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.

Respect for Communities Act

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to extend to you, to all my colleagues and to my constituents in the riding of LaSalle—Émard my best wishes for health, happiness and solidarity in the new year.

Before turning my attention to the proposed legislation to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which the Conservatives have dubbed the Respect for Communities Act, I would like to quote a firsthand account recently published in the Globe and Mail:

As I watch the daily circus and the madness surrounding Mayor Rob Ford, I envy the people of Toronto, who get to watch this on television, read it in the newspaper and listen to it on the radio. They quack about it on Facebook and laugh about it on their daily travels. I envy them because they can change the channel, stop talking about it or turn it off. In my life this is not an option.

My daughter is 23 and she has been an addict, in one form or another, for seven years.

She has snorted drugs, shot them in her arm, smoked them and taken pills. She has had her own version of the “drunken stupor,” and she has even been found with vital signs absent by paramedics.

Contrasted to this is the very bizarre fact that our daughter is also a university student who pulls A grades in every subject. What she desperately wants is to be well.

The family, if the addict still has a family intact, is swallowed whole and suffers immeasurably.

On reading this account, I feel compassion for this mother who goes through this tragedy every day, a tragedy that affects the entire family, even though I cannot fully comprehend this family’s suffering or the suffering of an individual addicted to hard drugs.

Compassion is a value Canadians hold dear. We live in a country with a harsh climate, as today’s weather attests. The population is spread over a vast area. Communities have always survived by helping each other through difficult situations. Similarly, Europeans shared with and forged mutually beneficial ties with First Nations.

Canada therefore became a country in which communities forged close ties with one another. I am fortunate to represent the closely knit community of LaSalle—Émard, where a wide range of community groups and volunteer associations never ask whether they should assist those in need or why they need help. They simply roll up their sleeves and extend a helping hand.

Addiction to hard drugs is a complex problem, as my colleagues noted earlier. In Vancouver an innovative approach was developed to help hard drug addicts.

This innovative approach helps persons struggling with hard drug addictions by providing them with a safe place where they can survive. Addicts are given a helping hand and directed to services that hopefully will help them overcome an addiction that slowly kills them.

InSite also has associated benefits, so to speak. By providing drug users with a safe injection site, this service also keeps the neighbouring community safer. As was pointed out, public places are kept free of drug addicts and their syringes. This also helps provide the health care that is so important to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and to give people the help they need.

The current bill would amend the legislation that regulates certain drugs and other substances, but primarily it would affect the way in which supervised injection facilities can be set up. First there was the non-renewal of InSite’s licence, and then there was the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada on the matter. What happened? The government decided to challenge the Supreme Court ruling and then to comply with it, more or less, by introducing this bill.

This decision and the proposed policy in Bill C-2 garnered a variety of responses. I will mention a few, as follows:

It's difficult to imagine a more cynical and dangerous response to a unanimous Supreme Court ruling that Ottawa has a constitutional duty to protect Canadians than the...government's Respect for Communities Act announced Thursday.

They say that the government, through Bill C-2, also called the “Respect for Communities Act”, is providing a very cynical and dangerous response. The government must protect all of its citizens. What is even more dangerous is the partisan way in which the current government has exploited such a situation. I will continue with the quotation:

As [the former] Health Minister...was holding a press conference to announce details of the act that sets conditions for new safe injection sites, the Conservative party was emailing its faithful to organize opposition to such facilities.

How can the Conservatives be so partisan when it comes to a safe site that—hopefully—helps improve the health of people who are addicted to hard drugs?

How can they be so cavalier in opposing a unanimous Supreme Court ruling and propose insurmountable barriers that will allow the federal health minister to strike down any initiatives that could improve the lives of people who need them so badly? This is why the NDP will vote against Bill C-2 as it currently stands. We should show compassion and extend a helping hand to these people.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we find ourselves debating Bill C-2, a bill that has been given a pet name by the Conservative government that really does not speak to what the bill is about.

I would like to start off with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. who once said:

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

I would like to ask each member in this House a question. How many people in this House have actually met and spoken with drug addicts? How many people have been witness to neighbourhoods affected by drug addiction and poverty? How many people would prefer to steer away from these areas? These are pertinent questions to put to the House today.

I remember vividly when I was living on the west coast. I would take weekend visits to Vancouver to visit friends in the Strathcona neighbourhood. I remember walking down streets like Hastings and Cordova during the winter of 1995 and seeing people huddled on doorsteps, people who might have been dead. The rate of overdoses that winter was horrible. One could walk the streets and literally see people dying on the streets. It was devastating.

In the media at the time, figures such as drug enforcement staff sergeant Jack Dop could see the problems that were hitting the streets in Vancouver. They were saying that we had to do something about it. They could see how this scourge was affecting the community, because it was not controlled. It was uncontrolled.

I should point out that at the time, in 1995, the Chrétien regime had instituted cutbacks and a reorganization of Transport Canada that affected the coast guard and ports. It might have been a coincidence that shipments of heroin from Asia increased at our ports during that time of reorganization and cutbacks. It might have been a coincidence, or it might have been related. That is for the House to decide.

This is a complex issue. We know that drugs exist in our communities, that people use drugs. As responsible legislators, we have to respond to this problem in a responsible manner.

I asked before if anyone in this House has known a drug addict. I asked that question because I have known a drug addict. I knew a guy named Johnny. He stayed with us in Victoria for a couple of months. He was a tree planter. He was a very hard worker, and he was a recovering heroin addict. He had been clean for four or five months, and he had been planting trees in the interior of British Columbia. He worked hard. He was a funny guy and a nice guy. He could play a mean guitar and cook a great meal. We had lots of laughs with Johnny. He was a nice guy, a human being.

Now at the time I met John in 1994, we were living in a poor neighbourhood. It was the North Park neighbourhood in Victoria. It was a pretty rough-and-tumble, poor neighbourhood. It attracted all types of people: students, artists, and coincidentally, drug addicts.

I know that John eventually went back to using, and I lost track of him. He got swallowed up by drugs. He ended up back on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. I do not know what happened to him. I do wonder if during that winter of 1995 John was one of those people on the doorsteps who had overdosed and died because there was pure heroin and there was no one there to take care of them.

This is a human story. This was a good guy with a bad habit. There are a lot of good people out there who have bad habits, and they need our help. They need us to stand up for them. That is why we need places like InSite.

Ten years later, when I was doing my graduate studies at UBC, I worked with communities in the Downtown Eastside, primarily in the child care community. I talked to people in that community. They said that their fear was needles in parks and needles found in child care centres. InSite was responding to things like that. InSite was keeping these neighbourhoods safe, because it was centralizing the problem, and it was controlled.

This legislation would promote unsupervised drug consumption sites. They do exist. There are flophouses in communities. They pass under the radar because they are not official. They are drug dens. They could be anywhere in our communities and could pop up anywhere.

InSite creates a centre that is legitimate, controlled, and visible in the community, rather than unsupervised drug consumption sites, which I would contend the government is promoting by trying to make it more difficult for supervised ones to open.

“Keep heroin out of our backyards” is the slogan of Conservative national campaign manager Jenni Byrne. She thinks it is pretty clever. I do not think it is clever. I think it is irresponsible policy on the part of the government to make it more difficult for supervised injection sites to open.

I do not think the bill would eradicate heroin from people's backyards. If we do not have supervised drug sites, we would have unsupervised ones, which I think could be more chaotic, dangerous and have greater criminal elements attached to them. Since they are not controlled or supervised, those criminal elements could flourish.

We need a responsible way to frame these afflicted communities and to help them.

The current government often talks about safe streets and communities. I think InSite contributes to safe streets and communities. As I said, maybe my friend John was one of those who overdosed. If he had been able to go to InSite, then maybe when he had a reaction the people supervising him could have seen that and contacted medical authorities to help him out.

In terms of needles in parks and schoolyards, at least when people are injecting on those sites the needles are taken care of. They are not discarded next to a swing set at a child care centre or in a public park. It is controlled. It is supervised. That is the whole idea around it.

