Evidence of meeting #4 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was enforcement.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
What I'm talking about is someone obtaining 50 T3s—they used to sell for five bucks each—and person X sells T3s to person Y. There's no provision for the selling of T3s.
Is there an opportunity to expand upon that? It seems to be becoming a problem with prescription drugs being sold to another person, but there's no mechanism for the charge.
Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I'm not sure exactly what a T3 is.
Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Okay.
I know that we have the trafficking offence. Trafficking offences apply to pretty well all the scheduled drugs. If this particular drug, for instance, falls under one of these schedules, the trafficking in that drug would get caught, as well as possession for the purpose of trafficking, for instance.
I'm not familiar with that particular drug, so I don't know if it's actually listed in one of these schedules.
Conservative
Insp Jean Cormier
If it's a drug that falls under barbiturates or would fall under one of the schedules that Monsieur Saint-Denis is referring to, it certainly would apply under the CDSA. We would investigate the offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. We would likely charge the individual involved, either for possession for the purpose of trafficking, or trafficking.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you.
Trevor, you mentioned in your presentation that prescription drugs are prevailing. Are there certain types of prescription drugs that have been documented as more abused than others?
Director General, Law Enforcement and Border Strategies Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
That's probably best posed to my colleagues at the RCMP on the operations side.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Part of the problem seems to be that we've fallen into a grey area with regard to prescription drugs. Back in my day—I hate to date myself, but pre-charter—there wasn't as big a deal about prescription drugs because back then we were more focused on the illicit drugs that were coming in. But we've found a clientele within organized crime that has found a great opportunity to make money on prescription drugs.
One of the things you mentioned, Mr. Head, was how you control how that goes out, what kind of drug a person can get, and why they can get it or why they can't get it in federal facilities. I wonder if you could expand on that a bit, because that seems to be something we could take to the health community to help them as well.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
For us, that's guided by what we call our national formulary which, among other things, lists all of the drugs that can be prescribed within the correctional setting.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
It's in our policy framework. We can actually make a copy of that available to this committee.
Conservative
David Wilks Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you.
From that, how do you determine who gets what and how much? Please walk me through that process.
Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada
First off, we are reliant upon the licensed health care professionals to make their appropriate determinations. Whether that be the physicians, the pharmacists for dispensing purposes, or licensed health care nurses for the actual distribution, we are dependent on them. But in the formulary, based on input that we get through the assistance of Health Canada and their process for approving drugs, and then our own internal pharmacy and therapeutic committee that reviews those drugs that are approved...they look at issues around effectiveness, efficiency, and cost, as well as whether they pose a security problem in the institution.
Once they determine that it will go on the formulary and based on the advice from professionals, they would indicate what dosages could or should be dispensed for any given situation. It's a guide, a framework, that is used and that all of our institutions are expected to follow.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to everybody.
I was going to direct a question to Mr. Bhupsingh, but everybody else has already been pushing him a little bit, so I'll save that one for the end.
To Mr. Cormier, there's been some change of late relative to medicinal marijuana going from the small home producer. It looks like there's a significant change coming. From the standpoint of current enforcement, how often have these places been broken into and their product—that's a strange word—stolen? Is there much of that happening?
Insp Jean Cormier
I don't have the statistics in regard to that, and it may be a little bit off the subject we're discussing here today.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Well, the medicinal side is what made me think in terms of that because we were talking about the abuse of prescriptions and medicinal marijuana should, hopefully, be prescribed—I would presume it to be. What brought that to mind is that during the break week, I spoke to two different schools—grades 4 and 5—and because of a particular leader talking about legalizing marijuana these days, I was quite surprised that the grade 4 and 5 students were asking questions about marijuana. It led me to that particular question.
Going a little further, we have information about a report from Public Safety Canada. Mr. Wilks touched on it earlier, about the misuse of drugs. Would you say that enforcement officials—RCMP, municipal officers as well—are receiving enough training to identify the abuse? If not, where would you see it lacking?
Insp Jean Cormier
I think the officers in general—RCMP, municipal, and provincial police force agencies—are receiving adequate training. But I think it's something that has to be continuous, because you can never receive enough training. It's not because the training they receive is not good, it's simply that there has to be an evergreen program. New officers come online and their training has to continue. New drugs come online and there has to be training in relation to them. So the education of officers has to be a continuous process.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I would anticipate it would have to be just given the turnover in officers alone.
Who would provide that training?
Insp Jean Cormier
It's available through different means. For example, we have the drug investigator's course that's delivered at the Canadian Police College. Some of the municipal and provincial police forces also offer their own training. For example, Corporal Luc Chicoine, who is here today as well, lectures at many of those training courses that are organized by the RCMP or other municipal or provincial police forces.
