I thank you for the question. It's an excellent one. You're absolutely right that our response to the opioid crisis has to be comprehensive.
The content of yesterday's bill spoke in large part to one particular mechanism of treatment, that being the possibility of further measures of harm reduction. It was intended to address the currently onerous process that's required by communities who are looking to open supervised consumption sites.
There were other pieces in the legislation, as you know, that contribute to the comprehensive strategy on opioids. It addressed our need to make sure that we reduce access to unnecessary opioids, and in particular illicit substances. There's a large part of the bill that related to that.
I'm glad you brought up the topic of treatment, and I know this has been raised repeatedly here. I can tell you that when I meet with first responders, for example, and when I meet with health providers who are dealing with this, treatment is one of the most pressing matters.
This is an area where I hope we can find ways to work with our partners to do better treatment services that fall largely in the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories. This is an area where I believe provinces and territories need to do work to open more facilities and make those facilities more available.
For instance, you know we are in the process of negotiating a health accord with the provinces and territories. I have made it very clear to them that issues of mental health and addiction are very important to us as a government, that we would actually like to be able to invest to provide further support for them to do better in terms of providing mental health care and addiction.
We could hear more from the provinces and territories about how we can help them and what their plans are to open more treatment services. That would give us an opportunity, hopefully through the health accord and our commitments to mental health, to be able to invest in better supports for people, both in terms of preventing addiction by treating mental illness at its roots, but also by providing addiction services.
I hope you will hear more on that soon.