Public Safety committee  As the Supreme Court said: Where the Minister is considering an application for exemption for a supervised injection facility, he or she will aim to strike the appropriate balance between achieving the public health and public safety goals. What this means is it's not possible to assign a specific weight to any one of the 27 factors in and of themselves.

Public Safety committee  Yes, that is correct. It is a three-pronged strategy: prevention, treatment, and enforcement. Certainly through any of those pillars you can see that they would have an impact in the ultimate objective of preventing drug abuse and treating those who fall victim to it.

Public Safety committee  As the member mentioned, the purpose of the act is public health and public safety and balancing of those two, as acknowledged and supported by the Supreme Court. When you look at the 27 criteria and actually try to divide them between public health and public safety—and a few are clearly both—you'll find that the balance between them is fairly even.

Public Safety committee  As the minister said, views of community support or opposition are one of the five factors that the minister must consider. I don't think it's possible for us to say that any one factor is more important than another or any one criterion is more important than another. It's about the whole, and then balancing the whole.

Public Safety committee  In terms of what a minister would base the decision on, relevance is obviously a key factor.

Public Safety committee  That's correct. There's nothing that says that it must be approved or it must be rejected. There's nothing that fetters the discretion.

Public Safety committee  That's correct.

Public Safety committee  Some of the hard evidence that you talk about comes through in some of the other criteria that are required. The word “opinion” was chosen because the people from whom it's requested are in positions to well understand the local conditions that would either require or not require, in their opinion, a supervised injection site and the impacts on the community and the crime rates, etc., in the current situation.

Public Safety committee  I would simply say that it's at the discretion of the minister. Based on the application that's put in front of him or her at the time and based on the need for such a consultation beyond what would have been received in the application, it would totally be at the minister's discretion.

Public Safety committee  It's just a legal principle in terms of decision-making in a discretionary scenario so relevance would be important. How one would define relevance would depend on the circumstances of a particular site at a particular time.

Public Safety committee  I'm afraid I can't speak to health facilities or health services because it's more a provincial jurisdiction. I'm not involved in those sorts of decisions. Mr. Chair, I'm just wondering, with your permission, if my colleague could comment. She feels she needs to add a point to something that I said.

Public Safety committee  I will do my best to give you the Coles Notes version.

Public Safety committee  I can run through some of the 27 criteria, if that would be helpful.

Public Safety committee  All right, just cut me off. I'll see where I get. On the public health side there is scientific evidence demonstrating that there is a medical benefit; a letter from the provincial minister responsible for health outlining his or her opinion, and also describing how the activities will be integrated into the provincial health care system; and further information about access to drug treatment services, if any, that are available; a letter from the lead health professional in relation to public health of the government in that province with that person's opinion on the proposed activities at the site; information including trends, if any, on the number of persons who consume illicit substances in the vicinity of the proposed site; relevant information, including trends, if any, on the number of persons with infectious diseases that may be in relation to the consumption of illicit substances in the vicinity of the proposed site; relevant information, including trends, if any, on the number of deaths due to overdose in relation to activities that would take place at the proposed site; official reports, if any, relevant to the establishment of a supervised consumption site, including coroners' reports, if any; a report on the consultations held with professional licensing bodies for physicians and for nurses in the province; a financing plan that demonstrates the feasibility and sustainability of operating the site—

Public Safety committee  The expectation is that once the bill receives royal assent, the process would apply to any applicant, including InSite. In terms of renewal, there are two additional criteria: evidence, if any, of any variation in crime rates in the vicinity of the site during the period that the site was operating; and evidence of any impacts of the activities at the site on individual or public health during that period.