Bill C-2 (Historical)

Respect for Communities Act

An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

This enactment amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to, among other things,
(a) create a separate exemption regime for activities involving the use of a controlled substance or precursor that is obtained in a manner not authorized under this Act;
(b) specify the purposes for which an exemption may be granted for those activities; and
(c) set out the information that must be submitted to the Minister of Health before the Minister may consider an application for an exemption in relation to a supervised consumption site.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Colleagues, we will call to order the 34th meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Today we'll be dealing with Bill C-2, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

For the first hour of witnesses, we will have two of our ministers appearing. They are the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health, and the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. They will be here for the first hour.

Accompanying them and staying for the duration will be a number of other officials: from the Department of Health, Hilary Geller, assistant deputy minister, healthy environments and consumer safety branch; from the Department of Justice, Diane Labelle, general counsel for legal services, Health Canada; from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Kathy Thompson, assistant deputy minister, community safety and countering crime branch; and, closing it out, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Chief Superintendent Eric Slinn, director general, support services, federal policing.

For the next hour, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., we will have an additional departmental official from the Department of Health appearing as a witness. That will be Suzy McDonald, associate director general, controlled substances and tobacco directorate, healthy environments and consumer safety branch.

That's the list of our witnesses today.

Colleagues, without further delay we will go to statements from our ministers. First up is Minister Ambrose.

Minister, you have the floor.

Motions in Amendment

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in opposition to Bill C-13, and I think that is unfortunate.

Like many MPs, I had high hopes when the issue of cyberbullying first came before the House. I had high hopes that we would recognize the urgency with which we needed to respond to cyberbullying and the risk of suicides, especially when we were faced with the unfortunate examples of Rehtaeh Parsons in Nova Scotia and Amanda Todd in B.C. taking their own lives.

In fact, we did respond relatively quickly. The member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced a private member's bill in June 2013. It was a simple bill that did not include a lot of extraneous material. It was a simple bill that would have made it an offence to produce or distribute intimate images of an individual without that person's consent.

Unfortunately, despite attempts to get unanimous consent to move the bill forward, the government said that it had to do a lot more study and think a lot more about what it wanted to present in a government bill. When that bill finally got before us in November 2013, nearly a year ago, as usual with the Conservative government we found a far broader bill than was necessary. It is a bill that includes many issues that have little or nothing to do with cyberbullying, including restrictions on telemarketing, theft of telecommunication services, provisions on terrorist financing, and bank financial disclosures.

What we have before us now is a bill with a much broader scope and one that includes bringing back many aspects of the Conservatives' previous Bill C-30, which was widely rejected by public opinion and especially by privacy advocates.

As someone who worked closely with the criminal justice system for more than two decades before coming here, I have some very serious concerns about the government's attempt to expand access to personal information, both with and without a warrant, that remains in Bill C-13

I am very concerned about the new and low bar for grounds for getting a warrant to get personal information. I see no justification for lowering the grounds for a warrant from “reasonable grounds to believe”, to this new category of reasonable suspicion. For that reason, of course, we proposed an amendment to delete this clause entirely from the bill.

In fact, I believe, despite the speeches we have heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, that the Spencer case this summer brings into question the constitutionality of many provisions of Bill C-13. This was an important ruling banning Internet service providers from disclosing names, addresses, and phone numbers of customers voluntarily to the authorities.

The bill would also create a worrying new category of those entitled to our personal information. It has expanded from the well-defined, in law, concept of peace officers, and we know who they are, to this unclear new concept of “public officers”. Does this mean tax officials? Who does this mean are public officers?

In committee we proposed 37 different amendments to try to narrow the scope of the bill. As my colleague for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour so eloquently put it a few moments ago, we were trying to make sure that this bill did not spend the rest of its life being challenged in court. Unfortunately, we did not see any of those amendments adopted, and I do not think we will see our amendments adopted at report stage.

I want to return to one surprising inclusion in Bill C-13 that I was happy to see there. For whatever reason, the government decided to reopen the hate crime section of the Criminal Code in clause 12 of Bill C-13. There is some connection there with cyberbullying and cyberbullying's relation to an escalation into hate crimes.

I think perhaps there was a justification, but I was very surprised to see that when the government listed the new identifiable groups to receive protection, it added national origin, sex, age, and mental or physical disability, while what was left out was gender identity.

The House of Commons had already agreed, in a vote on my private member's bill, Bill C-279, on March 20, 2013, by a margin of 149 to 137, with support from all parties, to include protection on the basis of gender identity. Therefore, there was a deliberate omission from this list of new protected grounds of something that we had already decided in the full House.

