The removal of the harm reduction pillar from Canada's drug strategy was met with quite a bit of concern in Vancouver. We spent a considerable amount of time and energy under Mayor Owen's leadership in developing the harm reduction approach in the four pillars, getting the acknowledgement and getting the community to come along and realize, which they have, that harm reduction is an absolutely critical component of any comprehensive strategy.
In my earlier talk, I was trying to say that the rest of the world, including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which is a very conservative UN body, is acknowledging that harm reduction is absolutely essential, from both a human rights perspective and a public health perspective, and more and more countries are bringing harm reduction into their public policy frameworks. So I urge the committee--and the federal government--to consider how important harm reduction is...the removal of that from the framework.