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 House resumed from November 26 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.

Respect for Communities Act

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in regard to the respect for communities act. As my colleagues on this side of the House have often stated in the course of this debate—and the members opposite, apparently, wholly disagree—Canadian families expect safe and healthy communities in which to raise their children. The respect for communities act would ensure that parents have a say before drug injection sites open in their communities, and it deserves support from all members of this House, regardless of ideological belief. As my colleagues have outlined, the bill would contribute to the public health and public safety of Canadian communities.

I would like to focus in particular on the importance that these amendments place on input from the public, from potentially affected communities and from relevant stakeholders such as public health officials and local law enforcement.

First, here is a little background. As those who have been listening carefully to the debate in the House will know, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act prohibits activities with controlled substances, including possession, import, export, production and distribution of controlled substances except as authorized under the act, its regulations or a section 56 exemption. The CDSA applies to both licit and illicit controlled substances. Section 56 of the act provides the Minister of Health with the authority to grant exemptions from the application of the act or its regulations “...if, in the opinion of the Minister, the exemption is necessary for a medical or scientific purpose or is otherwise in the public interest”.

This section has also been used in the past to allow for routine activities with illicit substances, such as training law-enforcement dogs to detect drugs. However, it has been the case in the past that the same section has been used for activities that were not originally envisioned, those being supervised injection sites.

The respect for communities act, which we are debating today, would require any potential applications for supervised drug injection sites in Canada to address specific criteria before such applications would be considered. It also contains a plethora of additional criteria that, for some reason, the New Democrats are systematically opposed to. These include, of all things, scientific evidence. That, in fact, is the first item in the bill.

Throughout the course of the debate we have had on the bill already, we have heard the opposition members claim that there are numerous studies already existing that provide evidence that injection sites have medical value. That is a completely fair viewpoint. In fact, that makes the job of the applicants easier. They should simply submit those studies. The principal issue here is that many of those studies the New Democrats are referencing refer to the use of individual substances at supervised injection sites, like heroin. For the members opposite, what about other substances like, perhaps, cocaine or ecstasy? Studies that would speak to the pros or cons of an injection site for heroin would surely not be applicable to those drugs, yet they fall into the same category of illicit substances in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

That is why it is important that the studies and evidence that specifically relate to the activities that are proposed for the individual site be submitted with the application. That is why it is important to also note that these applications would be judged on a case-by-case basis.

No two locations would have exactly the same challenges. This is why it is important that the minister be aware of the issues facing each and every individual proposed site, so that a fair decision based on the facts can be rendered for every unique situation.

Given that no current statutory framework exists for such applications, this legislation would not only address a current gap but would also ensure that relevant community voices are heard in the process, as required by the 2011 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada on the subject. Given the serious risks associated with the use and creation of illicit substances, our government agrees with the Supreme Court that exemptions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to undertake activities with them at a supervised injection site should be limited to exceptional circumstances, only once rigorous criteria have been addressed.

One of the criteria our government is proposing that follows the court's ruling is that any applicant seeking an exemption for activities involving illicit substances at a supervised injection site must provide evidence of community consultations from a broad range of groups from the municipality in which the site would be located. This would include a summary of the opinions of community groups on the proposed activities, as well as copies of all written submissions received and steps that would be taken to address any relevant concerns that are raised during the consultations. The Supreme Court indicated that the minister must take into account these expressions of community support or opposition, if any, when considering an application for an exemption. How the NDP can oppose a requirement that is mandated by the Supreme Court is beyond me.

The proposed legislation would provide an opportunity for this community input into the application process related to supervised injection sites. It would provide greater transparency to the process. It would provide the minister with important information needed to assess the applications on a case-by-case basis.

This bill demonstrates once again that listening to local voices, maintaining safe communities and protecting public health are top priorities for this government, and they should be top priorities for anybody in this House.

Under the proposed approach, applicants for supervised drug injection sites would need to provide information outlining the views of a number of key community stakeholders who are considered relevant to the success or failure of a site. This would include stakeholders such as municipal leaders, the lead public health professional in the province or territory, the licensing bodies for physicians and nurses in that province or territory, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for health and public safety and, of course, the head of local law enforcement. This just makes sense.