This is why earlier today I proposed an amendment to clause 12, which I had already placed in the justice committee. I was optimistic that we would be allowed to debate this bill again. I proposed this amendment in committee to try to correct what I felt was an error in the drafting of Bill C-13. It should have included gender identity, precisely for the reason I cited: we had already voted on this provision here in the full House of Commons.

I was very optimistic in committee. After all, two of the five government members in the justice committee had voted for my private member's bill. Therefore, I expected when I proposed the amendment it would pass in committee by a vote of 6 to 3 in favour, because that is how those members had previously voted on the very same provision in Bill C-279. However, at the last minute, one Conservative changed his vote and one member was substituted out of committee. Hence, my amendment was defeated 5 to 4.

This is why I placed my amendment on the order paper again and asked the Speaker to take the unusual step of allowing it to be put before the full House again. The Speaker ruled that my amendment did not meet the test set out in our rules, which would have allowed it to come before the House today as part of this debate.

The problem, of course, is not the Speaker's ruling. It is instead that the government, which always posed as neutral on the provisions of my private member's bill, has found a way of using a government bill to undo the decision that had already been taken in the House on Bill C-279 to provide protection against hate crimes to transgender Canadians. This shows a fundamental disrespect for the will of the majority as already expressed in the House. Therefore, when it comes to respecting the rights of transgender Canadians, it turns out the government is not as neutral as it was pretending to be. This perhaps explains what has happened to the same provision we could have been talking about today, over in the Senate in Bill C-279.

The second problem we have in achieving protection against hate crimes for transgender Canadians is, of course, the Senate. The bill has been before the Senate two different times. The first time was in the spring of 2011. It was approved by the House of Commons and sent to the Senate, which failed to act at all before the election was called. Therefore, that provision died before the Senate.

As I mentioned earlier, Bill C-279 passed the House of Commons on March 20, 2013, a year and a half ago. It has been in the Senate for a year and a half. I know they only meet three days a week, but there are still plenty of sitting days for them to deal with this. In fact, in 2013, it did pass second reading. In other words, it received approval in principle. Now we have the House of Commons saying that what we were supposed to be dealing with in the bill to be true and the Senate, in principle, agreeing. It was sent to the human rights committee, which held hearings and approved Bill C-279 without amendment and returned it to the full floor of the Senate, where a third reading and final vote was not called. The House prorogued and that bill started over.

Here again is where the supposed neutrality of the government on protecting transgender Canadians against hate crimes comes into question. The bill could have been expedited through the Senate, as it had already been through all the stages there. Even simpler, the bill could have been sent back to the human rights committee, and since it had already held hearings and dealt with the bill, it could have been returned quickly to the floor of the Senate. Instead, the government leadership in the Senate sent the bill to a different committee, the legal and constitutional affairs committee. This is an interesting choice. This not only meant that the committee would have to hold new hearings, but it is the busiest committee in the Senate, with the government's crime agenda. It means this committee will have to deal with bills like the one we have before us today, Bill C-13; Bill C-36, dealing with sex work; and Bill C-2, dealing with safe injection sites. It will have to deal with all of those before it ever gets to a private member's bill.

Again, the fig leaf of neutrality claimed by the government is looking a little withered, since decisions on where the bill is going and its timing are made by the government leadership in the Senate. It is beginning to look a lot like the government intends to let Bill C-279 die in the Senate once again.

The final obstacle to achieving protection for transgender Canadians against hate crimes, and I think the real reason gender identity was omitted from the new groups protected in the hate crimes section 12 of Bill C-13, is the failure to recognize not just the fundamental justice of providing equal rights to transgender Canadians, but the failure to recognize both the urgency and the inevitability of doing so.

Transgender Canadians remain the group most discriminated against in Canada. They remain the group most likely to be subject to hate crimes and most disturbingly, they remain the group most likely to be subject to violence when it comes to hate crimes. All transgender Canadians are looking for is the recognition of the same rights that other Canadians already enjoy. We are missing a chance here in Bill C-13 to provide equal protection against hate crimes to transgender Canadians.

There was a time when other Canadians did not enjoy the equality they do today. There were provisions in our law that seem incredible now. There was a time when Asian Canadians could not vote or practise the professions. There was a time when I, as a gay man, could have been jailed for my sexual orientation, fired from my job, or evicted from my housing. Now, fortunately, that time has passed.

