I don't want to get bogged down in debating the specific legal mechanisms of declaring an emergency or not. Obviously, we need to recognize this for what it is, a public health emergency.
We need to substantially increase federal spending. We also need look at.... Currently, almost 60% of federal spending for the Canadian drugs and substances strategy is going towards law enforcement efforts. We need to see if that is getting us the best value for money in terms of improved population health outcomes. We are not resourcing enough, provincially or federally, social programs, health care, and a whole host of other options that can potentially be more effective at supporting people to stay alive, achieve recovery and get well.
Beyond that, in the short-term, there are many things the federal government could do immediately to try to bring down the death rate. First and foremost, please do not cut the existing funding for safer supply programs. We know, from the evidence from different treatment studies, as well as emerging safer supply evidence, that if you abruptly cut people off their prescription medications, they are at a much higher risk of death.
Sustain that funding, and continue to innovate in that area to look for more effective solutions, including non-prescriber models of safer supply. We just had a study published by a compassionate club in B.C. that showed very early and promising results in reducing mortality.
Beyond that, we could be looking to improve safer supply programs by working with pharmaceutical companies and regulators to identify medications that would more effectively meet people's needs, potentially reducing the risk for diversion.
We really need to look at a national project around decriminalization. I can't think of a stronger form of stigma than criminalizing someone. We talk a lot about needing to end stigma, but then we continue to criminalize people for their health conditions. In B.C., there is an imperfect decriminalization pilot happening. We need to have a national conversation about what this would look across the country. We need to, first and foremost, say that this is a health issue. We need to stop criminalizing people, and that needs to happen across the country. It's not fair that people who use drugs in B.C. are potentially not subject to criminal charges, but they are everywhere else.
I would also like to see an overhaul of SUAP. The way that investments are currently made is not as effective as it could be. We need to be looking at ongoing operational funding for evidence-based services as part of a core suite of options for people across the country. Federal funding could play a huge role in ensuring equitable access to treatment across the provinces, such as equitable access to safer consumption services and other really proven interventions.
I also want to highlight—and I'm not sure if the committee has heard this evidence—that in Alberta and B.C., the majority of people who die from drug poisoning are dying after smoking drugs. Yet, very few supervised consumption services across the country allow people to smoke drugs within them. A pretty quick change that could happen is for the federal government to subsidize supervised consumption services to make the renovations required to accommodate supervised inhalation.
That would have an auxiliary benefit of bringing more of the public drug use—which has been concern across the country due to a whole host of factors, including the lack of housing—indoors. It would bring that public drug use inside. Certainly, this is a big issue in Edmonton where I'm from. Many people are smoking drugs outside of supervised consumption sites, because they cannot smoke them inside. If they go down and have an overdose, they know the staff will run outside to help them. That's not an effective way to respond to a crisis. It's something that could be addressed pretty quickly in the short-term, and would save lives.
