Health Committee on Dec. 4th, 2018

[James Favel]

That's correct.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Right now you don't know if the federal government's going to continue funding you for the next—

[James Favel]

We know they're not intending to. That's what we know.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Dowie and Ms. Creighton, my colleague, Mr. Webber, has referred to Dr. Gabor Maté. My understanding is that his theory after working in the Downtown Eastside is that 100% of the people he's dealt with in the Downtown Eastside with addictions have underlying trauma. Most trace back to childhood. I'm curious about your sense of that. Is trauma of some type one of the base fundamental proximate causes of later substance use, and if so, how do you deal with that in your population?

[Dr. Victoria Creighton]

There's the big-T trauma and the small-t trauma. Every child we have had has had some form of trauma, and a lot of it often comes through the mis-recognition that is occurring within their communities, within the family, of not being seen and not being held. There are these underlying yearnings to belong, to be valued, to be seen for who they are. When that is met, the kids actually thrive and grow. It's very helpful at times to remove them from the family, get them in an environment where they are seen, involve the parents and get them to be really attuned, and the kids will bounce back. They come to life. You can actually see that happening.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Not to be a broken record in this, but once those children hit their late teens, with the current criminalization approach, how does criminalization impact that trauma?

[Dr. Victoria Creighton]

It's mis-recognition. It's not seeing accurately what's going on. It's trying to address the symptom rather than the underlying issue.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Ms. Blyth, I want to come back to you because you made a reference to the solution, but I don't think you actually articulated it.

What is the solution that we're missing, that fundamentally we need to be looking at as a federal government?

[Sarah Blyth]

The solution is decriminalization and getting people safe access to the medication that they need, which would be at overdose prevention sites or at InSite or Crosstown Clinic, where people can get safe access to drugs, safe supplies. They can have somebody there who can help them get into proper treatment facilities, especially if they're youth. This just sounds amazing for youth, for them to be able to get in there and get treatment.

We see youth on the street in the Downtown Eastside and it's totally upsetting to all of us. There's nowhere for them to go. A lot of the youth centres don't take young people who are using, so they end up in the street. It's so shocking that it's hard to sleep at night thinking about them and where they're going.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I want to be clear as well that I don't think there's a person in this room or in the country who thinks that drug use, chronic drug use, is preferable or desirable or healthy. It's a recognition that the drug use is a symptom of underlying pain that ought to be treated. If we have learned anything as a country after 150 years, it's that throwing people in jail who are essentially sick or traumatized or in need of nurturing is not only the wrong approach, but it actually doesn't work.

[Sarah Blyth]

Yes, what we see is people going out and buying their drugs in the street. That's how they use them in our overdose prevention sites. They get their drugs taken away and are criminalized that way. They get criminalized for the survival sex trade.

All of these things are causing people more trauma. The survival sex trade, if people don't want to be doing that, that causes women more trauma. It puts them at a great deal of risk in the streets. If you could give them a safe supply of something that's not going to kill them, very much as a starting point, you're not having them go through the criminal system and be further.... It's really a waste of our resources.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

What would you say, Ms. Blyth, to those who say that if we make a safe supply of drugs available to people, somehow we're countenancing it, somehow we're approving of it, that if we're giving free or cheap drugs to people, this is showing that we approve of this drug use?

What would you say to that?

[Sarah Blyth]

I would say that we're in an absolute health emergency crisis right now, and people are using highly addictive drugs. There's no real way out of it except for giving people safe drugs so that we know that they know what they're taking, and then we can get them the proper help they need. It's the only thing we can do at this point.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Dowie, what about prevention?

That's dealing with the after-effects, trying to minimize the harm, but how can we as a country adopt policies that encourage our children and adults to avoid addiction or make healthier choices? Is there anything we can do prevention-wise?

[Vaughan Dowie]

Yes. Prevention has many elements to it. You start with education. In public education, we don't seem to have a coherent approach. We have probably 13 different approaches, one for each province or territory in the country. Then it becomes the ability to intervene early with kids, usually within schools and within the community.

It's very hard to get a national approach in this country. We have a country where it's really complicated to have any kind of coherent and concerted action. Does it make sense that you want to, first of all, educate people, and you want to intervene in problems early before they get out of control? It makes sense. Do we have a way to do this in this country? We have a bunch of ways to do this and not in any consistent way.