As the president of the Canadian Police Association has said:

While treating drug addiction is an important goal, my experience in Vancouver is that these sites also lead to an increase in criminal behaviour and disorder in the surrounding community and have a significant impact on police resources, and that's why it would be vital for the views of local police to be taken into account.

In this new approach, the Minister of Health would have the authority to post a notice of application regarding any exemption application received related to a supervised consumption site for a 90-day public comment period to allow members of the public to provide their views. This public comment period would provide an opportunity for a broad range of stakeholders to make their views known to the minister. Any relevant feedback would be taken into account by the minister as she considers the application for an exemption.

This information would be combined with other rigorous application criteria intended to balance public health and public safety considerations. It would allow the minister to make an informed decision when considering an exemption application for activities with illicit substances at a supervised injection site.

To reiterate, these application criteria that would be required under the proposed legislation build upon the factors outlined in the 2011 Supreme Court of Canada decision.

In conclusion, given the serious risks involved, our government believes that any application involving illicit drugs under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act must be given serious and careful assessment. This legislation is designed to ensure a rigorous approach to future applications for exemptions to conduct activities with illicit substances at supervised consumption sites. It would provide greater clarity concerning the application process, and it would provide crucial information to the minister about the wishes and views of the local communities that could potentially be affected by the proposed site.

The bill would help protect the health and safety of Canadians and balance this with consideration of the public health impacts related to illicit drug use in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling. It would also ensure that the voices of local communities are heard and taken into account in the decisions that affect them.

I urge every member of the House to vote in favour of the proposed legislative changes debated here today to help ensure that our government can continue to keep communities safe and abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada.

With that, I move:

That this question be now put.

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

Mr. Speaker, suddenly the Conservatives have two new-found loves.

One is to respect the local voices in communities that may be impacted by a proposal. I do not remember any of that interest when we were talking about pipelines or resource development coming from the Conservatives. Actually, we see the reverse when they make the entrance for public opinion and views even more restricted in any proposal having to do with oil pipelines. However, when it comes to saving lives, as is proposed by the InSite project in Vancouver, my friend says that we are entitled to our opinions.

Well, we are entitled to our facts, and the facts are that InSite has worked and has been supported by Conservative and left-wing mayors in that city as well as the chiefs of police. It is so confusing to me that the Conservatives want to take away something that works.

The second new-found love is to respect the Supreme Court of Canada. What an amazing moment that the Conservatives are suddenly interested in the views of the Supreme Court of Canada, because we see them so often introducing legislation that is unconstitutional and will be challenged in court, is challenged in the Supreme Court and is defeated at the Supreme Court. We had one just two weeks ago on trying to cut down on gun violence.

The Conservatives are not listening to their own constitutional experts, but rather they have the photo op and pretend to the public that they are doing something about crime, gun safety or any of those types of issues. Then they move in legislation that they know full well would not ever be realized in actual law.

My question to my friend is: Is this new-found consideration both for the court and for the opinion of the public going to extend beyond this one particular bill?

Let us be honest here. What the government is doing in this legislation is to ensure that never again would a safe injection site be built in Canada. That is what the real purpose of this legislation is: creating criteria that are impossible to meet, ensuring that these programs will never come to pass.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my cynical friend from Skeena—Bulkley Valley for his comments.

What we have an abiding—not new-found—love for is common sense and balance. My friend calls the criteria impossible to meet. The court outlined factors that the minister must consider for applications. They seem like common sense to me: the impact of such a facility on crime rates; the local conditions indicating a need for such a site; the regulatory structure in place to support the facility; the resources available to support its maintenance; and the expression of community support or opposition. None of those sounds radical to me.

My friend mentions support from various folks. That is a fair comment because there are some. I will remind the House of the comments by the president of the Canadian Police Association that I quoted in my speech, which basically said it is vital for the views of local police to be taken into account, among other things. Therefore, this is not a new-found love for anything other than simple common sense and balance.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am intrigued by the quickness and haphazard way the bill was developed. It appears to be a knee-jerk reaction to losing the decision of the Supreme Court, which stated that under certain conditions safe injection sites are not necessarily a bad idea.

