Bill C-224 (Historical)

Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act

An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (assistance — drug overdose)

This enactment amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in order to exempt from charges for possession or charges related to the violation of certain conditions or orders a person who seeks emergency medical or law enforcement assistance for themselves or another person following overdosing on a controlled substance.

Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam for putting forward Bill C-224, an important piece of legislation. Not all of us are so fortunate as to get such an early spot for our private member's bills and to have a bill that is going to potentially make a lifesaving difference. It is truly a privilege.

I would like to provide a bit of perspective around what the issue is that my colleague is trying to address.

In British Columbia, the province both the member and I are from, between 2010 and 2015 there was a 50% increase in deaths due to drug overdose. In 2016 we have seen a really worrisome spike. There have been 201 deaths in three months in British Columbia. The situation is so serious that public health has declared a state of emergency. This is not only a big issue in British Columbia but it is a big issue across Canada.

We think this perhaps happens only in some of our larger centres, such as the Downtown Eastside. That is not accurate. In Kamloops alone there have been 13 fatalities in three months from drug overdoses, and six of those happened in one day. Four individuals managed to get treatment and are fine.

These are not just numbers and facts. These are people. These are our friends. These are our children. In Kamloops, three families have spoken out directly on this issue. They want to raise awareness, especially about fentanyl and the tragic consequences of its use.

Ryan Pinneo's family has spoken out publicly. Their son was an athlete with a very supportive family. He struggled with addiction and succumbed to a tragic overdose.

There was another young man from Kamloops named Lance Ritchie whose parents have also spoken out. The reason they are speaking out is to raise awareness in terms of the incredible danger that is out there. Lance Ritchie loved the outdoors. He loved to fish. His family has beautiful pictures of him. They have shown the people of Kamloops the pictures and have told them that, yes, he did something wrong and foolish but he was a wonderful man.

Twenty-four-year-old Ben Coan is another whose family is grieving, and it is so tragic to hear the mothers and fathers talk about their children.

Someone that I knew from a very young age, and it was a fairly high-profile tragedy in North Vancouver, involved Hardy and Amelia, a couple of young parents. They made a foolish decision, no question about it. They were good people who made a bad mistake.

What would this legislation mean? The research the proponent of the bill shared was that sometimes there is a barrier to getting help quickly and that barrier is because the people who are with their friends or their classmates or their mothers and fathers are worried that there will be some consequences in terms of the substances. The research is clear that at times there has been a barrier because of possession. We also just heard from a doctor across the aisle who, in his own experience, found that there was a barrier for people in terms of self-interest or many reasons in terms of getting help quickly.

In the case of opioids, what does getting help quickly mean? I am a nurse by background. I can remember in the hospital there was a case, and this was a legitimate use of a narcotic for pain control. We had given a woman some pain medication post-surgery and just a couple of minutes later I happened to go into the room and she had stopped breathing as the result of an allergic reaction to the pain medication.

It was absolutely shocking to see someone who had stopped breathing and who was on the brink of death. The hospitals have something called Narcan or naloxone. We injected the naloxone, or Narcan as it was called, into her and she started breathing again. She opened her eyes and wondered what had happened. For someone who has never seen this, Narcan can reverse the effects an allergy to medicaitons.

This is a multi-issue and this is one piece of the puzzle that our colleague has introduced in getting help for people quickly. Removing barriers for them to seek help is a really important piece of the puzzle.

British Columbia has a take-home naloxone program to make it readily available. Health Canada worked rapidly, going through a process to make naloxone available, not a prescription. It is cheaper for patients who have a bee allergy. We will often see their kits and learn how to do an injection to reverse the effects of the allergy to the bee. This particular injection can be easily learned and is truly life-saving.

The other important feature is that lay people can learn how to deliver naloxone. It is absolutely life-saving and there is very minimal adverse effects.

