Mr. Chair, on this issue I would say that Health Canada sees the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act as an important part of the government's strategy on dealing with the opioid crisis, in particular around the issue of stigma reduction.
We have heard anecdotally that there has been some progress with that legislation, but there's probably more that we can do to help support its adoption and awareness across the country.
I don't have good empirical data I can share off the top of my head, for which I apologize. I would be happy to see if I can get some firm statistics, but what I can report is that my own staff in their dealing with people at the front lines have indicated that there's probably more we can do to raise awareness and boost awareness at the street level in various places across the country. That's something we're looking at very carefully, to see whether we can put an additional profile on the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act as part of our go-forward public education and anti-stigma work.
I don't know if the member is aware, but the other thing is we have been printing up wallet cards and doing a lot of activity to increase awareness and to make sure that frankly the young people in the community and people out in the cities and towns across the country are aware that this legislation exists and aware that this option is now there.
There's a lot of activity going on, but I think our assessment is that we could do more and there's more that needs to be done.