At one point, my riding was considered for an injection site. I think community involvement is something that every potential safe injection site looks for.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague this question, in terms of the dangers of not having a safe injection site, where needles are used haphazardly all over the place. I was involved in a cleanup project with an organization. We found literally dozens of needles in parks where kids play. Had there been a safe injection site, those needles would have been disposed of in a way that does not harm or threaten our children. That protects our community plus offers the opportunity for those individuals who are under duress or the problems of substance abuse to potentially find their way to a better place. Is this not protecting our communities? Is this not helping our communities?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I respect my hon. friend's opinion. However, I will take a bit of exception to the suggestion that there are no needles in the neighbourhood around safe injection sites. In Edmonton, we do not have a safe injection site. That is a valid point. However, it has been our experience that the needles are out there regardless of whether or not there is a safe injection site. It may affect a very small amount of the total out there, but it really does not impact or affect the hazard of needles in the community.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-2, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. For members representing urban communities, like mine in Sudbury, this is a very significant and potentially dangerous piece of legislation, particularly as communities continue to see intravenous drug use taking place in outdoor public spaces.

There is also a very important public health component of this legislation, particularly as it relates to communicable diseases, such as HIV/AIDS. As the former co-chair of the HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis Parliamentary Caucus, I think some of the concerns of people on the front lines of the fight against HIV/AIDS merit strong consideration before this legislation is allowed to move forward.

Let me begin by focusing my comments on what this legislation would seek to do and how the changes to Canada's regulatory framework surrounding safe injection sites may actually contravene the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada on this subject. Essentially, what Bill C-2 is proposing is a complete reworking of the current framework governing safe injection sites in Canada by creating a lengthy and arduous list of criteria that supervised injection sites would need to meet before the minister would grant them an exemption to operate under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Among the numerous new provisions that would be included in the application process, many seem to be designed solely for the purpose of slowing down the process itself, while others, such as principles the minister must adhere to before approving an application, seem to be intended as a means of giving the minister unilateral power to accept or reject a new application. Essentially, these new criteria would make it much more onerous for organizations to open safe injection sites in Canada.

What is most troubling about this exhaustive set of new application criteria is the fact that this legislation seems to be an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's decision on this matter by creating a system that is so onerous and arbitrary that the minister could subjectively reject applications at his or her discretion.

In its 2011 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the minister's decision to close Vancouver-based InSite violated its patients' charter rights and that the minister's decision was arbitrary, undermining the very purposes of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which includes public health and safety. Here the court based its judgment on section 7 of the charter, and stated:

The infringement at stake is serious; it threatens the health, indeed the lives, of the claimants and others like them. The grave consequences that might result from a lapse in the current constitutional exemption for InSite cannot be ignored. These claimants would be cast back into the application process they have tried and failed at, and made to await the Minister's decision based on a reconsideration of the same facts.

Yet here we are, not even two years later, facing a subversive attempt to undermine the decision of the court with a bill designed to find a backdoor means of closing down supervised injection sites. For instance, despite already having the Supreme Court of Canada rule in favour of its continued operation, InSite will now have to once again apply for a section 56 exemption under the new criteria. This means that InSite is being asked to validate its existence once again and that the minister can still arbitrarily shut down the institution.

This speaks to the heart of why I am so concerned about the way this process is unfolding. Without pulling punches, it is clear that Bill C-2 is part of a larger attempt by the Conservatives to align all government policies and programs with their anti-drug and abstinence ideals. They are slowly removing all avenues for Canadians to safely address their addictions at safe injection sites and to access medical marijuana for therapeutic needs.

With the Conservatives' agenda, we are turning back the clock on public health achievements and community benefits gained from harm reduction programs that have been proven to be successful over the past two decades.

In an attempt to garner support for the bill, Conservatives have been suggesting that it should be passed, because it will help keep heroin out of our backyards. However, the bill will make it almost impossible to open safe injection sites. It will actually put intravenous drug users back into public spaces in certain communities and make it more difficult to safely remove this activity from communities that do not currently house a supervised injection site.