I am disappointed, then, that we are missing a chance today to move forward to the time when we look back and cannot imagine that transgendered Canadians did not enjoy the same rights and protections as all other Canadians. I know that day will come, and I will continue to work to make sure it is sooner rather than later.

Time Allocation Motion

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on this question of privilege about closure.

I am rising at my first opportunity on this question of privilege, given that between the Speech from the Throne in October and when we adjourned June 20, there had been 21 occasions on which closure of debate occurred, and I maintain that the exercise of my rights and the rights of my colleagues in this place have been obstructed, undermined, and impeded by the unprecedented use of time allocations in the second session of the 41st Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, in presenting this fairly legal argument to you, I propose to leave out page numbers and citations because I have prepared a written version of this for your office and I hope that will be acceptable to you that I skip page numbers in this presentation. Hansard may not have the numbers of the debates, but I hope there is enough context so people can find them.

I belive this excessive use of what is often called “guillotine measures” is a violation of the rights of all members of Parliament, but I would like to stress that there is a disproportionate impact on members such as me who are within either smaller parties, that is less than 12 members, or who sit actually as independents, because in the roster of recognizing people in their speaker slot, quite often those of us in the smaller parties or independents simply never get to speak to the bills at all.

My question, Mr. Speaker, bears directly on what your predecessor said in this place on April 27, 2010. He said, “...the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions is an indisputable privilege and in fact an obligation.”

In the autumn of 2011, in a ruling concerning the member for Mount Royal, Mr. Speaker, you yourself said that to constitute a prima facie case in regard to matters of obstruction, interference, molestation or intimidation, you need to “...assess whether or not the member's ability to fulfill his parliamentary [activities] has been undermined.” At that moment in the same Debates, you had the occasion to reflect on “...the Chair's primordial concern for the preservation of the privileges of all members,...” and you added, “As your Speaker, one of my principal responsibilities is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded, and this is a responsibility I take very seriously.”

I now have occasion to turn to other words that will guide us in this matter. From the Supreme Court of Canada in the Vaid decision, in the words of Mr. Justice Binnie, speaking for the court, he outlined the scope of parliamentary responsibility and parliamentary privilege for the management of employees and said, “Parliamentary privilege is defined by the degree of autonomy necessary to perform Parliament’s constitutional function.” He went on to say at paragraph 41 of that Supreme Court of Canada judgment:

Similarly, Maingot defines privilege in part as “the necessary immunity that the law provides for Members of Parliament, and for Members of the legislatures of each of the ten provinces and two territories, in order for these legislators to do their legislative work”.

I would repeat and emphasize that, because although the Vaid decision was on a different fact set, Mr. Justice Binnie spoke to our core responsibility as parliamentarians when he said that we must be able, as legislators, to do our legislative work.

Mr. Justice Binnie continued in the Vaid decision to say:

To the question “necessary in relation to what?”, therefore, the answer is necessary to protect legislators in the discharge of their legislative and deliberative functions, and the legislative assembly’s work in holding the government to account for the conduct of the country’s business. To the same effect, see R. Marleau and C. Montpetit...where privilege is defined as “the rights and immunities that are deemed necessary for the House of Commons, as an institution, and its Members, as representatives of the electorate, to fulfill their functions”.

Mr. Justice Binnie went on to find further references in support of these principles from Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada.

These are fundamental points. The purpose of us being here as parliamentarians is to hold the government to account. It is obvious that no legislative assembly would be able to discharge its duties with efficiency or to assure its independence and dignity unless it had adequate powers to protect itself, its members, and its officials in the exercise of these functions.

Finally, Mr. Justice Binnie—again, for the court—said at paragraph 62, on the subject of parliamentary functions in ruling that some employees would be covered by privilege, that coverage existed only if a connection were established between the category of employees and the exercise by the House of its functions as a legislative and deliberative body, including its role in holding the government to account.

As I said earlier, this approach was supported by your immediate predecessor. In a December 10, 2009 ruling, the Speaker of the House, the Hon. Peter Milliken, said that one of his principal duties was to safeguard the rights and privileges of members, and of the House, including the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions, which is an indisputable privilege, and in fact an obligation.

It is therefore a fundamental principle of Westminster parliamentary democracy that the most important role of members of Parliament, and in fact a constitutional right and responsibility for us as members, is to hold the government to account.

The events in this House that we witnessed before we adjourned on June 20, 2014, clearly demonstrate that the House and its members have been deprived of fulfilling constitutional rights, our privilege, and our obligation to hold the government to account, because of the imposition of intemperate and unrestrained guillotine measures in reference to a number of bills. Over 21 times, closure has been used.

