I'm very glad that you brought that up. As you know, I'm very much a supporter of supervised consumption sites. I am not only a medical doctor, but I have a degree in public health. I'm a person who really believes that people who find themselves in the position of having an addiction to illicit substances like heroin need to be treated from the perspective of a public health problem because it is a health problem. It's an addiction.
I was very pleased that we were able to allow an exemption for this site. The reason I think it's important is.... As you asked, is there a safe way to inject heroin or not? Let me tell you, there are certainly unsafe ways about it. There is a serious problem of addiction across this country, and particularly opioid addiction. Supervised consumption sites have been shown repeatedly—and this has been well documented—to save lives. I'll perhaps ask my public health colleagues to reiterate this.
There is nothing that is so devastating on this issue than when I talk to parents whose kids have found themselves addicted and who have accidentally overdosed on something like heroin. If we can find ways to save those lives, then I'm going to make sure that's possible. If we can find ways to prevent infection because it is absolutely unhealthy to inject yourself with a dirty needle that might have hepatitis C or HIV on the needle, that's definitely one thing that a supervised site can help with. This is a great way for people who have addiction to access health care services.
When I was at Insite, I was moved to tears when I saw the way that people who are on the street could come in and access care, where people didn't judge them, where people didn't stigmatize them, where people said, “If we can help you, we're here to help you. If you want to talk to one of our counsellors, you can. If you want to talk about getting into safer housing, we'll help you with that.”