This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.
Rona Ambrose Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
The Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin
I would ask all members to direct their comments to the Chair and not to other members of Parliament, please.
The hon. member for Halifax.
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, that is a good question and it is complicated. This is not easy stuff. It is not black and white. There are a whole lot of shades of grey here, and so we figure it out.
Yes, there will still be people dealing in drugs if there are safe injection sites. Yes, there will be, but right now there are people dealing in drugs. We have a choice of having a community where there are drug transactions and people dying, or a community where there are drug transactions and maybe not as many people dying. Maybe one person will decide to take advantage of addiction services and will no longer be an addict. If there is just one, I consider that to be a victory.
It is not simple. I am not standing here saying that we have the magic bullet, that we know exactly how to do this and how it should roll out, but I do know in my heart that the first thing we have to do is try to save people's lives. If that is what safe injection sites do, I am all for them.
Christine Moore NDP Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, parents often have concerns about safe injection sites.
Does my colleague think it is better for a child to see a building without really understanding what goes on inside or to come across an addict shooting up or even a person who died from an overdose in the park where that child plays? Does she think that such activities are better carried out inside a building or in front of a child in a place where parents have no control?
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her question.
I would like to give an example of what is happening here in Ottawa. Perhaps that will help alleviate some of the concerns people in our communities have.
In Ottawa, Campaign for Safer Consumption Sites and the Drug Users Advocacy League came together and opened a mock injection site, where people from the community could see what it was all about. Instead of fearmongering, with pictures of needles rolling around, they said, “This is what it is. Come and talk to our nurses, health experts and people who think this is a good idea. Come on in and see what it is that happens in here”. People get to see the little kits that would be given to people who access the site. It's a mock site, which helps demystify and dispel the myths, where people can ask questions. We are afraid sometimes, and that is okay. People can go there to ask questions and get educated on the issue instead of just being told that we should live our lives in fear.
We should get educated on these issues, and the Campaign for Safer Consumption Sites has done a really remarkable thing. Not everybody in Ottawa agrees, but it has created a safe space for debate and discussion, and that is a far cry from what the Conservatives are doing.
Raymond Côté NDP Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the members for Skeena—Bulkley Valley and Halifax for speaking to this issue. I am honoured to join them in talking about this bill, which will have a major and very worrisome impact.
I will begin with a fact about what happened in Vancouver between 1987 and 1993. The number of overdose-related deaths at the end of that six-year period was 12 times higher than at the beginning.
That is a spectacular increase over a period of six years. Even if that number had merely doubled, it would still have been a very serious problem.
However, given the Conservatives' attitude toward this bill, the way they want to deal with the problem of hard drug use, and their attempts to undermine the amazing work done by Vancouver's InSite, it is obvious that they are refusing to face the facts.
I would like to mention another significant statistic. Since InSite opened, there has been a 35% decrease in overdose deaths. That is a huge success. Of course it is not enough, but it is a big step forward in dealing with a problem that is beyond the control, and against the will, of drug addicts.
Those are the indisputable facts. They are widely available for anyone to consult. Now, the real debate is about the respect that needs to be shown for the work and the rulings of our courts.
I would like to remind the House that the B.C. Supreme Court, the B.C. Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada all supported the idea of keeping InSite open because it addresses the dangers related to drug abuse.
The Supreme Court ruled that the minister's decision to close InSite was in violation of the clients' charter rights and that the decision was:
...arbitrary, undermining the very purposes of the CDSA, which include public health and safety.
The government’s lack of respect for the country’s courts, a pillar of our society, is a very serious issue. It is troubling because it begs the question of how the public can maintain the same respect for, and especially the same confidence in, one of Canada’s fundamental authorities.
However, this attitude on the part of the Conservatives comes as no great surprise. In fact, it is very much in keeping with their desire to appeal to their base, as illustrated so clearly in their “Keep heroin out of our backyards” campaign. This approach promotes fear and prejudice and denies reality. All this sorry campaign puts forward as a possible solution is to tell people that in order to guarantee their children’s safety on the streets, it is important to keep drug users out of their neighbourhoods. This is an approach worthy of the Far West.
At least the Conservatives have not gone so far as to encourage people to get out the tar and feathers to chase away individuals who are much more in need of assistance than stigmatization to free themselves from their drug addiction.
The Conservatives refuse to address the problems and face reality. Above all, they refuse to support the people and the organizations that are not afraid to be on the ground and take steps to reach out to people and tackle the root cause of the problems. That is what is truly most important.
The NDP believes that any legislation must be based on facts, on empirical and objective data. Above all, it must respect the spirit of the courts’ decisions and their interpretation of our fundamental laws.
Of course, the Canadian Human Rights Act is not perfect. Any piece of legislation, anything created by man, can be made better and can be improved upon. However, when this legislation is used as a frame of reference, especially given that it was passed after major debate and that it is based on experiences in countries around the world, then it serves as a foundational text that puts basic principles to paper.
If some elected members of this Parliament lack respect, either for the amazing results of this work or especially for the decisions made in the course of interpreting these laws, then in which direction are we heading?
