Health Committee on June 15th, 2016

[Donald MacPherson]

Yes, and I think the best way to do that is to have them not attend at all, but that's not what this bill is about. Absolutely, there are nightmare stories coming out of the U.S. about police arresting people at scenes where good Samaritan legislation is in place. The U.S. legislation is varied in terms of how many offences are included. Some include more than others, so it's a bit of a dog's breakfast across the country. There is no evaluation.

The only data I'm aware of is a study out of Australia that evaluated police non-attendance at overdoses, and they attributed a 7% decrease in overdose deaths to that police policy.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

In lieu of not attending, do you believe that this bill should be amended to broaden immunity to not only simple possession but to possession for the purposes of trafficking or, let's say, immunity for breach of probation?

[Donald MacPherson]

Our position is that we should see this bill in the context of a national overdose epidemic. We should take a health emergency attitude towards it and try to do as much as possible to make this bill precipitate as many calls as possible. I understand being incremental. You know, pass it and evaluate it. I think it could be made better, and it should be made better, if at all possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for your presentations.

We all know that in Ontario, drug overdoses are the third leading cause of accidental death. How urgent is the situation in other regions of Canada? Can you explain how the definition of overdose was determined?

[Michael Parkinson]

Drug-related overdoses are now the second leading cause of accidental death in Ontario. Falls are number one. It's changed since our report, and opioids in particular have now exceeded motor vehicle collisions. Is it a problem in other parts? I think British Columbia is hopefully not in the middle but at the end of an emergency. Alberta is absolutely in an emergency state. In my province of Ontario, hundreds of medical professionals and others have called for leadership coordination, urgent action, and an emergency preparedness plan and action.

Bootleg fentanyl has shown up in Quebec City. It's claimed lives. There have been seizures. It's showing up in Nova Scotia. I think every state probably from Ohio eastward to Maine is going through the similar experience as Alberta and British Columbia where the bootleg fentanyls in particular are driving overdose rates to new records.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

If Bill C-224 were to become law, it would be important that people be made aware that they would potentially be exempt from possession charges in the circumstances set out in this bill. In your opinion, how should these amendments be communicated to the public? Should they be part of a larger public information campaign related to preventing drug overdoses?

[Donald MacPherson]

Yes, they should be part of a larger, more comprehensive campaign to bring awareness to the various policy shifts that we need to make to prevent overdoses. I think that's where health and enforcement have a huge role to play working together. Messaging from the police around this issue will be very important to try to allay fears, as well as messages from health authorities.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you. I'm done, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Webber.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'd like to make a comment to Ms. Padaric. I have to say, first of all, welcome to my hometown of Calgary. I hope that you're there educating our Calgarian students with the wonderful work that you do. I do have to say thank you sincerely for allowing Austin to donate his organs to save lives. What began as a tragedy became a miracle with what you chose to do and what I'm sure Austin wanted to do. Thank you sincerely for that.

You've pretty much answered most of my questions, Ms. Padaric, so I'm going to move on.

I'm hoping that the chair will allow me to ask MP Mr. McKinnon a couple of friendly questions. I just wanted to ask a few quick questions about his consultation. Would you allow that at all?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Is that allowed? Do we have unanimous consent?

I think we do.

Yes, go ahead.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you.

You mentioned that you have a list of organizations and police chiefs and such throughout the country that you've consulted. Did you also go a step further?

Mr. Davies alluded to this as well with regard to perhaps the bill not being broad enough. Mr. MacPherson mentioned as well about the bill not being broad enough with regard to individuals who are in the room who have outstanding warrants or who are in violation of parole. Are the community, police chiefs, and law enforcement willing to accept that as perhaps an amendment to your bill to include ignoring individuals in the room who have outstanding warrants or who are violating parole?

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I didn't ask that specific question. However, every police officer and every first responder we talked to said that the first order of business any time they attend a scene is to minimize loss of life, to secure the scene and minimize loss of life. If circumstances warrant other more extreme charges, they're circumstantial, but saving lives is what all first responders and police officers are about.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I recently visited East Hastings in Vancouver and I was in the company of Mr. Carrie. We were touring down the back lanes. Of course, we had a couple of police alongside of us. They literally turned a blind eye to what was going on in the back lanes with drug injections. Is this common practice throughout the country where police turn a blind eye? It's almost as though they had given up in that particular community. I can understand why, because to convict the hundreds if not thousands of individuals who are basically breaking the law would exhaust our court systems.

Are you hearing that from around the country as well?

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I don't believe that circumstance is common around the country. Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is unique. It's one of the poorest postal codes in the entire country. It has a high percentage of drug users.

Insite has operated there for the last 12 years, and very successfully. They've had many, many drug overdoses on their premises with zero loss of life. That's another arrow in this harm reduction quiver. The police in the area are very supportive of efforts of this kind. These are not problems that are really solvable by police action. These are public health issues, and we have to start thinking about them as public health issues.

I'd like to comment further that certainly this bill could have been broader, but we were looking for something that we could achieve with a very strong consensus. I know that one of the most common charges is possession for the purposes of trafficking. I'd love to see that in there, but if we put that in there, I'm not sure we would have the continued support of the government. Right now we have support from everybody throughout the House, pretty much, as far as I can tell.

It's a very strong first step.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Now we go to Dr. Eyolfson, for five minutes.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Parkinson, a question was put to you earlier on whether there's been any data to show that once you enact this, it changes. I'm a physician, and I've read my share of medical research. If there's one thing I've noted, it's all the pitfalls of population-based research. I know just enough statistics to know that in research, you have to hire a statistician to make sense of numbers.

Would it be fair to say that if you tried to track this, there would be too many confounding variables to say that this made a difference once you did it? These are things like changing rates of drug use and other things that were independent of that. Would that not make trying to prove this after the fact—

[Michael Parkinson]

You could do a pre and post survey, I suppose. There's the period of time before the bill passes and it's implemented.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Right. Exactly.

What I mean, though, is would you find that the...?

[Michael Parkinson]

It could be challenging, to be fair.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Yes. That's what I mean. That was the point I wanted to make, that it would be challenging.

Would the lack of strong numbers saying that it worked be evidence that it wasn't working?

[Michael Parkinson]

No, it would not.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

All right. Thank you.

This is a more pointed question for Justice.

When we talk about possession, I know we find it a little broad when we talk about possession and then possession versus trafficking. I know that a lot of jurisdictions actually have amounts that you must have on you for simple possession versus possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Might that at the very least give some threshold here that would give some protection to people who are holding substances, or do you think that needs to be expanded?