If I can just stop on one, very quickly, just look at the public education around cannabis. The federal government has invested a significant amount of money in the last budget, in whatever, and it gets rolled out, but then in the provinces, in the whole public education aimed at kids, some provinces are doing stuff and some provinces aren't. Some provinces are treating it like a funding program. You don't have a consistent and coherent message.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We're going to finish our questioning today with Robert-Falcon Ouellette, who raised this issue for an emergency debate in the House.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette]

I'd like to do that in French.

We live in a bilingual country. So it is extremely important to be able to use both languages in Parliament.

On November 14, I took part in a summit bringing together the indigenous peoples in my constituency and service providers working with people with drug addictions. A lot of solutions were suggested.

Mr. Dowie, you talked a little about prevention. One of the models mentioned was Iceland. I am not sure whether you are aware of it. Young people around Winnipeg said that it is what they needed. They want recreation programs, ways to spend time. Those programs would be useful, not only for the youth, but also for vulnerable people or those living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Does that model work well and is it something that should be implemented in certain areas of our society?

[Vaughan Dowie]

It is certainly one of a range of prevention services.

A few weeks ago, I gave a presentation for the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the AMO. That was also one of the conclusions that the representatives came to. In other words, prevention services, a range of prevention services, must include recreation or leisure programs for young people.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette]

It is incredible to me that we often end up with a model where people have to pay. It costs a lot even to go to a community centre in the city. The costs have to be paid by taxpayers, by people who are able to pay. In this case, I would like to know if perhaps we have to find grants or other ways of making it happen. For example, should the taxes on cannabis be used to fund those types of programs?

[Vaughan Dowie]

If you ask the AMO that question, their answer will be yes. That is what the representatives were demanding, that a part of the revenue from the sale of cannabis be turned over to municipalities to fund recreation programs.

Personally, I would like something more complex. Funding services like that is only one of the factors. Funding treatment is also just as important

It's important to make a series of options available. There are some kids who like sports. There are some kids who like this. There are some kids who like that. To get kids involved in activities they are good at and to have the opportunity to do that without money becoming an obstacle to participation is obviously a good solution.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette]

Excellent.

I have some questions for you, Mr. Favel. First, one of the things I would like to tell you is that I fully support your funding request. I believe that your organization and the work that you do are extremely important.

I would just like to make sure I completely understand. You talked about property crimes. I have knocked on a lot of doors and I also see that there is a lot of crime like that: theft, shoplifting, bike theft, break-ins in cottages or garages, and so on. Why is it up to your organization to deal with those cases? Why is the police service not able to handle them? Why does your volunteer organization have to do work that is a State responsibility, such as picking up syringes or providing emergency service?

[James Favel]

We are acting as a supplement to the existing resources. We are trying to support the work that's going on there. We're trying to free up the police so that they can do their job better. We're trying to make it so that fewer of our people go away in ambulances because of violence. We de-escalate when we get a chance.

Our whole mandate is to be a support in our community, because we are of the community. I live in the north end of Winnipeg, on Stella between McKenzie and McGregor. It happens right outside my house. The exploitation, the drug dealing—it's all there. That's how I got involved. I want to stop it. I want to prevent it. I want to help my community members live better lives.

Again, it all comes back to poverty. It really all does come back to poverty. That's what we need to address here. People living in poverty are going to act desperately. Why do people self-medicate? To escape. To escape what? To escape pain. What's the basis of their pain? They can't function in this world.

There are not enough resources and not enough job placements available. We're trying to create job placements in our organization as much as possible, this year with 90,000 dollars' worth of temporary job placements and things like that, but now we have CRA interested in what we're doing. They're telling me we can't do the things we're doing because we're not doing it to the letter of the law with CRA.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette]

Can you discuss that a little bit more, about the CRA—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm sorry, but we're at the end of our time for today. There is so much we would love to go into.

Thank you to all the witnesses for coming and for your testimony. Certainly, we would like the copies of the reports you have suggested. The clerk will get those.

We will see you again on Thursday, team.

The meeting is adjourned.