To cite the Supreme Court decision again, the approach that the government is planning to take with Bill C-2 puts too much arbitrary decision-making power in the hands of the minister. Furthermore, Bill C-2 does not even provide time limits for making a decision on a proposed safe injection site. So, in addition to the minister’s disinclination and the onerous procedures that the organizations wanting to open a safe injection site will have to contend with, they are also going to be facing a wall of silence. This decision will be one that is hidden, arbitrary and hypocritical, because neither Health Canada nor the Minister of Health will be subject to any time limits. They will not have to defend their decisions or justify their point of view about any proposal to establish a safe injection site.
This is totally unacceptable. It is unacceptable for any of our institutions or any government representatives to subject a single one of our citizens to arbitrary decisions, inaction or silence.
In conclusion, I would also like to speak briefly about the terms and conditions that would allow the minister to withhold approval of an application to open a safe injection site. They are found in clause 5 of the bill, which is a long list of criteria for refusing the exemption. They are so extraordinary that, taken to the extreme, they could even be yet another way to kill these proposals and put an end to such initiatives.
It is not even a downstream evaluation of the project, that is, after the proponents and those who have decided to set up these kinds of sites have fulfilled all of the requirements; it is something that happens beforehand. It is tantamount to telling people that they can go ahead and do everything in their power and be as professional as possible, but the government will have made up its mind right from the outset. The six principles mentioned, that I will not take the time to read out loud, go so far that they will stop any proposal in its tracks long before anyone can even start working out the details.
I hope that the government members will listen to reason and that for the public good, in the interest of Canadians and for public health in general, the Conservative members will vote against this bill.
Hélène LeBlanc NDP LaSalle—Émard, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague and those who spoke about this bill earlier.
The complexity of the situation has been mentioned. However, Canada is recognized as a compassionate nation. With this kind of values in our DNA, we must reflect on how we can do more to help people. As we have already seen, InSite in Vancouver met a desperate need among the population.
I wonder if my colleague could elaborate on the importance of showing compassion for people who are addicted to hard drugs. This is also a health issue. These places really focus on health.
Raymond Côté NDP Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question.
This gives me the opportunity to talk about the situation in Quebec City and specifically in my riding, Beauport—Limoilou.
There has been a debate in Quebec City on the appropriateness of, as well as the concerns and dangers associated with, a safe injection site. Clearly, proponents of the project have faced prejudice and resistance, but they have also faced perfectly reasonable, genuine concerns.
I had the opportunity to speak directly to people—but more importantly, to listen to people—from certain organizations that provide direct assistance to really vulnerable people. These people are overcoming hardships like drug addiction, and they often need to take substitutes in order to be able to function. As for the will to beat their addiction, they told me that they did not want to take drugs, but they had a problem and they did want to get help.
However, this requires infrastructure, as well as qualified people who are willing to reach out and provide assistance.
Getting back to my colleague's question, compassion is probably one of the most important aspects. The government needs to show some compassion, and that is how it must approach this problem.
Christine Moore NDP Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Mr. Speaker, my question is actually very simple.
Whenever we talk about supervised injection sites, the subject of parents and protecting children comes up. True, some addicts do come from troubled homes. Others, however, had very good parents who did their level best, but whose children, sadly, became drug addicts for one reason or another.
Let us put ourselves in the shoes of a parent whose child is a drug addict. Would we not feel better knowing that our child has access to a safe injection site rather than constantly worrying about him shooting up in the streets? He could be assaulted or even die on the street, not to be found until two or three days later. A daughter could be sexually assaulted while under the influence of drugs she used in some backyard.
Raymond Côté NDP Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue did a nice job of summarizing the issue. This is about keeping vulnerable people safe and about the danger they pose to others. Leaving them to their own devices or making them go away shows no compassion or understanding. It is based on prejudice. It is dishonourable. This bill will create and multiply problems, not solve them or help us deal with them.
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.
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, I agree with the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands that safe injection sites should not go everywhere. They should not go anywhere. There should be community involvement by all the stakeholders. There should be thoughtful, evidence-based decisions based on some clear criteria.
As my hon. colleague has pointed out, at least some of the members of the current governing party, not all, but many, and especially those at the top, do not believe in democracy. They do not really want to listen to the Supreme Court on several issues. We can think of others, I am sure. They are really not interested in a fair voting system. They are not interested in a fair system of parliamentary democracy at all. They are ideologically driven. They are bound and determined to do whatever it takes to gain control and push their own ideological agenda.
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
Mr. Speaker, the numbers speak for themselves with respect to why the funding should continue for InSite injection clinics. The rate of overdose deaths in east Vancouver has dropped by 35% since InSite opened.
It is about the health and safety of people and the well-being of communities. Those who use InSite services at least once a week were 1.7 times more likely to enrol in a detox program than those who visited infrequently.
Over and over we have heard that it is about the well-being of the community, about the well-being of the person, and about trying to get people into programs so that they can get out of their dependencies.
Does the member think that by removing the funding and not allowing these InSite programs the problem will go away, or will it get worse?
Bruce Hyer Green Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hard-working member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing for her good question.
It is very clear that this will not be a cost-saving measure. It is very clear to anyone with a brain that doing that kind of draconian thing and forcing people eventually into our prison system, at a cost of $80,000 to $120,000 per year per person, is a really dumb thing to do.
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.