I speak in great support for this. Twenty months ago, I was in the House when Bill C-2 was introduced, and although perhaps we have different views around the table on that bill, the bill came before the committee. There were five meetings and 20 witnesses, who all discussed and debated all of the issues around supervised consumption sites. There was significant testimony on the issue of what criteria ought to be considered in determining an exemption. It was well-canvassed, under 24 months ago. Four months ago, we had the opioid overdose crisis study. We, in this room, heard evidence from a number of witnesses on a wide range of issues concerning the opioid crisis, including the need for supervised consumption sites and their impact.
We know that 40 to 50 Canadians are dying every week from overdoses in this country. I pointed out before that when SARS hit this country, the total number of deaths across the whole country was 40. We are losing that many people every week. We all now agree that this is a national public health emergency. All parties are using that term now, if not the declaration. Bill C-37 provides essential measures to address the crisis—not only supervised consumption sites, but necessary legislation regarding interdiction for CBSA and limits on the production of illicit opioids with respect to pill presses.
I am fully in support of expediting this bill. I don't think this committee can move fast enough.
I just want to end by saying that yesterday someone sent me an article about the situation in Estonia, which suffered from a very similar outbreak over the years. They had a fentanyl overdose crisis in that country. What it says here is that they were asked about the advice they would give Canada and what they said was, “The most important thing is you don't waste time. If you really want to learn from us, that's the mistake we made.... Don't look for some new solutions, because you have them.”
I know there are a lot of issues to debate, but it's not the time to debate and waste time when Canadians are dying and we know that we can take measures that will save lives. I'm asking all my colleagues to support this.