It is only in the interest of time that I am going to read out the numbers of the bills and not their full description. Bill C-2, Bill C-4, Bill C-6, Bill C-7, Bill C-13, Bill C-18, Bill C-20, Bill C-22, Bill C-23, Bill C-24, Bill C-25, Bill C-27, Bill C-31, Bill C-32, Bill C-33, and Bill C-36 were all instances where closure of debate was used.

In many of the instances I just read out, and in the written argument I have presented, closure of debate occurred at second reading, again at report stage, and again at third reading. The limitation of debate was extreme.

A close examination of the guillotine measures imposed by the government demonstrate that the citizens of Canada have been unable to have their elected representatives adequately debate the various and complex issues central to these bills in order to hold the government to account. Members of Parliament have been deprived and prevented from adequately debating these measures, through 21 separate motions for time allocation in this session alone. It undermines our ability to perform our parliamentary duties.

In particular, I want to again highlight the effect that the guillotine motions have on my ability as a representative of a smaller party, the Green Party. We do not have 12 seats in the House as yet, and as a result we are in the last roster to be recognized once all other parties have spoken numerous times. Quite often, there is not an opportunity for members in my position, nor for independent members of Parliament, to be able to properly represent our constituents.

Again, I should not have to repeat this. Certainly you, Mr. Speaker, are aware that in protecting our rights, as you must as Speaker, that in this place we are all equals, regardless of how large our parties are. As voters in Canada are all equal, so too do I, as a member of Parliament, have an equal right and responsibility to represent the concerns of my constituents in this place, which are equal to any other member in this place.

As speaking time that is allotted to members of small parties and independents is placed late in the debates, we quite often are not able to address these measures in the House. This would be fair if we always reached the point in the debate where independents were recognized, but that does not happen with closure of debates. My constituents are deprived of their right to have their concerns adequately voiced in the House.

Political parties are not even referenced in our Constitution, and I regard the excessive power of political parties over processes in this place, in general, to deprive constituents of equal representation in the House of Commons. However, under the circumstances, the additional closure on debate particularly disadvantages those constituents whose members of Parliament are not with one of the larger parties.

Mr. Speaker, in the autumn of 2011, in your ruling considering the member for Mount Royal and his question of privilege, you said that one of your responsibilities that you take very seriously is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded. The principal right of the House and its members, and their privilege, is to hold the government to account. In fact, it is an obligation, according to your immediate predecessor.

In order to hold the government to account, we require the ability and the freedom to speak in the House without being trammelled and without measures that undermine the member's ability to fulfill his or her parliamentary function. As a British joint committee report pointed out, without this protection, members would be handicapped in performing their parliamentary duty, and the authority of Parliament itself in confronting the executive and as a forum for expressing the anxieties of citizens would be correspondingly diminished.

To hold the government to account is the raison d'être of Parliament. It is not only a right and privilege of members and of this House, but a duty of Parliament and its members to hold the government to account for the conduct of the nation's business. Holding the government to account is the essence of why we are here. It is a constitutional function. In the words of the marketers, it is “job one”.

Our constitutional duty requires us to exercise our right and privilege, to study legislation, and to hold the government to account by means of raising a question of privilege. This privilege has been denied to us because of the consistent and immoderate use of the guillotine in regard to 21 instances of time allocation, in this session alone.

This use of time allocation, as you know, Mr. Speaker, is unprecedented in the history of Canada, and infringes on your duty as Speaker to protect our rights and privileges as members. As you have said many times, that is your responsibility and you take it very seriously. However, these closure motions undermine your role and your duty to protect us. Therefore, it diminishes the role of Speaker, as honoured from time immemorial.

In fact, you expressed it, Mr. Speaker, in debates in the autumn of 2011, at page 4396, when you had occasion to reflect on “the Chair's primordial concern for the preservation of the privileges of all members..”, and when you added, “As your Speaker, one of my principal responsibilities is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded, and this is a responsibility I take very seriously.”

Denying the members' rights and privileges to hold the government to account is an unacceptable and unparliamentary diminishment of both the raison d'être of Parliament and of the Speaker's function and role in protecting the privileges of all members of this House.

In conclusion, I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the intemperate and unrestrained use of time allocation by this government constitutes a prima facie breach of privilege of all members of this House, especially those who are independents or, such as myself, representatives of one of the parties with fewer than 12 members.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your consideration in this matter. I hope you will find in favour of this question of privilege, that this is a prima facie breach of the privileges and rights of all members.

