyl. That is what they are doing, and that is how they are getting it. Let us be clear. The Liberal government is giving them hydromorphone for free, and they are selling it to buy fentanyl. If they are not doing that, then they are taking that hydromorphone, crushing it and injecting it. These are facts. We see this. We know that when people show up in emergency rooms with heart valves that are infected, it is because of the injections. There are spinal cord abscesses that a person gets almost only with intravenous drug use. This is what is happening with this “safe supply”. Let us be honest. It is not safe; there is nothing safe about this. The other very sad thing that we understand clearly is that palliative care for these drug addicts is where the Liberal government is starting. It is not offering other treatment. The government is saying that they are beyond reach, and all they are going to get is medication, because the government wants to perpetuate their state of existence. We are not offering them housing. We are not offering them social supports. The government is not offering them anything except more drugs to perpetuate their zombie-like state. This is unacceptable in Canada. This approach is not working, and we know that very clearly. We know that this is not the standard of care anywhere else in the world. We know that people, Canadians, do not want to exist in this state. If we want to talk about an outcome measure, we know that this is not reducing deaths; it is increasing them. Six hundred people died in British Columbia in the first three months of 2023. This is a 9% increase from last year. How can we say that we should continue this insane experiment? As I said previously, this is a seminal moment. Most important, what we need to understand, and what Canadians need to understand, is whether this make sense. Is there science behind it? Clearly, we know that the answer is no. People like to talk about the Portugal model. When the funding was reduced in Portugal for things like social supports, housing supports and medical supports, we know what happened. The rates went back up again, and the deaths went back up again. We cannot go down that same road. We know very clearly that what we need to do is care for Canadians; we need to care for them deeply. We need to not treat them with a simplistic palliative care approach that says, “Take all the medications you want. They're safe.” From the Purdue Pharma experiment and the Canadian experiment in British Columbia, we know that they are not safe. Deaths are increasing, and we need to have this experiment stopped now; it is not working. I have said this before: Canadians need to be connected; they need to have hope. They need to have an identity and meaning in their life, and they need to be empowered to get better. Our program will enable Canadians to do that.

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Member of Parliament

Stephen Ellis