I noted that some people have said that we perhaps should be criticizing this because we are endorsing drug use. That is not actually what is happening. It has been very clear that what is happening is life-saving, whether it is someone who is suffering from an addiction who has taken an overdose, or whether it is a young person who has been at a party and who has made perhaps a foolish decision.

If we put this bill into the context of what is a dramatically escalating situation in British Columbia and across Canada and provide some basic life-saving tools, then we have a good bill. I too hope all members in the House will support the bill. Again, even if it saves one life, it is a bill well done.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, we will be supporting the bill before us, which would provide an exemption from drug possession charges when someone calls 911 to report an overdose. It is a simple, common-sense, proven policy that will save lives. I thank the member for Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam for bringing the bill forward.

We know all too well how desperately our communities need action to end this crisis. As the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo mentioned, British Columbia's health officer has declared a public health emergency. This is the first time that such emergency powers have been used. The province took this step, because in the first three months of this year, there have been more than 200 deaths from overdoses of fentanyl. At that rate, we could see 700 to 800 British Columbians dead by the end of this year. We are talking about an opiate that is exponentially more powerful than morphine or heroin.

We have seen provincial task forces created and police alerts issued in major cities across Canada. We know that this problem will not go away on its own. Indeed, it could get much worse.

Recently, police in Edmonton seized a shipment of white powder from China before it could be prepared for street sale. Lab testing revealed it to be a substance called W-18, a synthetic opiate that is unimaginably deadly. It is 100 times more powerful than fentanyl, and 10,000 times more potent than morphine. To put that in perspective, the amount seized recently in Edmonton, four kilograms, according to public health officials, is enough to kill every person in Alberta 45 times over.

However, this drug is so new that it has not yet been included in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Therefore, it is clear that in the face of such a complex crisis, many things need to be done, and done quickly. Bill C-224 is one essential step, and we must take it without delay.

One study cited by the Pivot Legal Society suggested that most people who witness an overdose do not call 911. Fear of arrest for drug possession is one barrier among many, but it is one that we have the power to lift.

This is a step that many jurisdictions have already taken. In the United States, New Mexico was the first to pass a good Samaritan law in 2007, and 31 states have followed suit. By all accounts, these laws have been successful in reducing the fear of police involvement as a barrier to calling emergency assistance during an overdose.

We need to do more, as well, to ensure that drugs that counteract opiate overdoses are more readily available where they are needed. Naloxone was delisted by Health Canada on March 22. This followed the unanimous recommendation of 130 community groups, health experts, and other groups. However, this still leaves it up to the provinces to ensure broader access.

In B.C., naloxone is now available without a prescription and is in the hands of almost all EMS personnel. In Alberta, more than 500 pharmacies are offering free kits without prescriptions. However, access is not as open in some other provinces, where it is still available only to trained responders, or through a doctor's prescription to friends and family of opiate users. Furthermore, cost and access in rural areas still present barriers to saving lives from overdoses.

There remains a federal role to play in encouraging access to easier forms of dosage, for instance, replacing an injection with a nasal spray. Of course, we must also do more to prevent overdoses by increasing awareness about fentanyl-laced street drugs and by reducing its availability by tackling illegal production.

On the former, I note, for example, the recent initiative by Toronto Public Health to create a simple website, ReportBadDrugsTO.ca, to allow fast, anonymous reports of tainted street drugs so that warnings can be spread immediately to opiate users through community agencies. On the latter, I note the recent introduction in the Senate of Bill S-225 by Senator Vernon White. This bill would add the ingredients of fentanyl to the schedule of controlled precursors in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Together with the provinces we must do more to control the use of highly addictive prescription opioids. These initiatives must be considered as elements of a broader response by all levels of government to a crisis that is overwhelming too many communities.

The bill deserves to be praised in the context of removing the ideological blinders of the previous Conservative government and instead adopting the evidence and public health based approach to drug policy for which New Democrats have long been proud advocates.

I salute here the work of Libby Davies, the former member for Vancouver East, who has been a powerful advocate for harm reduction, public health, and safer communities for many years.