Red Tape Reduction Act

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting the bill too because lots of the individuals and businesses in my riding complain about red tape. However, there are also groups that are not small businesses that have to cope with a lot of red tape issues.

For example, an organization in my riding called Ateliers bon débarras does social reintegration work with young people. They used to apply for funding from the skills link program every year. Now they have decided to stop applying because the red tape got to be overwhelming. It got too complicated. It was a very good program though.

Plenty of other community organizations do not always have the time to apply to programs because they do not have enough people to do it. Just like small businesses, many groups could benefit from this kind of bill.

We saw a great example of increased red tape recently. Bill C-2 on supervised injection sites uses red tape to make sure that this kind of service is not offered. It contains so many criteria that it will be impossible for anyone to create such a centre.

What does my colleague think of all this?

Respect for Communities Act

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 27, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the second reading stage of Bill C-2.

Call in the members.

The vote is on the motion.

The House resumed from June 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Bill C-32—Time Allocation Motion

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, to be clear, all parties will speak to this, and all parties have spoken to this. We have had five days dedicated to the debate so far.

Yesterday we used time allocation on Bill C-2, which had over 97 speakers and over 26 hours of debate. When I was minister of defence, we had a bill that had been presented over three successive Parliaments, and it had been debated endlessly.

The members of the NDP continue to put up speakers time after time, reading the same speech, using the same specious arguments, somehow to prevent the bill from becoming law. We are saying enough is enough.

There has been debate on this important issue. Some major consultations took place to put the bill before Parliament. Some 500 individuals and groups were given the opportunity, from every province and territory, to speak about the bill. Canadians have had a lot of input on the bill already, and they will have more opportunity at committee. It is time for the members of the NDP to put victims first.

Respect for Communities Act

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 27, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the second reading stage of Bill C-2. The question is on the previous question at the second reading stage of Bill C-2.

The House resumed from June 17 consideration of the motion that Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Drug-Free Prisons Act

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my colleagues for the sudden interest in what I was talking about. It is very kind of them.

I want to talk about the member's question, which pertains to the war on drugs. There is a way to do it and a dumb way to do it, which is to ignore the treatment part of it and just go after the traffickers and the people who buy the drugs. Yes, the penalties have to be stiff to act as a deterrent, and there is nothing wrong with that, but the treatment part of it is completely ignored.

The member brought up Bill C-2 earlier. Evidence proves that what happens at an injection site actually works. It is improving the situation. It is not perfect, but it certainly is working. The reduction of 35% in drug abuse in that area shows that treatment for harm reduction has positive effects, yet it seems we overlook this because we want to go after that headline to be tough on crime, which is unfortunate.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to what my colleague had to say a moment ago regarding the InSite project.

When reading Bill C-12—which seeks to address the drug problem in our prisons—I cannot help but compare it to Bill C-2, which was the subject of discussion just a few short hours ago.

I would like to ask my honourable colleague from the third party what he thinks about the war that the Conservatives are currently waging against all things drug-related. Does he think that their approach is working, or that they are way off track at this point?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have changed topics, but this is a sensitive issue as well. I am pleased to speak to Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, on behalf of the people of Sherbrooke. The short title of the bill is the Drug-Free Prisons Act. I am sure the members noticed how my tone changed as I read out the short title.

If only that were truly the case and this bill contained meaningful measures to tackle the issue of drugs in prisons. However, upon reading the bill, it is clear that the only part of the bill that talks about drug-free prisons is the title. Like my colleague from St. John's South—Mount Pearl said, it is just a flashy title that panders to a certain group of people that love the bill's title. In reality, this bill will do nothing to eliminate drugs in prisons.

I will explain in more detail why I say that there is no real substance behind that title.

We will support the bill at second reading. It is an interesting measure, even though it simply confirms that the Parole Board can take into account the fact that the offender tested positive in a urinalysis or refused to provide a urine sample for a drug test when deciding whether someone is eligible for parole. This is already a long-standing practice for parole assessments. The bill serves only to make it official by enshrining it in law.

I want to take a moment to say hello to everyone who works for Correctional Service of Canada in Sherbrooke. I had the chance to visit their wonderful King Street office about a year and half ago. I believe they manage all the parole cases in the Sherbrooke and Eastern Townships areas.

Passionate people work hard every day to ensure that our communities are safe and that people released from the federal correctional system are well equipped to resume their lives as honest, law-abiding citizens. These people help former federal inmates. I would like to acknowledge them today and congratulate them for the work they do and will continue to do every day.

