Thank you very much.
I was happy to hear that Don was able to tell me how I was thinking, because I do think that this is a health issue. We've heard over and over from witnesses in front of us that to have a successful site, you need to have community buy-in. Just as he is the MP in his community, I am the MP in my community, and I can tell you right now that I have spoken to my mayor and I've spoken to community members. There is concern about where it's going to be located if one of these sites is applied for in my community.
Don had a good statistic. He said that in the first day they saved 15 people from an overdose. My question would be how many of these people were put into treatment. My colleague, Ms. Sidhu, said that we have to do something. Well, what about treatment?
In Insite's own stats for OnSite, I think they said that only 7% of people were even offered treatment. Again, maybe Health Canada officials know how many of these people actually got into treatment, how many followed through, or how many actually completed the treatment.
If this were any other health condition—let's say it's diabetes—we wouldn't just be saying, “Here, inject yourself. Get your insulin on the street. By the way, we'll slap you around, and if you're okay, if you're cognizant, we'll put you back out on the street to commit four to eight crimes to do it again.” I think that's an issue we have to be cognizant of. This is not just about doing something; we have to be responsible.
All I'm saying with my amendment, which is not unreasonable and is not a roadblock, is to just allow the communities where these sites are going to be located to have a say. Ultimately the minister will decide, but if something of this magnitude.... You can't extrapolate the experience in Vancouver and start transporting that around the country. We've heard that it's going to be unique in every situation. We just have to be cautious, because we don't want to put people at risk and we also don't want them to defer their treatment.
If there is a Band-Aid solution, perhaps we should be focusing on the conversations with the provinces and territories when the minister is sitting down for the new health accord. I know we had $500 million per year in our anti-drug strategy. Part of that could be utilized for treatment. Maybe the minister, over a 10-year period, could allocate $5 billion towards treatment. Maybe she could sit down and work with our provinces and territories within their jurisdictions to make sure that these people, who have severe health conditions and whom we all want to save, get the help that they need.