When something like InSite is created, it is a community coming together to say they have to find a solution to this problem. We have addicts in our communities and they need help. They need medical help. They might need psychological help. They might need clean works. A place like InSite provides that. It is a step in a community's deciding to better its environment, not worsen it.

I think this policy is playing a lot on people's fears. They are people who have never met drug addicts and are afraid to talk with people with these problems. As a society we all have to work together to solve these problems. We have to talk to drug addicts. We have to work with them. We have to create points of contact with these people. Otherwise, it goes under the radar and we end up with unsupervised flophouses and drug dens. The criminal element is allowed to flourish because we do not want to deal with it.

By creating places like InSite, we have a point of contact where we start to deal with these problems and with complex questions like the hon. member from the interior of British Columbia asked about. It was a good and pertinent question. However, if we back up and move away from places like InSite, I do not think we are going to ask those important questions complex questions about drug addiction and drug importation in this country.

Through InSite, we can start to discuss these questions. This legislation has offered a chance to debate this issue, and I look forward to questions from my colleagues on the other side concerning this. I do not think we can put on blinders and say that hard drug use in our society is going to go away if we do not do anything about it. Nobody wants a flophouse or a drug den or a crack house next to their house. If you ask anybody in Canada, they would not want that.

InSite creates a community point of contact where these people can get help, be supervised, and where they can be kept healthy. It is a good positive step in the right direction. There is always room for improvement, but we have to start somewhere.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague and caucus mate for bringing forward some additional points on the ideology that underpins the bill. I spoke to it before the recess.

One of the things I find most distressing about Bill C-2 is that it is a disguised attempt to bring in, by stealth, measures that would defeat the purpose the Supreme Court of Canada threw back to Parliament to meet, which was to ensure that the security of the person is protected.

There are more than 40 different so-called conditions before a clinic for harm reduction can be opened in a community, including some that are practically impossible. For example, before they are even able to get permission to open such a clinic, they have to provide the background, resumé, and educational qualifications of the people they plan to hire. This is not a reasonable set of conditions.

I certainly have a lot of sympathy with the idea that a community where an InSite harm reduction, needle exchange program facility would open, such as the one that exists in Vancouver, should be consulted. My view is that Bill C-2 is not a set of conditions for consulting a community. It is a set of conditions for defeating the instructions of the Supreme Court of Canada by stealth.

I wonder how the hon. member feels a community should be engaged in these decisions.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to be back in the House today, after the recess, not only as the newest member of the Green caucus of Parliament but also, as of today, as the deputy leader of that party.

As we know, we are here to talk about Bill C-2, an Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

It is clear to me, and I believe to at least three-quarters of Canadians, that the party across the way is of the mindset that if a person is poor, or a single mom, or a person of colour, or unemployed, or if the government has unfairly cut off EI, that is that person's fault. That also extends to addictions. If someone is in the unfortunate position of becoming addicted to a substance, all too often caused by the sorts of things I just mentioned, it is entirely his or her fault. Society and the government are not to blame.

We have a government with a punishment attitude. Empathy is often lacking. Understanding of the root causes is often lacking. For those who fall into that class of society and who the government feels are, pardon the expression, "losers", it is their fault.

I do not think I can do better than to read some of the recommendations of the Canadian Nurses Association on why Bill C-2 is a bad idea. They state:

The federal government has the opportunity to create policy founded on the best scientific evidence, while reducing costs to taxpayers, supporting vulnerable members of society, providing essential disease-prevention services and encouraging access to addiction-treatment.

Given the numerous benefits of [safe injection sites] to public health and safety...

If I may interject, the Supreme Court has indicated that it agrees with the nurses on this.

...the [Canadian Nurses Association] recommends

1. that the proposed legislation governing Section 56 amendments to CDSA be withdrawn; and

2. that it be replaced by legislation that creates favourable conditions for the minister to grant exemptions in communities where evidence indicates that [a safe injection site] stands to decrease death and disease.

The legislation must

- recognize access to health services as a human right for vulnerable groups;

- be based on the principles of harm reduction;

It should not cause more harm. It goes on:

- be founded on evidence-based practices in public health;

- be developed in consultation with relevant stakeholders, including people who use injection drugs;

- consider the cost-savings benefits of [safe injection sites] to the Canadian health-care system; and

- provide for reasonable establishment and evaluation periods prior to renewal.

In addition, [the Canadian Nurses Association] recommends that harm reduction be reinstated as a fourth pillar in Canada’s National Anti-Drug Strategy. [The Canadian Nurses Association] recommends that the auditor general review Canada’s National Anti-Drug Strategy every [decade]. Doing so will not only ensure that the strategy is modified if it is not meeting public health objectives, it will also allow the strategy to integrate recent, effective, evidence-based public health interventions.

We have heard it said on many issues in this House, such as the environment, Statistics Canada, and now this, that Canada needs to have policies based on evidence and science. Today we have legislation, like this, based on an ideology that if one is rich and powerful, one is a winner. The government picks winners. If a person is a loser, it is his or her fault.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am just going to pick up from where my colleague left off with his answer to a question about the perceived ideas of what a safe injection site is. My colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley talked about getting access to the addicts as being one of the most difficult things for people working in health care, for people working with folks on the street and for people who are trying to reach out to addicts and help them, whether to access health care or addiction services or housing. How do we actually find the addicts? How do we get to them so we can give them the supports they need?

That is very true in my home community in Halifax. We have this incredible program right now called MOSH, which stands for mobile outreach street health. It is a van with nurses that goes around to where people are. They go to homeless shelters, under bridges and to fields. They go with the van to where they know homeless people are and try to access them and give them some very basic, rough medical attention, and maybe talk to them about the next step. They may talk to them about treatment; there is a doctor down at the North End Community Health Centre. They may talk to them about housing and ask if they know how to access housing. They might connect them to Halifax Housing Help or to Direction 180, which is our methadone clinic in Halifax. Actually having access to people with addictions is a great thing because we can give them the supports they need. We need access to people who are looking to deal with their addiction or become housed or get the health care they need, and safe injection sites are a way to access people with addictions.

My colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley cited some great statistics about how safe injection sites work, such as InSite in particular, and how people who want support—not everyone—can actually get addiction counselling and can transition to a healthier life where they tackle their addictions. That is something we should be doing as a country and as Canadians. We should be helping. We should be thinking about ways to actually help people with addictions instead of just further marginalizing them and making it harder for them.

So why are we here talking about Bill C-2? We are here because, in 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that InSite saves lives, that it offers life-saving services and therefore should be exempt from section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the CDSA. I really think judicial decisions are separate from who we are as legislators, but I read that decision and think it was a victory for evidence-based science over ideology. That was 2011. Here we are now at the beginning of 2014 and, unfortunately, I am standing here debating a bill that is a return of that ideology, and it makes me quite sad that we are actually moving backwards.

This bill is deeply flawed, and it is based on an anti-drug ideology and on fears about public safety that are not necessarily rooted in evidence. The fears are not necessarily real. They are false fears.

What are these fears? My colleague from Guelph was talking about some of these false fears: people think there are raging addicts going around our communities, who get to go into these posh sites and put their feet up and access drugs, and it is like one-stop shopping for addicts; people think that if there is a safe injection site there will be increased drug use; people think there will be more drug users on the street. When I say “people” I do not mean all people, but those are the false fears that exist. They are false fears that drug users are going to terrorize our children and our communities.

Why do I say these false fears are out there? It is because on the Conservative Party website we see that the Conservatives are trying to capitalize on these fears. There is this beautiful page, and I say “beautiful” with a heavy dose of sarcasm. It says, “Keep heroin out of our backyards”. It is a fundraising request. People can sign up, and the big donate button is there to donate to the Conservative Party of Canada. There is a picture of a couple of needles on the ground and people milling around. They are not people in fancy dress shoes or high-heeled shoes. It is apparent that these are the shoes of drug dealers; again there is a heavy dose of sarcasm there.