In one sense, Bill C-12 goes in the right direction even though it does not do a lot. To really address the drug problems in federal prisons, many things should have been done, including investing in the resources required for the rehabilitation of inmates. All this bill does is enshrine in law what is already being done in practice.

The NDP has always supported measures to make our prisons safer, whereas the Conservative government continues to ignore the recommendations of correctional staff and the Correctional Investigator of Canada, which would reduce violence, gang activity and drug use in our prisons.

Several measures were proposed and were discussed by experts and the people who work in this area every day. However, they were not included in the bill. Why? The Conservatives will have to tell us. I hope that one of my government colleagues will rise in the next few minutes to defend Bill C-12. As we know, the Conservatives have missed 145 speaking slots. That is their choice. They asked to extend sitting hours to midnight, but they do not seem interested in the debates in the House, except when they ask some questions now and again. Otherwise, parliamentary debates do not seem to be a priority for the government or for the members of the second opposition party.

I am pleased to participate in the debate, but I am sad that it is a one-sided one. The NDP is the only party participating. It is too bad that they claim to want to work, but all they do is listen. I hope that they will ask some questions. There seems to be a sudden interest from members on the other side of the House, so it will be interesting to debate the bill.

This bill addresses drug use in prison. The government is using this bill to kowtow to the wishes of its voter base, without proposing any real solutions to the drug and gang problems in prisons.

I said something similar in my speech on Bill C-2: the government is using Parliament for partisan purposes. This bill is called the Drug-Free Prisons Act, but it does nothing to eradicate drugs in prison, because all the bill does is confirm a practice already established by the Parole Board of Canada. It is easy for the Conservatives to write an email saying that they will eradicate drugs in prison and that people should support them by sending money. That is how the Conservatives work. That is what they did with Bill C-2 and that is what they are doing with Bill C-12. It is funny that they have not yet sent out an email. I subscribe to my adversaries' email lists to see what they have to say.

They sent out an email just a few hours after Bill C-2 came out. However, I do not remember seeing anything on Bill C-12. Perhaps the Conservatives will correct me and say that they use these emails for political purposes to raise funds. I hope that they will confirm that later on. It appears as though they are using the bills before Parliament to raise funds.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in another speech, the legislator should not act in such a politically motivated way. The legislator should act responsibly instead of just reacting by way of a bill to the news of the day published in the newspapers. The legislator should conduct comprehensive studies before tackling such complex problems.

As I already said, several provisions could have been included in the bill, but they were not. It is a window dressing bill. On the other hand, let us hope that the work done in committee will allow us to improve the bill by adding some beneficial measures to it. It will be up to the members of the committee to do that. I am not a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, but I am sure that the Conservatives will act in good faith in order to improve the bill and try to turn it into something that will really eradicate drugs in prisons. It is certainly not the case with the present version of the bill, and I am not just making that up tonight.

Various experts in the field have said so. They recognize that, in the end, the title is nice, but the practice was in fact already in place. The bill just confirms it by making it a little clearer and more precise than in the current law.

It will be a pleasure for me to debate the issue with my colleagues across the way.

Respect for Communities Act

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise this evening in this quiet chamber where only New Democrats seem to want to talk about how to make a better future for Canada and Canadians.

I am talking tonight about the misguided Bill C-2, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. We are at second reading in the legislative process, but it is certainly early enough to say an unqualified no to this proposed piece of legislation.

It comes to us, into this chamber, in response to the 2011 Supreme Court decision that concluded that the Minister of Health's refusal to grant an extension to InSite's exemption under that act was:

...arbitrary, undermining the very purposes of the [Controlled Drugs and Substances Act], which include public health and safety.

Here we have Bill C-2. It is typical legislation from the government in a number of respects. First and foremost, it reflects a government unable to deal with, and unwilling to acknowledge, the complexities of real life. Consequently, it is a government unfit to govern.

It is a government that provides ample evidence of this to us every day, as with Bill C-36, the government's response to the Supreme Court's Bedford ruling, and the monkeying about with judicial appointments in response to the Supreme Court's Nadon ruling. This is a government that does not take advice from, but responds with infantile defiance to, that body in our system of government that is the guardian of basic rights and freedoms for Canadians.