Let me use a local example from my great community of Sudbury to illustrate how backward the government's thinking is on this issue. The Point, Sudbury's needle exchange program, has for the last 20 years supplied clean needles to reduce harm to intravenous drug users. While the majority of those needles are returned after they are used, some still end up on the ground. This means that each year, as the snow melts across my city, the thaw tends to reveal hundreds of discarded needles in our city's parks, playgrounds, and other similar public spaces.

Some Conservatives might cite this as a prime example of why we, as legislators, should be making it more onerous for intravenous drug users to access clean needles. However, I believe that it underscores that we have not created an effective system that allows these individuals to access clean needles in a space removed from the public so that used needles are not carelessly discarded on our city's streets. Evidence from Vancouver's experience with InSite supports this belief, as 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.

While no organization in my community has thus far come forward with an application to open a supervised injection site, should one eventually come forward with an application, the government's desire to make the process more onerous would actually reverse course on a 20-year public health trajectory. It would once again lead to a higher threat from discarded needles, and more importantly, from the threat of deadly communicable diseases, such as HIV and AIDS.

I mentioned previously my involvement in parliamentary initiatives related to HIV and AIDS. Given this experience, I firmly believe that the most disturbing thing about what Bill C-2 is proposing is the impact it would have on the spread of communicable diseases. For instance, the Pivot Legal Society, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition have jointly stated:

[Bill C-2] is an irresponsible initiative that ignores both the extensive evidence that such health services are needed and effective, and the human rights of Canadians with addictions.... It is unethical, unconstitutional and damaging to both public health and public purse to block access to supervised consumption services.

Once again, empirical evidence confirms the efficiency of supervised injection sites in preventing the spread of communicable diseases. Drug users who use lnSite are 70% less likely to share needles, and reducing needle sharing has been listed as an international best practice to reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS.

In conclusion, it is worth highlighting that safe injection sites currently operate in 70 cities in six European countries and in Australia. The experience in these cases, as with InSite, has been positive for drug users, because of health improvements; for the surrounding communities; and for reducing the transmission rates of HIV/AIDS.

By making the application process more onerous and arbitrary, the Conservatives are using processes as a means of clandestinely supporting their ideological beliefs regarding the morality of drug use, ultimately threatening more than 20 years of evidence-based public health policy. New Democrats support the use of evidence-based decision-making, and for this reason, I will not be supporting this ideologically driven attempt to skirt the decision of Canada's highest court.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to forgive my colleague from Sudbury, whom I have worked with very positively in a number of different dimensions, for inferring that there is some alternative intention of the bill.

He began his speech by mentioning a framework for supervised injection sites. In fact, the real issue is that there is no framework. He refers to section 56, which simply provides an opportunity to get an exemption for research on illicit drugs or for use with things like sniffer dogs. There is no framework at all right now.

Bill C-2 is the first attempt to put a framework in place for supervised injection sites. Would he not agree that some of the aspects of the bill should be in place to make sure that the community has a say and that police, the municipality, and the provincial health officer have a say in where these sites go, when we are talking about people who are hopped up on illicit drugs and who are going to be leaving these sites and going into communities?

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague should not worry about apologizing. I know that we are on different sides of the House, but what we are having is a good debate on a subject that is important for all Canadians.

What we are seeing in the bill would change a system that is working. If we are actually helping individuals who have addictions, then let us keep moving forward on this.

InSite, located in Vancouver, is the only site in Canada. Since it opened, we have seen a 35% decrease in overdose deaths. InSite has been shown to decrease crime, communicable disease infection rates, and relapse rates for drugs users. This is coming from the community. The community is involved in it. We do not want to make it more onerous and leave it in the minister's hands to make an arbitrary decision, when the community is already saying that this site is working for them.

We need to continue to promote facilities like InSite to help those who are addicted.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his very cogent speech on this topic, which I spoke about previously in the House.