It is incredible; it is fearmongering. There is a Facebook site that goes with it. If members have some time and they want to get themselves quite exercised about what state the country is in, they should read those comments. They are comments filled with vitriol and more fearmongering. It is incredible. I pulled one comment that said, “Addiction is not a health problem. Addiction...is stupidity”. The vitriol extends bizarrely into saying the civil service should be gagged and put on the EI line. I do not really know where that comes from, but it is out there. That fearmongering is being fueled by the Conservatives.

People may say they do not want a safe injection site in their backyards, but I am going to talk about my backyard in Halifax. My office is on Gottingen Street. Gottingen is a beautiful, strong, vibrant street full of community action and community togetherness. I love the street my office is on, but Gottingen Street has its share of social problems. It is a historically poor neighbourhood. There is drug use and sex work in my community. There is a lot of poverty in this community.

The last time this legislation was up in the House I spoke to it as well. The week before was a riding week and MPs were at home in our constituencies. Just purely by chance that it happened that week, I rode my bike to my office and right on the ground by my bike lock was a needle. I dutifully went inside, got something to pick it up with and took it three doors down to the community heath centre, which has a sharps bin. That is the reality of my community. If my community decides it is better to have a safe injection site, then why can my community not make that decision free of interference and fearmongering from the Conservatives?

I was chatting with some folks from the Metro Non-Profit Housing Association, which is located across the street from my office. I did not know this, but they told me that it and other community organizations had rallied together to put a sharps container on a street behind my office where there is not a lot of back and forth traffic nor a lot of people, so it turns out to be a place where people do use intravenous drugs. Bushes provide privacy. It is ideal if someone is looking for a place to do something outside the eyes of the public. The association rallied together and said it would put a sharps container behind these buildings because there is so much drug use. At the very least, kids would not be walking around in the midst of needles and having an accident.

At first I thought that was a great idea. If there are needles, then let us give people a place to put those needles. Then I found out that people were breaking into the sharps container to steal dirty needles. What kind of desperation must one feel to break into a sharps container to steal dirty needles? What kind of low is that individual at? Where is that individual who thinks that is a good idea and acts on it? Where is that individual when he or she acts on that, when that is the reality?

That is not an awesome thing about my town, but it is real, it exists and it is not going to go away if we just ignore it and do not talk about it. My community says enough is enough. It does not want sharps containers in the café down the street anymore. It does not want sharps containers in all of the community organizations along Gottingen Street. We do not want people shooting up behind the office or behind the health centre. We want to take care of people and offer them the supports they may need. We want to help them if they want to transition away from addiction. Who is to say that we cannot do that?

I will finish with a quote from the Supreme Court of Canada. “Insite saves lives. Its benefits have been proven.” That speaks volumes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my comments on Bill C-2, I would like to welcome you and all my colleagues back to the House of Commons from the weeks we had with our constituents and families. I hope everyone had an informative and restful time away from the House, because the debate about the future of the country begins again.

One always hopes, coming out of a time when politicians are separated by great distances and surrounded by friends and family, that we would return to find a new spirit from the government, a spirit in which we could start to renew and rebuild Canada and perhaps find some common ground in order to make our country a better place, which I believe we all begin our political careers hoping for.

Unfortunately, after a very productive debate we just had on a democratic motion from one of the New Democratic members about e-petitions and restoring and enhancing democracy in our Parliament, for which we hope to see some Conservative support, we now move over to an incredibly offensive piece of legislation. This is the first one the Conservatives felt they needed to call. They often have trouble naming their pieces of legislation accurately. We have seen them time and time again borrow from the worst aspects of our neighbours in the south, particularly the Republican Party, which uses the naming of bills to inappropriately stir up feelings and emotions within the public and inaccurately reflect what is actually being proposed in the legislation. We have that here with Bill C-2. An appropriate name for the bill would be “Bill C-2, shutting down InSite”. This is essentially what the bill is meant to do.

For those who are not familiar with InSite, it has become something that the Conservatives constantly and almost vehemently oppose. It is a program run out of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, one of the most troubled communities in the entire country but also one of our most resilient communities. I spent some time working with people who have been positively affected by InSite, a program started a number of years ago in the nineties. It is a safe injection site and the only safe injection site in Canada.

I know some of my Conservative colleagues who choose ignorance over the facts will use this as some sort of culture war rallying cry, raising money and potentially securing votes by misinforming the people they represent. However, they cannot misinform themselves during the course of this debate, because the facts sit before us. They can choose to have their own opinions, but they cannot choose to have their own facts. What we see in this piece of legislation directly goes against science. It goes against the facts of the matter and the principles that we, at least in the New Democratic Party, think are important. Therefore, I am disappointed that this legislation continues to receive support from the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party. I am not surprised, unfortunately.

However, I am also encouraged because it allows us to talk about such important things as public safety and the health of Canadians. InSite was at the time, and remains, a cutting-edge program, a bold initiative to try to tackle a problem that has been plaguing a community for many years. It is one that has received support, at least in British Columbia and Vancouver, from both ends of the political spectrum. Very conservative mayors and more progressive mayors, like Mayor Robertson, have supported this initiative over the years. It forms one pillar of the four-pillar approach in Vancouver, which has taken on a challenge.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, being from Windsor and having spent some time in Toronto and other Canadian cities, within some of our neighbourhoods there can be a cycle in which crime leads to more crime, open drug use leads to more open drug use, and people stop fighting for their neighbourhoods. They leave. The people we want to move into the community will not do so because they do not feel safe, and communities spin almost out of control. The police are unable to regain a certain amount of public security, and the community ends up looking like one of those communities we fear.

Perhaps there are better examples across the border from your home, Mr. Speaker, in Detroit, where because of economics and social malaise, entire neighbourhoods are essentially being bulldozed because no one wants to live there.

It costs communities not only the hardship, but many millions and billions of dollars in the end. The Downtown Eastside has seen a renewal and revitalization owing not just in part to InSite and the good work the people there do, but also because of many programs that progressive governments have brought to bear in dealing with issues like housing. The Conservative government would perhaps take note that housing is one of the most affordable and most essential components. The renewal has not been complete, but there is certainly an incredible difference from even 15 years ago when I spent some time working in the Downtown Eastside. It is quite amazing.

Let us deal with the bill, because in Bill C-2 the government has found a new love for public consultation and community input. I look to my colleagues to see if they can think of anything else the government has ever done on which the public's opinion has actually mattered. Those of us dealing with the pipeline politics in northern B.C. and the Enbridge northern gateway would love to hear the Conservative government suddenly have some feeling and concern for the opinion of the public.

For those dealing in the Toronto waterfront, such as my friend from Trinity—Spadina, to hear that the Conservative government actually cares what the public thinks would be remarkable. Right across the country we have seen the government time and time again simply invoke measures, as happened when the Prime Minister changed the age of retirement from 65 to 67. I do not remember that he consulted with Canadians and asked for their opinion, but suddenly, when it comes to a safe injection site, the Conservatives ideologically oppose it. Their opposition is not based on any facts or evidence, even though Conservatives say from time to time they have a new-found love for science.

We asked them to help review with us the 30 peer-reviewed articles and medical journals that have studied the effectiveness of InSite. InSite is supported by the Police Association, by the Chiefs of Police, by the Nurses Association, and by the Canadian Medical Association. These must be some of those foreign-funded radical groups the Conservatives are always crying about, these well-respected institutions of our health and public safety in Canada, but each of these studies has shown time and again that this harm reduction strategy has lowered fatalities due to overdose by 35% since its inception.

A caring Conservative would say there are fewer people dying of drug overdose, and it seems like a good thing. A Conservative who is concerned about public safety would also note that crime has dropped precipitously in the same region over the same time. Therefore, the whole idea that safe injection sites in communities cause the crime rate to go through the roof has proven to be the opposite; in fact, the spread of communicable diseases in that community, a serious public safety and public health issue, has also dropped in that same community in which InSite exists.