However, there are constraints on its conduct, thankfully. In this particular circumstance, the Supreme Court was clear on the constraints the government had to work within. It was section 7 of the charter in this case. To quote the court on this decision specifically:

...the Minister must exercise discretion within the constraints imposed by the law and the Charter, aiming to strike the appropriate balance between achieving public health and public safety. In accordance with the Charter, the Minister must consider whether denying an exemption would cause deprivations of life and security of the person that are not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

There we have it. No clearer an articulation can be imagined, I do not think.

Now, in defiance of that clear statement, we have a bill that will require InSite to reapply for an exemption, but under the new proposed prejudicial criteria, criteria that make no effort to hide the anti-safe injection site animus.

Under this bill:

The Minister may only grant an exemption for a medical purpose under subsection (2) to allow certain activities to take place at a supervised consumption site in exceptional circumstances and after having considered the following principles:

(a) illicit substances may have serious health effects;

(b) adulterated controlled substances may pose health risks;

(c) the risks of overdose are inherent to the use of certain illicit substances;

and so on and so on.

However, nowhere do we find, along with those principles, anything that even remotely resembles the findings of the Supreme Court in its decision, in which they said:

InSite has been proven to save lives with no discernible negative impact on the public safety and health objectives of Canada.

How does this bill make any effort on the mountain of evidence that has accumulated in support of injection sites, and InSite in particular, as mechanisms for finding a balance between public health and public safety?

The Supreme Court, in its decision, turned its mind to all the facts, to the studies that demonstrate the beneficial impacts of InSite and other like sites around the world. The evidence in favour of safe injection sites is overwhelming. Thirty peer-reviewed studies in deeply respected medical journals, the names of which we all know in this House, are dealing with InSite itself. The studies are supported by findings confirmed by research on the other 70 safe injection sites around the world.

What the studies show, and what the Supreme Court had before it for consideration, was the following: between 1987 and 1993, which is pre-InSite, the rate of overdose deaths in Vancouver increased from 16 to 200 per year. Since InSite opened, the rate of overdose deaths in East Vancouver has dropped by 35%.

One study showed that over a one-year period, there were 273 overdoses, but not a single life was lost. Over a one-year period, 2,171 referrals were made to InSite users to addiction counselling or other support services.

Finally, studies found that those who used InSite services at least once a week were 1.7 times more likely to enrol in a detox program than those who visited infrequently.

There are more studies, but let me point to one more important finding. There was a significant drop in the number of discarded syringes, injection-related litter, and people injecting on the streets one year after InSite opened.

I raise this issue not just because I know it is a particularly compelling finding for parents like me, but also because it stands in complete contradiction to the Conservatives' anti-InSite sloganeering, “Keep heroin out of our backyards”. They call on Canadians to support the bill in order to keep “heroin out of our backyards” as though, by abolishing the safe injection site, they will also abolish heroin, as though it will just disappear somehow, as though it was not there before InSite, as though it would not return if we abolish InSite.

This is ideology in the most pejorative sense of the word, a believe that is held tight, not just in ignorance of the facts but in fact in contravention of all outstanding evidence, evidence that is before the Conservatives in plain site that one cannot miss, that the Supreme Court examined in the process of arriving at its decision. Even beyond that, it is the belief that is fundamentally illogical and irrational. This, being prepared to govern a country this way, is why the Conservatives are unfit to govern.

Governing is not some blue sky project where reality changes just because we wish it is different, where heroin disappears because we close safe injection sites, where addictions go away because we do not have harm reduction programs, or climate change does not happen because we silence scientists, empty the libraries and discard the research. It is not as though the charter disappears because the Conservatives can force legislation in contravention of it through this place.

This should properly be the role of government, not to be receiving applications as though we lived in a country without section 7 charter rights, as though the issue of harm reduction was not otherwise a matter of active government concern.

For these reasons, I stand against Bill C-2.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today in the House to speak to Bill C-2, which has been known under different names in the past. This is not the first time that we have heard speeches on this issue, but they are informative in many ways.

First, I must say that I am disappointed. When they talk about the northern gateway pipeline, for example, the Minister of Natural Resources and Conservative members say that we must rely on science and studies.

Actually, this bill is a very telling example of this. The InSite safe injection site is supported by the scientific and medical community as a whole. All of the studies have shown that this site has had a very positive impact on the community and on people who want to escape the hell of drug use. It is the most effective approach. In fact, it is even more effective than the hard line, a position that has been favoured by the various levels of government since Confederation. The facts are there and they have been mentioned many times by the members who spoke on this issue.

However, the government ignores these facts and takes a position that many speakers and experts who have studied this issue described as being dogmatic and ideological.

