Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's lovely to be back here at the glorious OGGO.
I am a regular member of the health committee, and so I have had an opportunity to sit through the multitude of meetings that we have had in looking at the opioid epidemic, but what we have here in the motion from my colleague, Garnett Genuis, is actually substantially different from what we've been studying at the health committee. This is about looking at the contracts and trying to get to the bottom of where the money came from. This is precisely why I believe that it is critical that we have it at OGGO rather than at the health committee.
I understand that a few hours ago the chair and everyone on this committee received a letter from Dr. Julian Somers, a distinguished professor who has been quite vocal when it comes to addiction and addiction medicine. In his letter he talks about the fact that he is a clinician and researcher in the field of addiction and has led a number of different federally funded initiatives specifically designed to reduce addictions and related harms.
When he saw that our motion was on record at the OGGO committee, he took it upon himself to write in and ask to present. Earlier this week, he did a podcast, and in the podcast he was talking at one point about some of the very concerning pieces that were coming out of British Columbia, specifically in relation to some of the top public health officers who were the ones who were making decisions as to whether they would go forward with so-called safe supply in British Columbia, which created companies that then stood to profit and are providing safe supply in British Columbia.
Effectively, the very same doctors who were making the policy decisions as to whether they should or shouldn't go forward with a particular policy, in turn, had companies involved to do this. I really do think it is critical for us to not only go forward with this study from my colleague but also to have Dr. Somers come to the committee to testify and give a little bit more breadth on the allegations he made in the podcast earlier this week.
I'm going to see if perhaps we could have some conversation about first having a vote on the notice of motion from MP Genuis to get to the bottom of it and look at the contracts. This truly is the best committee when it comes to looking at the specifics and the dollars and cents of it, because we do know that government money has gone towards these programs. We do know—and perhaps Liberal members can raise their eyebrows and everything else—that the program that was called “safer supply” is effectively governments that have decided to give prescription hydromorphone and Dilaudid.... Specifically, in many cases it is Dilaudid, the Purdue brand name of hydromorphone, a synthetic opiate that is stronger than heroin, that is being given to people who are struggling with addiction, and it is all paid for by taxpayers.
We need to know who's paying, how much is being paid, and who is getting rich off this. At the end of the day, if someone is in fact profiting from this, that is absolutely an issue. If it's not happening, there shouldn't be any fear from any member around this table about getting to the bottom of this.
With that, I would hope that we can get to a vote.