Not only must we consider the pain and hardship of those who contract these communicable diseases, we must also consider the public purse and what it costs the already strained public system. It should be every government's intention and work to lower the amount of disease spreading in our communities, and drug relapse for those who have participated in this program is significantly lower than it is in any other program in this country. The addicts who go through the InSite program tend not to get back on drugs nearly as frequently as they do after any other detox or remediation program we have.

All those facts together—public safety, the lowering of crime, the lowering of health costs, the encouragement and support of people in Vancouver and British Columbia of all political persuasions for such a program—should open the eyes of the Conservatives just a little bit.

The medical doctors of Canada support this program, the nurses of Canada support this program, and the police in the city and the province support this program. One would think one of those groups would be of interest to Conservatives, but no, that is not the case. What is of interest is fundraising and ideological warfare. We know that when they introduced the bill, it had not even been debated for a minute in the House of Commons before the Conservative Party sent out a fundraiser to its membership asking them to send money for this great bill.

I remember that when the Prime Minister ran for election after being in a position of minority government, he said to give him a majority and not to worry about any agenda he had, because he would be restrained by the courts. In the case of the Supreme Court of Canada, after three trials at the B.C. Supreme Court, the government took the case to the B.C. Court of Appeal and finally to the Supreme Court. What was the cost to taxpayers? I do not know, but it was millions.

Even after the Supreme Court said that this bill violates charter rights, that it may well be unconstitutional, and that the government is arbitrarily undermining the very purposes of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which includes public health and safety, that is what the government is doing.

It is not a free and conscious clear-thinking government. It is one driven only by ideology, only by fundraising initiatives, and only by blind faith in some sort of world view that absolutely contradicts the facts in front of us.

We will be opposing this legislation at every step of the way.

The House resumed from November 28 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.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Chair, I believe that our honourable colleague from the opposition is really trying to reference and debate Bill C-2 here in the committee. It's really not the appropriate forum for it. We are here to study prescription drug abuse, and while witnesses may speak to the broader experiences that they may have had, it's incumbent on the members of Parliament to stay directed and focused in their questions.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise today and add my voice to those of my colleagues in the official opposition against Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Bill C-2 is designed to make it more difficult to grant an exemption for supervised injection sites. The problem here is that at this time, there is but one such site, in Vancouver. This site was rightly granted an exemption, because it offers proven benefits. This bill is merely a reflection of Conservative anti-drug ideology. Yet tabling such a bill, which would prevent the establishment of supervised injection sites, will not eliminate addicts from our society. Unfortunately, they are here to stay.

I would like to acquaint you with some scientific data showing that supervised injection sites benefit both drug users and public safety. I will shortly be providing some additional information on public safety.

The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse concluded in 2008 that such establishments provided a clean, safe and above all supervised place in which to monitor addicts’ injections. As we know, a used syringe can be used by another drug user, and may transmit disease.

Next, the federal Minister of Health asked an advisory committee of experts to assess the impact of the InSite centre with respect to its objectives. The conclusions are persuasive. It was found that InSite encourages users to seek advice, detox and treatment, and this resulted in increased use of detox and treatment services. These successes were achieved because of the exemption they obtained, which the government wishes to restrict.

It should also be added that the establishment of such a site provides a connection to treatment and rehabilitation services. Such a site gives young people a chance to get off drugs and opens a door towards rehabilitation. This is very important, and we are all in favour of it.

The qualified staff working at this facility monitor drug users and give them options to overcome their addiction.

I am presenting published facts, which the Conservatives cannot deny. They base their bill on the notion that public safety will be threatened by the kind of site we are talking about. I would like to point out such sites were established in response to concerns on the part of the authorities about the spread of HIV and hepatitis C. Such sites met the needs of addicts who were unable to stop using drugs by providing them with hygienic facilities. Furthermore, they also meet the needs of all those who do not use drugs and who sometimes find a needle in the street. It was thus a way of preventing the spread of drugs and disease in the streets.

In drafting this bill, the Conservatives pointed to the unsafe nature of neighbourhoods surrounding such sites. By imposing cumbersome administrative procedures to impede the creation of such sites, however, the Conservatives are forcing addicts to use drugs in the streets, in the parks or anywhere where children will be playing the following morning.

I do not believe that the presence of contaminated waste such as syringes or the spread of infectious diseases through unsupervised injections is reassuring for the public. I would like to emphasize this point, because I have witnessed the consequences of drug use in the streets. I will provide a few examples. We are talking about addicts, people who are already struggling with drugs. Let us take the example of a couple strolling in the park with their child. The child is playing in the sandpit, and suddenly he finds a syringe. Day care centres have complained about this phenomenon in the past. Children are playing in the park, and suddenly they are pricked by one of these needles. Obviously, they have to go straight to hospital. It is serious when people do not feel safe.

I do not have to look much farther: I live in Ottawa, 15 minutes’ walk from the House of Commons. I still remember that last spring, when my co-tenant was clearing dead leaves from the property, she found a syringe in the front yard. Fortunately, she was wearing leather gloves.

We were afraid. We told ourselves it was serious, but we thought it was an exception.

A few months later, arriving home in the evening after my workday in Parliament, what do I see? A young man injecting himself with drugs in front of my home. We are not in a poor neighbourhood, after all. This man dropped his dirty needle outside a hotel. I was very afraid, so I told the police about the situation, and they arrived shortly after.

The next morning, before I went to work, what did I see? Two women picking up leaves with very thin rubber gloves. Since my English is not particularly good, I did not know how to tell them to be careful, because this is serious. I tried to tell them about the dangerous things on the ground. I do not know if they understood me, but I continued to feel concern.

These women are working mothers, and they may prick themselves inadvertently by touching needles thrown down in the street. Drug users, of course, are thinking only about satisfying their need, and do not realize that their actions have consequences.

In some ways, these sites can help us to manage the social problems related to drug addiction. These sites do not just help addicts; they can protect all of us.

Another thing that troubles me about this bill is that it goes against a decision rendered by the Supreme Court in 2011. I would like to quote a key excerpt from that decision. It reads:

Where, as here, [the evidence shows that] a supervised injection site will decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, [quite the contrary,] the Minister should generally grant an exemption.

The court therefore ruled that InSite should remain open under the exemption set out in section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Although the court left the decisions regarding exemptions for future supervised injection sites to the minister's discretion, it indicated that:

...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.

It is important that any new bill pertaining to these sites take into account the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions.

In closing, throughout my speech, I presented arguments that show that supervised injection sites are safe, controlled environments that provide health and social services, and not just for drug users. They can also protect us and our families on the streets.

In light of such concrete evidence, the government must stop proposing bills designed only to satisfy its voter base and instead meet the needs of Canadians.

We are not living in an ideal, drug-free world. There are people who have problems that drive them to inject illegal substances.

It is our duty to offer them solutions. Preventing the establishment of the only services that can help them will not make their addictions disappear. It will even put us, our families and our children at risk of finding contaminated needles on the streets.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to Bill C-2, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Once again I am struck by the title of the bill, but I am also confused as to where the bill would be going after we have finished with it in this House at second reading. It will be sent to the public safety committee. I am finding it hard to understand why it would be going there when we are looking specifically at a health issue. Controlled drugs and substance abuse fall under health issues.

Once again I am forced to ask myself the question of what this bill is really about. Is it really about tackling drugs and substance abuse in our community? Is that what the bill is really about? Is it about making sure that our young people are safe? Is it about making sure that there are rehabilitation programs to help young people, and those who are not so young, who have managed to become engaged in addictive behaviour?

There are addictive drugs, and often people end up being sufferers of substance abuse not because of choice but because circumstances have taken them there. However, once we have identified them as addicts, so to speak, then we also know that it is a health issue and we have to treat it as such. Instead of looking at ways to tackle the very complex issue of substance abuse, the government once again wants very simplistic, headline-grabbing kind of legislation.

