Health Committee on June 15th, 2016

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

That's why I'm digging a little bit more here, Ron. I believe the Waterloo people are coming a little bit later and maybe I can ask them this question again.

All of us around the table would agree that people who are going to be calling might be in a situation where they could be impaired themselves with certain drugs or alcohol. Their judgment may not be very good anyway.

What I'm curious to note is...Your proposal does sound good and everybody would like to see what we can do to save lives, but it's also important for this committee to actually take a look at the evidence and to see if there is any evidence to support that people are actually calling more. We would like to see some statistics.

If that New York report that's rumoured to be coming out comes out, that's great, but we're trying to make a decision around the table today and see what evidence is out there today to ensure that.

What we would do, I guess.... Is it okay if I defer those questions? Would you like me to defer those questions until we hear from the Waterloo region people?

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

Absolutely. We have certainly in our effort and work around this bill talked to many people in the drug.... We've talked to many clients of Insite in Vancouver, if you will. We have video testimonials from many of them who have told us stories of the very kind of thing that we're trying to address here.

Whether it's one person or a thousand people who would call, if one person calls because of this legislation and saves a life, it's worthwhile. This bill costs nothing. It risks nothing. It harms no one, but if it saves one life, it's well worthwhile doing.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

As I said, we're all about saving lives, but what I'm trying to figure out is if there's any hard data that actually supports this. Sometimes we as politicians do things that are well meaning. I'm curious to note if there are any unforeseen consequences in other jurisdictions where they've enacted this type of legislation.

Have you done any consultations with any law enforcement agencies? Do they support the bill? Could you explain to us if they would support the bill?

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

I mentioned the chief constable for Port Moody, which is one of the cities in the tri-cities area that I represent, but I don't actually represent that city. They are a local police service. I talked to the chief constable and the mayor at the same time. They're both very supportive of the bill. As I mentioned, the chief constable issued a video statement to that effect, as well.

We've talked to the head of the detachment of the RCMP in Coquitlam. He has indicated that he likes the bill. He can't indicate formal support, because of course he's part of a larger police organization. To get that support, you have to go to the top of the chain, which would probably be the commissioner, and we have not done that.

In terms of the Vancouver police service, we have not closed that loop with them at this point. However, they do have a long-standing policy of not responding to overdose calls unless there's a clear need for a police presence. They believe that this will help people to make the call, that they won't be as fearful of a police presence and legal consequences if they make that call. I think that policy underscores their belief in the principle.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Were you able to get in touch, though, with any jurisdictions that actually have a law like this in place? You mentioned that in Washington state it's been in place since 2010. That's about six years. Were you able to get in touch with any law enforcement people down in Washington state to see if we have any verification?

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

I have not, no.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I respect the opinions of people on the ground, law enforcement officers, but if you talk to a lot of different ones, you get as many opinions from law enforcement officers as you get from lawyers, and I think we have a few of those around the table.

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Just one.

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

We also have support from the B.C. chief coroner and the B.C. public health officer. They have signified their support for this bill as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The time is up.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Davies, speaking of lawyers.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I want to congratulate you, Mr. McKinnon, on drafting this bill and carrying it forward in Parliament.

I want to clarify whether the wording of the bill ensures that the person experiencing the overdose is also covered by the bill in addition to the person who actually calls for help.

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

Yes, the person who experiences the overdose, the person who makes the call, and anybody who remains on the scene are all covered.

The idea there is that we don't want people to say, “Oh my God, there's a problem”, and then everybody scatters to the winds. We want people to stick around to help manage the problem, to keep the victim safe and secure, and also to guide the first responders to them.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I understand that.

I lack a bit of clarity in the bill in terms of making sure it applies to the victim himself, but that's your intention.

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

Yes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

In your introductory testimony, you stated that one of the purposes of this is that you wanted to deal with the problem of a person at the scene being “afraid of getting into trouble”.

I would take it that “getting into trouble” is broader than just being charged with simple possession. Would you agree with that?

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

Yes. Their parents might get angry with them and they might take the car away. All kinds of stuff can happen. There can be all kinds of social consequences, I suppose. The only thing we can really deal with is the legal problem.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

That's what I want to get into. I'm not talking about taking the car away or social problems. I'm talking about criminal acts. For instance, in the debate on this bill, members of, I think, all three parties stated in the House that this bill would not in any way protect people from arrest for other offences beyond possession, such as, selling or trafficking.

The standard legal definition of drug trafficking is rather broad. It includes the acts of giving and sharing drugs. Subsection 2(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act says that to traffic means “to sell, administer, give, transfer, transport, send or deliver the substance”.

If your purpose in this is to make sure someone calls because they don't want to get into trouble, would you be amenable to our amending the bill to make sure the person at the scene is also immune from being charged with trafficking if it turns out they had given the person drugs?

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

I wouldn't be against that. We stayed away from that kind of thing.

In the preparation of this bill, we ran it through the Department of Justice and we ran it through the Department of Health. The message we got back was that we'd be best to stay away from concerns about trafficking.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay, so I'll go to a different point of view.

In the study by the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, 30% of those who did not call were afraid of breaking their probation and parole. There is no explicit wording, of course, in this bill that dictates the status of a parolee in the matter. Therefore, my next question would be as to whether you would be amenable to amending this bill to make sure that parolees or those under probation are protected from being charged, since obviously we know that one-third of people won't call the police if they're afraid of being arrested for a breach of probation.

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

There is a whole gamut of reasons people might have for not calling the police. I feel that if we try to deal with them all in one grand effort, we will make the bill hard to pass. We will start affecting many more pieces of legislation. It just makes the problem a lot bigger. If this committee thought we could get away with making that happen, I think that would be outstanding, but I don't think it's worth the risk at this time. I'd rather get this in place. It's not the end solution and it's not the be-all and end-all solution. It's one tool in the tool box. Let's get this in place. Let's get it working, and let's deal with those other problems another day.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Interestingly, in that same study from the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, almost 23% said they would not call for emergency assistance, or did not call because they were afraid the police would confiscate their drugs that they may have on them. Of course, this bill would not protect them from that either.

I guess what I'm thinking of is if the purpose of this is to encourage people to call and give immunity to someone for breaking the law, because obviously simple possession of drugs is against the law, if you're willing to give immunity to a person in order to save the life of someone, would it not make sense to broaden that protection in a reasonable manner to capture the reasonably probable circumstances of the person at the scene to give them maximum opportunity to call the authorities in order to save that person?

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

I think that would be great, but I think it's again a case of perfection being only the good. We can achieve a good result. It's perhaps not a perfect result, not an ideal result, but we can achieve this result. If we start expanding the bill beyond these simple boundaries, it starts to get big fast, and it starts to get more awkward, and it starts to involve many more things. If you bring in trafficking and drug seizures, you start to have to worry about whether they have boxcar full of heroin versus a dime bag. I don't care about the drugs. I don't care if they lose the drugs.