The InSite experiment, which is a success, has played out not only in Canada, but also in Europe and the United States. This experiment clearly shows that the best way to help people in distress who are trapped in a vicious cycle of drug use and addiction is to provide opportunities for them to get the support they need.

There is another paradox here. In the abortion rights debate, I am pro-choice. I have noticed that, in the speeches I have been hearing for a while, the members who consider themselves to be pro-life on the abortion issue—or what I would call anti-choice—are the same ones who oppose this bill or who support the bill but are against supervised injection sites.

The thing is, these sites save lives. Studies have made that clear. InSite itself has been a determining factor in reducing overdoses by about 35%. Many lives have been saved immediately following drug use. I am not even talking about lives saved by rehabilitation, by helping people get back on track and conquer their addiction.

The question the Conservatives keep asking is not about community consent. They ask us questions because there are not a lot of arguments on their side to justify this bill and all of their barriers to setting up supervised injection sites. The Conservatives' question would be much more relevant and appropriate if they had not already launched a campaign to convince communities that they do not want heroin in their backyards and to sow panic and fear.

This bill creates so many bureaucratic obstacles to setting up supervised injection sites that can help communities that any organization wanting to help its community in this way will find the process very discouraging from the start. The Conservatives talk about consultations, but what they really want to do is base their campaign on emotional arguments instead of facts, statistics, and the opinions of specialists and medical experts.

I will list the bureaucratic barriers this bill would create for the establishment of safe injection sites. Applicants must meet the following criteria in order for their application for an exemption to be considered: scientific evidence demonstrating a medical benefit; a letter from the provincial or territorial minister responsible for public health and safety, municipal councils, local chiefs of police and senior public health officials.

As well, they will have to provide information about infectious diseases and overdoses related to the use of illicit substances; a description of the drug treatment services available at that point; a description of the potential impact of the site on public safety; a description of all the procedures and measures, including measures that will be taken to minimize the diversion of controlled substances; relevant information, including trends, on loitering in a public place that may be related to drugs, drug trafficking and crime in the vicinity of the site at the time of the application; and a report of the consultations held with a broad range of community groups from the municipality, including copies of all written submissions received and a description of the steps that will be taken to address any relevant concerns.

Any group wishing to set up a safe injection site similar to InSite to help the community and those caught up in the spiral of drug use will have to provide all that information, and more.

Does this approach comply with the Supreme Court ruling and the instructions given in its 2011 ruling? Certainly not. That is why we are wondering whether the Conservatives are attempting once again to provoke another Supreme Court refusal. This will eventually pay off because their base likes confrontations with the Supreme Court.

The Conservatives believe that elected members make the laws, prepare legislation and should vote on it, and that the Supreme Court should not interfere. However, the court's role is to ensure that the rights and freedoms of Canadians are upheld, and it uses the charter to that end.

Since Bill C-2, which is supposedly a response to the Supreme Court ruling, is more like an attempt to skirt the spirit of the decision, this leads us to believe that it is a Conservative dogmatic and ideological process that seeks to please their electoral base and fund their election campaign, since the Conservatives have used this issue before to raise money.

The gun registry is no longer an issue. From an election perspective, that was their cash cow. Now, they need to find other issues. They dreamt up this issue so they could go out and raise funds from their base.

That is deplorable because it is an extremely sensitive and important issue for our communities. Our main critic on this matter is the member for Vancouver East and she is aware of this. I had the opportunity to work for an organization with offices in British Columbia, in the Gastown district, which is very close to Vancouver East.

I had the opportunity to go for a walk in the neighbourhood, which is not where InSite is located, but is in the community it serves. I can say that this initiative is doing a lot of good. This has been proven by the people who studied how the clinic operates and its results, and I also saw the good it is doing in the community because there is support.

Drug addicts who want to get rid of their addiction do not feel abandoned or ignored. They do not feel that people just walk by without paying attention to them. They see people reaching out to them. There is immediate help for those who are still addicted and help for those who want to find a way out. It is the best way to connect with them.

For social and street workers who wish to help those who are at the end of their rope, it is much more difficult to go into the streets randomly than to provide information at a supervised site that is managed in the most medically competent way possible. It is much easier to do the work, and that is the reason why the whole medical and social work community is in favour of such initiatives.

Therefore, I have a hard time figuring out why the Conservatives persist in putting up more barriers to the use of this risk and harm reduction method. Unfortunately, I can see nothing but electoral, political and ideological reasons, and I am really sorry to see that.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-2, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.