A few days ago, we were debating a bill called drug-free prisons. That legislation had nothing to do with treatment or rehabilitation. All it had to do with was a urine test that was already being conducted and was already being taken into consideration by the Parole Board. That is the only part that was in the bill, yet according to the government across the aisle, it was all about drug-free prisons. We begin to wonder, when we see bills like this one and the other one, if it is not really about appealing to the base. Is it just a modus operandi to fill up the Conservative coffers? I am beginning to think that is what it is all about.

The reason is that as a teacher and a counsellor who worked for a long time in the public school system and has experience dealing with people who are engaged in substance abuse as well as those who live with those who are abusing drugs, I have seen the devastation it can have on people's lives. All the research that exists says that just telling people they cannot do something will not get rid of the problem; instead, what we need is a multi-pronged approach in order to take on an issue such as substance abuse.

I come from a riding very far from here, Newton—North Delta, in beautiful British Columbia. In my riding we are very concerned about community safety. We are very concerned about gangs and we are very concerned about substance abuse.

The community wants to find solutions to help our youth, but I do not see anything coming forward in this House from the other side that is a proactive, preventive, or rehabilitative program. I see just words on paper and more or less ideological positions that are not based on science, research, or anything else. The fact that addictions are a health issue is not even taken into consideration. They are a health issue, and as such, we must treat them as a health issue.

That does not mean we are saying that people involved in criminal activities should not have consequences, but surely, at the same time, we also have to realize that we live in a country where even through our penal system we absolutely believe in rehabilitation. We do not believe that we just put someone in prison, shut the door, and that is it, because we know those people, young and old, are going to come out and come back into our communities.

When I look at the bill, I see that it is really a not-so-veiled attempt to defy a Supreme Court ruling that ruled in favour of injection sites operating when a community assessment shows that community support is there and when there is value to it.

I note my colleagues across the way have an allergy to science. They also have an allergy to research, facts, and data. Their way of operating is to just appeal to their ideological base and not take into consideration what will work and what will make our communities safer. All they want are sound bites without any substance so that they can collect more money.

There are over 30 peer-reviewed studies published in respected journals, such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and the British Medical Journal. They have all described the beneficial impacts of InSite.

Some may not be aware, but InSite is situated in British Columbia, on Vancouver's east side. Studies on over 70 safe injection sites in Europe and Australia have shown similar benefits, so InSite in Vancouver is not a one-off. Programs similar to InSite that operate throughout Europe have shown similar benefits.

InSite is one of the greatest public health achievements in Canada. I do not say that lightly. I have actually been on site and I have seen how it works. I have actually talked to the people who go in there, and the people who work there as well. We believe sites like this would benefit other cities where they are needed.

There is also this idea that InSite just opens the door and anybody can just walk in, that it is just a way of getting free drugs and free needles. That is very far from the truth. In order to use InSite, one has to be at least 16 years of age, sign a user agreement, adhere to a code of conduct, and not be accompanied by children.

Eighty per cent of the people living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside support InSite. Also, overdose deaths in East Vancouver have dropped 35% since InSite has been in operation. Surely that is evidence that we need to allow InSite and other organizations like it to be established so that we can take on this problem.

Once again, I want to appeal to my colleagues across the way. Let us start looking at science. Let us start looking at the research. Let us start listening to health professionals, from nurses and doctors to associations. Let us start paying attention to the real professionals and take our guidance from them, and let us not make things worse and make our communities unsafe.

While ideologically you argue that you are fixing a problem, you are actually putting communities at risk.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House for the second time to speak to Bill C-2, because this bill is very important to me. Unfortunately, I have known people suffering from addiction. I say “suffering from” because this is not a choice. These people need care.

To add some perspective, Bill C-2 is very dangerous. This is a Conservative attempt to deprive us of supervised injection sites such as InSite in Vancouver.

The Conservatives' bill adds a list of conditions for opening a supervised injection site in a community that are quite complex and difficult to meet. I find this quite unfortunate.

In my speech, I talked about safety on the streets, because our Conservative friends claim they are doing this for the sake of safety. However, I would much prefer seeing people who inject drugs do so in a specific place in the city rather than finding syringes everywhere. I also pointed to the absurdity of the Conservatives' decision to refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, rather than the Standing Committee on Health. That is rich.

That proves that the Conservatives do not believe that supervised injection sites are a health issue. However, these sites are not just places where people go to get high together. These are places where health professionals provide supervision, prevention and guidance. The fact that the Conservatives are sending this bill to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security tells me, on one hand, that they want to scare people and confuse the facts about supervised injection sites, and on the other, that so many health professionals support supervised injection sites that the Conservatives are having trouble finding enough witnesses to support their views on health. This is what I said in my first speech.

At this time, Canada has one supervised injection site, InSite. It was created as part of a public health plan by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and its community partners following a dramatic increase in overdose deaths in Vancouver between 1987 and 1993. At the time, the Vancouver area was also seeing a dramatic rise in the rates of communicable diseases spread by injection drug use, including hepatitis A, B and C and HIV/AIDS.

World AIDS Day is coming up in a few days, on December 1, so I would like to take a moment to talk about that. The Canadian AIDS Society, which was founded about 20 years ago, does excellent work. It is too bad that the Conservatives do not believe in the benefits of supervised injection sites, because sites such as InSite help reduce the number of people with AIDS every year.

The Conservatives like to talk about the economy. We can significantly reduce health care costs related to communicable diseases spread by injection drug use. For instance, AIDS can be transmitted sexually as well as by dirty needles. Supervised injection sites tackle this problem by distributing clean needles. Little things like that help. In my riding, an organization called À deux mains distributes clean needs to injection drug users.

I do not have the figures for hepatitis, but I have some pretty incredible figures for AIDS from a study done in 2008. I would like to share the total economic losses associated with each individual who is HIV-positive.

This was in 2009. If we factor in inflation, the numbers might be a bit higher today.

For every HIV-positive person, the estimated cost is $250,000 in health care, $670,000 in terms of productivity and $380,000 in terms of quality of life. I am not sure what, specifically, is meant by quality of life, but I imagine it has to do with everything that comes with daily life, such as productivity, food and morale, which must be at rock bottom.

These numbers from the Canadian AIDS Society add up to a total of $1,300,000 per person. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, roughly 69,000 people in Canada had AIDS in 2011, making the total cost $4,031,490,000. That is a lot of money. I am not saying that all those people were infected by dirty needles, but some of them were. We could save a lot of money.

It is unfortunate that most bills, especially Conservative bills, focus on healing instead of prevention. The Conservatives never consider prevention. The same is true when it comes to crime. There is no prevention, just healing. People are sent to prison where no one will look after them. It is sad.

No one chooses to be an addict. We rarely talk about the social determinants of health. If you go to Vancouver East you will see that the people who live there are not very rich. They did not get everything handed to them in life. I am very fortunate. I come from an educated family. My parents taught me the importance of staying away from drugs, going to school and getting a job.

Not everyone is lucky enough to be born into those circumstances. Through no fault of their own, people end up with rather serious addictions. They shoot up drugs. I imagine that no one plans to get to that stage. I doubt they woke up one morning and decided to become a heroin addict. We have a duty as a society to help them.

I would like to come back to the issue of discarded needles that turn up all over the place. When I found out that I was going to give a speech, I checked the websites of major Canadian cities. The Conservatives say that they do not want these needles in their backyards. However, the websites of Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal indicate that all these cities have a program to retrieve used needles found on the streets.

The Ottawa website, for example, has an 11-step set of instructions for what to do with a needle found on the street. If the city puts this on its website, there must be a lot of discarded needles. Moreover, if on its site it says to be careful and that children should never touch used needles, that must be because needles can be found where they live. This is rather worrisome.

This is also the case for Montreal. Look at the website and this is one of the first things you will read: “In order to take collective action to reduce the problem of discarded needles...”. Therefore, the problem exists. We know that there are groups in Montreal that would like to establish supervised injection sites, but Bill C-2, which the Conservatives will unfortunately pass, will block them. Thus, people will keep discarding needles in the streets.