If we are to make this long overdue paradigm shift real it will take much more from the government. We need to see the government's promise to repeal Bill C-2 honoured and to support supervised consumption sites. We need to see a review of criminal justice laws, including mandatory minimum sentences in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That, as we saw in the Supreme Court just days ago, may not only be costly and ineffective but also unconstitutional.

I know I speak for many communities when I say that this is not an issue that we can afford to leave on the back burner. In communities across Canada, overdoses are an epidemic, and we need action now.

Just last week, the CBC printed an interview with a Winnipeg opiate user named Amanda. She reached out to reporters after a close friend died of an overdose. She said, “I've had 15 contacts on my phone and two of them die in three days. That's scary enough, that says it all.”

There are many things we can do to help Amanda and the thousands of Canadians struggling with addictions and to renew and strengthen the health and safety of the communities they call home. This is one step we can take now, and I believe we should do it without delay.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I will keep my comments short, but I would first like to address the member's concerns in regard to W-18. We know it is a very powerful drug that has caused a great deal of damage to society. I can assure the member that the Government of Canada has acted very quickly on it. It is now on the illegal substances list. That means it is illegal in Canada for production, possession, importation, exportation, and trafficking. All of that is now illegal for the W-18 drug. We see that as a good thing, showing that the government can respond to incidents of this nature.

I want to compliment our colleague, the member for Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam for the efforts he has put in to provide us with Bill C-224 today. It should be acknowledged that through the efforts of the member he will in fact be saving lives if we pass the bill. There seems to be a will of the House to give it, potentially, unanimous support. That speaks volumes.

We have a member who recognized just how important the good Samaritan bill on drug overdose is not only to the community he represents but the community as a whole. I did get a chance to go over the comments the member provided and listen to the two examples. They were both young people, one in Ontario and one in Saskatchewan. These types of stories of overdoses and unnecessary deaths are very sad and tragic. It happens today in a very real and tangible way.

I rise with pleasure to indicate not only my support, but the government's support for Bill C-224 in hopes that we will ultimately see unanimous support.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise at the end of this debate to acknowledge and thank the many members on both sides of the House who have risen in support of Bill C-224, the good Samaritan drug overdose act, many of whom have shared with us their personal, powerful stories about why the bill is so important. This support has resonated not only on a multi-partisan basis throughout the House but throughout Canada as well, from coast to coast to coast.

We have, for instance, received strong expressions of support from the ministers of health in several provinces. In B.C., there is support from the B.C. chief coroner and the B.C. public health officer, as many have noted already, who has just recently declared a public health emergency due to the surge in overdose deaths, a dramatic increase that has in fact echoed across the whole country.

In my own tri-cities community as well, a great many of our local public officials have stepped up, from the mayors of each of the tri-cities to school board trustees and a large number of city councillors. Indeed, Port Coquitlam city council passed a unanimous resolution of support.

We have heard from police, firefighters, and paramedics as well, for first responders know that they can only save lives if they actually get the call. We have heard from religious leaders and ordinary citizens, as well as, throughout the country, families of victims who might have lived if only someone had picked up the phone and made that call a little earlier. By providing limited immunity from simple possession charges, we would remove a significant barrier to making that call. This means more lives will be saved and more people will live to have a chance to make better choices.

In my opening speech, I spoke of Austin Padaric and Kelly Best, two young men who tragically died too young and who might have lived if someone had made that call earlier. Austin and Kelly are just two of the all too many unfortunate victims throughout this land who on a daily basis needlessly die because someone was afraid to call for help. Austin and Kelly, let these names stand now on behalf of all those victims through all the years, but better yet, let them stand as well for all of those we might yet save in the years to come by passing this bill.

The bill will not end the scourge of drug overdoses and we will not end the intolerable toll of death, but surely, we can stem the rising tide. We will not slay this dragon in this one fell blow, but we can bring it to its knees.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Health.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It being two o'clock, the House stands adjourned until Monday at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2 p.m.)