Thank you.
I'd also like to thank the member for restoring harm reduction as a key pillar of this issue. As my honourable colleague just talked about, there are a number of different conditions that affect Canadians, from the devastating impacts of thalidomide to the current problem of opioid addiction in this country.
Minister, as you know, in 2015 the Liberal Party publicly stated that the Conservative Bill C-2 was a deliberate barrier to opening safe injection sites. Of course, it was, because we know that not a single safe injection site has been opened since that legislation was passed.
Many stakeholders have called on your government to repeal Bill C-2 for over a year now, and this is not purely of academic concern. In the last year alone, over 2,000 Canadians, as you pointed out, died from drug overdoses, mostly from opioids—as people have died from thalidomide.
Now, in the last week of Parliament of 2016, you've introduced legislation to streamline Bill C-2, and I congratulate the government on doing that. Of course, since it is the last week before Parliament adjourns for Christmas, this bill will not be dealt with until February of 2017 and not passed until spring of 2017 at the earliest. That's months from now.
The Minister of Health for British Columbia last night said that the opioid crisis in B.C. is “like a war” and that they can't wait for this legislation to be passed. I think Dr. Perry Kendall, the public health officer in British Columbia, said the same thing—that they're not waiting—and you've pointed out, I think with some power, the impact in my home province of British Columbia of these opioid deaths: almost 700 British Columbians will die this year.
Pop-up clinics are operating right now in British Columbia to provide emergency services, and they're either illegal or operating in a legal grey zone.
As you know, this committee conducted an emergency study into the opioid crisis, and the very first recommendation that this committee made to your government, with all-party support, was to declare this a national public health emergency, as the thalidomide issue was. The reason for this is that it would give the public health officer of Canada extraordinary powers to act immediately while your legislation works through the House over the next three or four or five months, including opening emergency clinics now for safe consumption, for naloxone administration, or for drug testing—whatever these emergency clinics could be used for right now to save lives.
My first question to you, Minister, is why don't you declare a national public health emergency to give the public health officer of Canada these extraordinary powers in the next 90 days so that we can start saving lives now, while your legislation takes time to work through the process?