In closing, I would like to thank the Montreal organizations that pick up these needles. Thank you to À deux mains, located in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, which is in my riding, Cactus Montréal, Spectre de rue, Pacte de rue, L'Unité d'intervention mobile L'Anonyme, Dopamine and Le Préfixe, and also several CLSCs.

These are not establishments where you go to take drugs; their mandate is prevention. I urge my colleagues to vote against this government bill, because it will be detrimental to the health of our communities.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak again on Bill C-2. I did speak previously on the amendment that was proposed to Bill C-2 and gave a broader speech on my opposition to the bill then. Today, I want to focus on HIV/AIDS and Bill C-2.

Today I am wearing an AIDS ribbon as a reminder of World AIDS Day this December 1. I want to restate the AIDS Society's message this year, which is, “If you think the fight against HIV/AIDS has been won... Think again. It's not over”.

I think that's a very important message for all of us in the House of Commons, particularly when we are debating a bill such as Bill C-2.

I am from a generation of men who lost many, in fact, most of my closest friends to HIV/AIDS. When this was being ignored as a gay disease, gay men had to organize and fight back against prejudice and ignorance. Society responded, in particular, the medical community responded quite strongly. We have made great progress, but we have not cured AIDS.

Now an HIV/AIDS diagnosis is no longer a death sentence, but it is still a very serious medical condition. It is one which has great costs, and the Conservatives are always worried about costs. In financial terms, it has been estimated at about $500,000 per new case of HIV/AIDS, but it also takes a great personal toll on our friends and families.

It is still a serious medical condition, but the success we have had has led to some unfortunate consequences.

One of those consequences is the rise of HIV/AIDS rates among young gay men, again. Some of the education we have been doing is obviously failing as a new generation of gay men are coming up and feeling invincible, as all young people do, but also feeling that somehow HIV/AIDS medical progress means it is something they do not have to worry about. We have to recommit ourselves to doing that education in the gay community so that people are aware of the seriousness that HIV/AIDS still represents.

However, another thing has happened, which is that the main population being affected by AIDS has shifted. While AIDS was highly prevalent in most cases in the 1980s and 1990s among gay men, we have had a change and now over half the new cases of HIV/AIDS are among injection drug users.

This is a population, again, for which there is a great deal of prejudice. I was very disturbed by the comments from the member for Prince George—Peace River when he talked about “happy addicts”. There is no such thing as a happy addict. It is indicative of the ignorance that some members have about addiction as a serious medical problem. We are talking about how we deal with this medical problem. Injection drug users are now, in most parts of the country, the largest number of HIV/AIDS infections, and this has been true for much of the past decade.

Therefore, both the idea that HIV/AIDS is a manageable medical condition and the moral opprobrium that we heap on injection drug users means that we are now tending to ignore this problem in an important part of our society. We treat HIV drug users as if they have some kind of moral failing, as if somehow they have not understood how they have to act, instead of thinking about the reality of the situation, which is that addiction is a medical problem.

What does this have to do directly with Bill C-2?

I want to speak about a policy paper from the Canadian AIDS Society on injection drug use and HIV/AIDS. It refers to what it calls a health crisis caused by an epidemic of injection drug use. I think the use of the term “epidemic” is quite apt. This is a medical condition. This is not a moral condition of our society.

According to the Canadian AIDS Society, starting in 1996, over half of the new HIV/AIDS infections in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver were as a result of injection drug use. Starting as early as 1996, we have seen the shift in the population most seriously affected by HIV/AIDS. Now, the AIDS Society reports, that trend has extended across the entire country to smaller cities and rural areas. The focus of new infections is the injection drug user community.

There are obvious reasons, and one of those is sharing needles and other drug paraphernalia and equipment. However, there is a secondary reason I do not think we like to face up to, which is that many injection drug users engage in unsafe sex while high on drugs, and this is a significant contributor to HIV/AIDS infections. In fact, in our major cities it is not uncommon among young male street youth to trade unprotected sex for injection drugs, again, putting themselves seriously at risk.

No one does this as a conscious choice of something fun to do. They do it out of circumstance and they do it out of an addiction condition, which is medical.

The solutions are to be found, obviously, in harm reduction and in particular in safe injection sites.

I want to refer to a backgrounder that was produced by the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition on supervised consumption sites. What it has done is it has tried to summarize the research. We hear the Conservatives asking, “Where are the facts? Where is the evidence?” I am actually going to take a moment to go, point by point, through the findings that are summarized in the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition backgrounder on what research, peer-tested research studies, have shown.

What the research has found is that safe injection sites are used by people who inject drugs, including those who are at the highest risk. Therefore, when I talked about young male street workers, these people who are at the highest risk will often end up at the safe injection site.

The second finding is that they reduce overdose deaths. No deaths have occurred at the InSite safe injection site since its inception.

Third, they reduce behaviour such as the use of shared needles, which can lead not only to HIV infections but also to hep C infections.

Fourth, they reduce other unsafe injection practices and encourage the use of sterile materials. Therefore, users of these services are more likely to report changes to their injection practices and more likely to consult health professionals for assistance in crises resulting from injection drug use.

Fifth, they also increase the use of detox and other treatment services. The other side likes to point to providing a safe and warm place to inject drugs. That is not really what it is about. It is about providing a safe place, yes, but a place where there are other services on site. Therefore, when vulnerable populations build a relationship at InSite, the research shows 30% are much more likely to use detoxification and counselling services. Thirty per cent are more likely to actually try to get help as a result of being at the safe injection site.

Sixth, they are cost-effective. Research shows InSite prevents 35 new cases of HIV and three deaths a year, providing a societal benefit, in monetary terms, of $6 million per year. Of course, I do not wish, at any time, to try to quantify the personal savings in saving three lives, because those are people's kids, people's brothers, people's sisters, people's parents.

Seventh, they reduce public drug use. I think the most disturbing thing that happened when the bill was being talked about by the government was that it sent out a fundraiser saying, “Keep heroin out of our backyards”. That is exactly what safe injection sites do. They reduce the public use of injection drugs. They reduce the incidents of finding needles on public streets. They reduce the amount of publicly discarded injection equipment.

Finally, they do not cause an increase in crime around safe injection sites. In fact, crime rates have gone down around safe injection sites.

Those are the facts. There is the research about safe injection sites.

I think it is very important, when Conservatives call for the facts, that we actually look at the facts about safe injection sites. We will find that they save lives, they prevent new HIV/AIDS infections, they save money, they reduce crime, they make our neighbourhoods safer, and finally, the most important one to me, they create community support for treating injection drug use as an addiction and public support for harm reduction measures.

When people in the Downtown Eastside were surveyed, it was found that over 80% of those who live and work in the Downtown Eastside support a safe injection site. Bill C-2 is called “respecting communities”. I would like to call it just ironic, but I think it is a cruel irony that when people are saying they need safe injection sites in their communities, the Conservatives introduce a bill that would frustrate that in every way possible and call it “respecting communities”. It is directly the opposite.

The bill aims to shut down the supervised injection site in east Vancouver and to prevent any other supervised injection sites from operating. Why else do we have 26 conditions, literally, (a) to (z), set out in the bill? Even if every one of those conditions were met, it would not require the minister to issue a licence. It only says the minister “may” issue a licence.

Once again, I believe the bill is actually a fraud on the House of Commons, a fraud on the public. It is designed to frustrate a very important public health measure. I will be doing everything I can to ensure the Conservatives see the harm they would be doing, rather than the harm they could be reducing.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it will be very difficult for me to speak after my colleague's impassioned words. Today's debate has been very emotional because we believe that we can do better for Canadians. I am therefore honoured to comment on Bill C-2.