To come back to the issue of what the Supreme Court determined, it is really important for everyone in this place to understand exactly what the Supreme Court said in this case. The Supreme Court was very clear that in this case, a declaration of the law was not sufficient. The matter was so serious, because of what the government was trying to do to provide public health safety, that it issued an order of mandamus, which does not occur very often.

The Supreme Court said that the infringement at stake, meaning from the government trying to shut down InSite, was so serious “it threatens the health, indeed the lives, of the claimants and others like them”. Therefore, an order of mandamus was necessary.

The Supreme Court was clear that the government, in responding to its direction, must take a balanced approach. It must look at the interests of the community, which the government claims it is looking at, but must balance them with the charter, or in other words, the rights of those who are suffering from a drug addiction where there are measures to also protect the community from this.

The Supreme Court actually directed the government to put in place balanced criteria. When we look at this legislation, there is the complete opposite of balance. We have almost 40 requirements that must be met before there can be an InSite-type of location. That is not balance. It is not simply about giving a voice to communities, which is normally done on every other matter by the local government.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-2 directly defies the 2011 Supreme Court ruling, which called on the minister to consider these exemptions for safe injection sites based on a balance between public health and safety. It called on the minister to consider all the evidence on the benefits of safe injection sites, rather than setting out a lengthy list of principles by which to apply judgment.

What we are calling it on this side of the House is a backdoor attempt to change the Supreme Court decision. We need to ensure that we actually find ways to continue to help facilities like InSite, because the job it is doing in the community of Vancouver is coming from the community, and it is doing a good job.

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

Mr. Speaker, indeed, it is an honour for me to stand here to discuss this particular issue. I have done a bit of research in the past little while, as I am not familiar with the areas in question, though I have experienced living around it. I did live in Vancouver for some time.

I became interested, after reading the evidence put forward and the decision by the Supreme Court, in the issue of harm reduction. Some time ago, I was in Europe with a delegation and we were talking about harm reduction in a very broad sense. We were exploring the best practices to reduce harm in big cities and to reduce drug abuse and how we could do it in a very smart way, not necessarily punitive all the time. Of course, there has to be certain punishment involved when it comes to drug abuse, but we certainly have to enable people to put themselves in better places by reducing harm. That is where the focus should be. I heard compelling reasons as to why harm reduction should be at the centre of this.

In this particular bill, there is talk of frameworks so that these sites could exist and that there would be rules to follow in order for the sites to do what it is they do, which I believe is good work. As my hon. colleague just pointed out, though, 40 requirements in Bill C-2 for InSite to exist really straps these people into positions—

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Too bad there weren't more requirements for the Senate.

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

There you go.

Basically, what we are looking at here is something that is onerous for these people to exist. We are scrambling now. Before the bill becomes law, hopefully we can engage members in debate and try to put some reason to this.

Bill C-2, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, would do the following:

(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.

This is where things start to fall off the rails, as it were, because it is an incredibly overly prescriptive way of trying to reduce harm in the cities and the impact drug abuse has on all of our communities, whether they are big cities or small towns. Very few people in this country have not had the experience of seeing what heavy drug abuse can do to communities and families.

Liberals feel that the bill far exceeds the 2011 Supreme Court of Canada ruling regarding InSite. We believe this is an ideological bill from a government always opposed to evidence-based harm reduction measures, such as safe injections sites, as I talked about earlier. Safe injection sites must be part of a broader evidence-based national drug policy that saves lives, reduces harm and promotes public health. The criteria that must accompany an application as listed in this particular bill are so cumbersome that it raises serious concerns as to whether any future site could be established in Canada, as my colleague from Alberta pointed out about the 40 requirements involved here.

We support the need to consult broadly and work in conjunction with provincial and municipal governments, public health authorities, business associates, and of course, the public. The engagement with other levels of government is not just important in this particular matter, but in all particular matters these days. The idea of engaging the provinces on much broader issues seems to be lost. I cannot remember the last time this country engaged with the provinces, certainly with the head of state of each province, with the first ministers involved, to allow them, in a public manner, to engage in a national issue. This is another one of these things.