The government says that it would like to consult communities before opening supervised injection sites. Curiously however, on the very day that it introduced the bill, the Conservative Party posted a petition online entitled “Keep heroin out of our backyards”. The petition asks people whether they would like a supervised drug consumption site to be opened in their community. The government is doing everything it can to get in the way of those who would like to open a supervised injection centre.

According to the new rules, anyone wishing to open such a site would first have to ask how the communities in question and the police feel about it, and obtain support from the municipal and provincial authorities. However, they will have to do a lot more than that, in the form of a lot of evidence and documents, including documentation on the financial viability of the site, the need for it in the community and its potential impact on public safety. Furthermore, the Minister of Health would have the last word on applications.

And yet, evidence has shown that supervised injection sites effectively reduce the risk of contracting and spreading communicable diseases through blood, as is the case with HIV and hepatitis C, as well as the risk of dying from an overdose. It has also been demonstrated that they are not a threat to public safety and that in some instances, they promote public safety by reducing the number of people injecting drugs in public, and the violence associated with drug use. Safe injection sites strike a proper balance between health and public safety goals. They also direct people with an urgent need for assistance to the appropriate health services, such as primary care and addiction treatment.

Injection sites are beneficial to communities. However, for a number of ideological reasons—which have been properly demonstrated by my colleague—the government has chosen yet again to put on blinkers and pretend that drug and addiction problems simply do not exist. Rather than attempt to mitigate the harm, they would rather say that everything is fine and dandy. Things are not fine. The work done by these organizations saves lives. A centre like InSite helps to reduce the number of deaths caused by drug overdoses, and directs people who use drugs to the essential social services that can help them.

There is at the moment only one supervised injection site in Canada. Its name is InSite and it is located in Vancouver. Since it was opened, Vancouver has experienced a 35% decrease in overdose fatalities. It has been established that the InSite organization has led to a decrease in crime, communicable disease infections and addiction relapse rates.

The bill goes against the Supreme Court decision. In 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that InSite was providing essential services and should remain open under the exemption provided in section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The court ruled that the charter authorized users to have access to InSite's services and that similar services should be authorized under an exemption.

What message is the government sending if it fails to respect the Supreme Court's decision? The Supreme Court of Canada clearly asked the federal government to stop interfering with the InSite injection site in Vancouver. The highest court in the land is of the opinion that the government's decision to stop exempting centres from criminal prosecution is arbitrary and infringes the rights of addicts to life and safety as provided under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

What more will it take? Why is the government proposing such a bill? It is doing so to impede the work of organizations that help addicts. The Canadian Nurses Association said:

Evidence demonstrates that supervised injection sites and other harm reduction programs bring critical health and social services to vulnerable populations—especially those experiencing poverty, mental illness and homelessness...

A government truly committed to public health and safety would work to enhance access to prevention and treatment services—instead of building more barriers.

The NDP believes that any legislation introduced by the Conservative government must comply with the Supreme Court ruling and strike a balance between public health and public safety.

The Supreme Court ruling also gave various organizations the go-ahead to open supervised injection sites in other areas of the country. That is why this bill should not be passed. Not only is it based on a regressive ideology, but it is also flawed. This bill shows just how out of touch the Conservatives are with reality and just how much they ignore the opinions of experts and scientists.

Supervised injection sites are essential resources for improving the safety of our communities. The Conservative campaign with regard to this bill was called "Keep heroin out of our backyards”. Precisely the opposite will happen. Passing this bill will do nothing to address the problem of drug use on the streets. This bill will not stop people from using drugs on the streets. On the contrary, it will now be almost impossible to open safe injection sites, which will bring heroin back into our neighbourhoods.

People will continue to find dirty needles on the ground. Drug users will still not have access to clean, safe equipment, and the rates of HIV and hepatitis will continue to climb. It is obvious that safe injection sites have been proven to work, and the Conservative government needs to face the facts and listen to what health experts have to say.

When researching this bill, I found a statistic that I thought was quite striking: people who used InSite's services at least once a week were 1.7 times more likely to enter a detox program than those who visited infrequently.

This statistic clearly shows that supervised injection sites can help people into detox programs. Facilities such as InSite play a vital role in reducing harm and getting people off drugs.

One argument that I often hear made against programs such as InSite is that people prefer to allocate resources to initiatives that help people overcome their addiction instead of opening additional safe injection sites. That is only natural; I can understand that argument.

However, that statistic clearly indicates that safe injection sites are a step towards getting off drugs. People who use drugs in the street will not wake up one morning and decide to stop using. However, by going to a safe injection site, users have the opportunity to speak with medical professionals, receive advice and learn more about how to access treatment centres.

InSite administrators clearly saw those benefits and opened OnSite in 2007. Users can be sent on OnSite, located directly above InSite, which provides detox and rehab services. There, users who are ready to take control of their addiction can undergo detox treatment under the supervision of social workers, nurses, mental health specialists and doctors. Those specialists can also help users plan their next steps and provide counselling to avoid a relapse.

I touched on the benefits of safe injection sites, and now I would like to speak to Bill C-2 and how it makes it nearly impossible to set up a new safe injection site.

Preparing an application for a new supervised injection site will be such a cumbersome process that it may dissuade applicants from even opening a file. If an applicant mistakenly forgets to include certain documents, the application could be automatically denied. Even if an applicant manages to obtain all of the documents needed for the application and has the community's full support, the minister can still deny it. Some applications may also take forever for no good reason, which means groups could be kept waiting for months or even years.

This bill is a serious obstacle to opening safe injection sites that can really help drug users and improve safety in our communities.

It is clear that safe injection sites have proven their worth.

They are a sound and effective solution to the problem of addiction in Canada.

I am ready to answer questions.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-2.

The subject of drugs is not always easy to address because it is still taboo. We put people who have used drugs in prison. We get rid of them. However, how long have drugs been around?

I do not know how our great-grandparents managed to deal with it all at the time when distilled alcohol was illegal. Some tough speeches must have been made in Parliament before it was legalized.

Today we are talking about drugs. We are not talking about legalizing heroin, but about a site that was established in Vancouver East and that distributes needles to people with drug problems.

The government has introduced a bill providing for restrictions so tough it will be difficult for that site to renew its licence and for other sites to open in Canada. This bill is a thinly veiled way of preventing supervised injection sites from carrying on their activities, which defies the Supreme Court's decision.

It establishes a long list of restrictive criteria that supervised injection sites will have to meet for the minister to grant them an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Those criteria will make it much more difficult for organizations to open a supervised injection site. That is the thrust of the bill.

The bill even comes in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling. We could consult that decision. It mentions, for example, that no one may prevent anything that may save lives.

In 2003, InSite was granted an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That exemption was issued for medical and scientific reasons so that InSite could offer its services and the effectiveness of supervised injection sites could be assessed.

Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act gives the minister the power to authorize the use of drugs for medical or scientific purposes or if it is in the public interest.

In 2007, InSite opened the OnSite detox centre. The number of overdose-related deaths in Vancouver has fallen by 35% since that centre opened. The crime rate and the prevalence of communicable diseases and relapses have declined as well.

Earlier the member for Cariboo—Prince George asked where the statistics were. However, I would ask the same question: where are the statistics that warrant changing the act? I would like the government to show us the statistics that explain why they want to amend the act.

For example, the government could tell us that the number of deaths has risen by 35% since needles have been distributed. It is time we thought about this. Has the crime rate risen by 35%? That is a statistic. Before amending the act, the government needs to prove the opposite of what doctors and authorities are saying. However, the Conservatives' ideology is front and centre today.

According to the right-wing Conservative ideology and Conservative supporters, we should put drug users in prison. Above all, we should not give them needles, do prevention work or make contact with people who are helplessly addicted to drugs so that we can direct them to an institution that can help them get off drugs.

If you tell someone that drugs are illegal and not right, that person will still break the law, but he will not talk about it and he will be stuck with his problem.

We will be unable to help these people. The statistics gathered in Vancouver have shown that overdoses have fallen by 35%. In addition, crime has dropped and the number of HIV infections has also declined. Is it not our responsibility to ensure that happens?

The member for Cariboo—Prince George asked where the statistics are and said he would like to see the numbers. I am going to repeat it. We are not supposed to say he was not in the House, but I see him now. I think I was just not looking his way, but he is there and I want him to hear this. When he stood and said he wanted to see the statistics, the statistics are that there was a 35% decrease. Crime went down. HIV went down.

That is why I said that it is the government that should come to us and be able to say it is proposing the bill because it has statistics. The government should give us the statistics to show that crime and HIV went up after people were given needles, but that is not what the statistics are saying.

Doctors and nurses disagree as well. Two days ago, there were nurses in my office saying they were hoping there would be amendments to this bill, as it does not make sense and goes against the health of people.

Let me cite an example from Bathurst. Earlier my colleague from Scarborough Southwest talked about people who collect garbage. Bathurst, the community where I live, has a law prohibiting people from putting their garbage bags out at the curb. They have to be put in plastic containers. Workers said that they were being pricked when they picked up garbage bags and that they had caught infections.

One population group has health problems as a result of heroin, but we are prepared to leave them on the street.

I went to Vancouver East and I felt pity for the people living on the street. My colleague from Vancouver East says she supports the idea of distributing needles to people with drug problems.

As an ordinary person, I initially did not understand why we should give needles to people who use drugs. When I went to Vancouver East, however, I realized that it was the right thing to do. My colleague made me understand that when we can receive them in our homes, talk to them and direct them to a medical centre that can help them, we will have done something good.

However, if we abandon them, we will have failed to get the job done and discharge our responsibilities as Canadians and as politicians. The members of this House have a responsibility to pass legislation that helps the men and women of this country. People who live on the street are someone's children. They are citizens. They are human beings. We would not even allow animals to be treated this way.

Today we have before us a government bill that defies a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada solely because of the ideology of the government and its supporters. I forgot that this is the same government that does not believe in the court, in the opposition or in Parliament.

I hope that one day Canadians will make the right decision and get rid of this government once and for all, since it is not working for the welfare of Canadians.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the last portion of the debate, my colleague said that if it working, they fix it again. I have a different take on that.

I remember, in the government of Mike Harris, an education minister, John Snobelen. He actually had the gall to say, in regard to education, that we have to create a crisis so we can come in and fix it. We have to break what is working so that we can go in and fix it.

When I look at the front bench across the way, it reminds me that the Minister of Finance, the President of the Treasury Board, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs were all principal players in that government and are bringing that kind of approach to the federal level.

I am rising today to oppose Bill C-2. What Conservatives are trying to do with the bill is clear. I have to give them credit for the level of political camouflaging contained within the bill.

It is clear that the measures in the bill would hurt some of the most vulnerable in our society and would be very costly to our health care system.

There is another very troubling and repeating pattern with the government. Why do we even have a Supreme Court ruling in this case? It is because the government challenged the right of InSite and safe injection sites to exist. The Conservatives do not believe in them. They do not want them. They want to make it as onerous as possible, which is the purpose of this legislation.

The member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore stood and asked if we are against community consultation. It is ridiculous to try to camouflage the deep flaws in the bill with statements like that. Of course we are in favour of consulting Canadians and communities about what goes on in their neighbourhoods. That is exactly how governments should work. However, the government, time and time again, ignores that basic principle when we are talking about resource development, environmental protection, and the safety of Canadians. It is like asking if we are against oxygen. No one is against oxygen. We would not be here without it.

The bill pretends to address public health and safety concerns about safe injection sites. In fact, it has three other completely different goals. Very simply, the bill aims to shut down InSite, the supervised injection site in east Vancouver, and to prevent any other supervised sites from operating. I believe that it aims to nullify and circumvent the 2011 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in favour of safe injection sites, and I believe that it constitutes a further attack on the principle of harm reduction.

Harm reduction is critical to dealing with issues of substance abuse. We have to reduce the harm so that people can be in a position to gain quality of life and have the strength to overcome the tremendous challenges that come with addiction.

In Toronto, we have one of the country's foremost centres for dealing with addiction and mental health. It is called CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. I would like to read its submission to the Toronto Board of Health in July in regard to supervised injection sites. It said:

Supervised Injection Services are another public health approach that can reduce harms associated with injection drug use. Research from around the globe has shown that these services are associated with several benefits to injection drug users including reducing behaviours associated with HIV and Hepatitis C infections, lowering risky injection practices, reducing overdoses, and increasing referrals to treatment and other health services.

I will stop there for a moment and repeat that last part: “and increasing referrals to treatment and other health services”.

I will bring up a business analogy, and of course, the folks across the way love those. Anyone who has run a business knows how much harder it is to get a new client in the door than it is to keep an existing one. Part of the purpose of safe injection sites is to get people in the door so that they can be given access to the other services that are going to make them healthy and productive members of our society, at lower cost. That is what is really funny about the bill. It is going to cost Canadians millions of dollars in future court challenges, in future health care costs, and in the destruction of communities, because these services will not exist.

The submission by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to the Toronto Board of Health in July 2013 continues:

In addition, Supervised Injection Services do not increase crime and disorder in the surrounding neighbourhood and actually reduce other problems like public drug abuse and discarded injection equipment.

That is pretty clear and simple. It is very basic. It does not increase crime or disorder in the surrounding neighbourhoods and actually reduces problems such as public drug use and discarded injection equipment. It helps to actually keep our communities safer, the communities that have these kinds of problems.

With respect to discarded injection equipment, when I was a child of nine or ten, my father was a teacher in Scarborough at Samuel Hearn public school. Every year around environment day, they would engage in community public cleanups. They would go out into the neighbourhood and do a fabulous public service and help keep their neighbourhoods clean.

They were in an alleyway, about a block away from the school, behind Danforth Avenue near Pharmacy, cleaning up trash. My father was wearing work gloves, but they did not have the thickness that would be required to stop a needle from piercing. He picked up a pile of garbage and was pricked by a discarded syringe from a drug user.

As a nine or ten year old, it is very hard to fathom and understand what follows from that. What followed was that my father had to be tested for HIV, for hepatitis, and for other infectious diseases. That created months of concern and anguish in our family, not knowing whether he had picked up a transmissible or communicable disease and whether he would be facing horrific health challenges in the future.

We were very fortunate that in the end, all the results were negative, but the cost to the health care system, the cost to our family in having to deal with it, and all the uncertainty that followed was a direct result of the fact that there were discarded needles on the ground. Will safe injection sites eliminate this problem completely? Of course not. There is no silver bullet. However, they will be a big part of reducing the harms in our communities.

I also remember, not so long ago, when a Starbucks in Toronto, at John and Queen, installed a safe disposal box for needles in their bathroom. There was an absolute uproar from Conservatives. “You're encouraging drug use. People will now go to that Starbucks to shoot up”. No. What was happening was that people were already going to Starbucks and shooting up and throwing needles in the garbage can. The staff, at the end of the day, would have to pick up that garbage and put their lives at risk because of stupid, inconsiderate policies brought forward by people on the other side. This trend continues to this day. Never let an argument get in front of ideology. Absolutely not.

The submission by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health continues:

Given the difference in geography and culture of drug use amongst cities, experiences from these Supervised Injection Services are not simply transferrable to other cities such as Toronto. However, there is evidence to suggest that a Supervised Injection Service could be beneficial to Toronto, though further research involving the development of a pilot Supervised Injection Service would be needed to confirm. With that in mind, CAMH supports the development of a pilot Supervised Injection Service in Toronto. As a teaching hospital dedicated to care, research and education in mental health and addiction, CAMH would be happy to work with other partners to play a role in the evaluation of the pilot service and offer treatment to those in need.

Treatment is what is important and critical here. It is the treatment people would receive going to these safe injection sites, the kind of treatment that would help get them off the streets and help reduce the harm to them, their families, and the community. It would reduce the amount of drug addiction that exists in our communities, and it would help more people have a better quality of life and fulfillment and be active and participating members of our communities.