It was initially launched as an experiment that has proven to be successful. I am talking about InSite, of course. It has saved lives and improved health and communities and the incidence of drug use and crime in the surrounding area. The Vancouver police supports InSite, as well as the City of Vancouver and the British Columbia government. The minister has never even stepped into Vancouver's InSite and her legislation is based on ideology and not evidence.

Now we go back to the theme once more of evidence-based policy.

I have been here nine years and the Conservatives have been in government for about seven years. It seems to me that year after year those who work so diligently to give us the evidence upon which we can base our decisions have had numerous protests. Not just when it comes to InSite, but also in the case of the Library and Archives, the Meteorological Service of Canada, Statistics Canada. All these employees have high amounts of education and want to do their jobs in the best manner possible, yet each and every time policy seems to run away from what we consider to be evidence-based policy or at least the making of decisions and drafting of policy with the latest data and facts in mind, which are given to us by our experts.

This is just another example. Harm reduction is actually taking place in a supervised site. Now, in order for them to exist and do what they do best, we find ourselves in the situation where the government wants to strap them down. It is almost as if they want to use, I believe the term is, “regulation creep”, where the government would allow regulations to be imposed that would suffocate a particular incentive or a project, which has been successful in making our communities better.

That is the unfortunate part because when these regulations take hold, as was pointed out, the 40 criteria are going to make it near impossible for these places to exist. The Vancouver police certainly would not be happy, and the Province of British Columbia feels much the same.

Only an hour after the legislation was introduced, Conservative campaign director, Jenni Byrne issued a crass and misleading fundraising letter to supporters stating that the Liberals and the NDP want addicts to shoot up heroin in backyards in communities all across the country.

Now we have come to the nub of the issue. This is what it is all about. It is not about creating a framework for harm reduction. This is a 30-second ad or a tweet of less than 140 characters that talks about how good the Conservatives are and how bad we are. The Conservatives are chasing after this headline. Lost in the headlines would be a lot of drug abuse taking place in the dark shadows once more.

This site reduces the harm and brings it under control so that these communities can be better. It will not eradicate the issue. Nothing can eradicate the issue of drug abuse.

Certainly if evidence-based policy tells us that this is making a difference in our communities, making our streets safer, a phrase the Conservatives use all the time, why would they want to chase after a headline with a fundraising letter and a notice in Canadians' post office boxes geared toward an election campaign, when there is no election campaign? It smacks of desperation, and it is unfortunate that this is a ploy the Conservatives are using. I am not going to blame every member in the House for engaging in that. There are a lot of people on all sides of the House who, when they see it in their post office box, are obviously disappointed, and they just roll their eyes.

However, we are affected by this. We need to have a mature debate. I hope the idea of this is not to go after a headline and score some cheap political points. I say, “I hope.” We can only hold out for hope.

We support evidence-based policies to reduce harm and protect public safety. These are paramount. They should always be paramount. A 2011 Supreme Court ruling declared the Minister of Health's 2008 decision not to grant an extension of the exemption of section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which had allowed Vancouver's safe injection site, a safe consumption site, to operate since September 2003, had violated section 7 of the charter rights. That is:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

Determining whether there has been a breach of section 7 involves a two-part analysis that courts considering potential section 7 violations must ask. First, is there a deprivation of the right to life, liberty or security? Second, if so, is the deprivation in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice? Therein lies the core of the issue.

This is about harm reduction and this about the rights of communities to reduce harm and to reduce drug abuse.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. Liberal colleague, but first I would like to thank him for mentioning the importance of harm reduction so many times.

Yesterday the Standing Committee on Health was examining the issue of prescription drug abuse. Witnesses from the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nurses Association and the College of Family Physicians of Canada all agreed that the government should correct the mistake it made in 2007 when it removed the fourth pillar from the government's anti-drug strategy, which is harm reduction.

My question is very simple. He already mentioned that the fourth pillar was eliminated from the strategy based on ideology.

Can he explain why the Conservatives and people on the right oppose the notion of helping people who are struggling, who might not yet be ready to begin treatment, and who could be helped through harm reduction strategies such as a supervised injection site?