Health Committee on April 15th, 2024

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

What you're telling this committee is that we know there are precursor chemicals out there that are used to make fentanyl, carfentanil and sufentanil, etc., which are incredibly potent opioids that are killing people on the street. They are part of this so-called toxic drug supply, and this government could actually make them illegal, but for two years, it's refused to do so.

[A/Commr Will Ng]

Through the chair, I can't comment on the refusal part, but I can comment on the time it's taken to continue to advocate for it.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

It's not happened in two years, basically.

[A/Commr Will Ng]

Yes.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Deputy Chief Wilson, we talked a bit about the drugs that are on the street these days.

Clearly, eight-milligram tablets of hydromorphone are incredibly potent. There's a plethora of them out there on the street. Perhaps it's one of the drugs of choice nowadays. We know that, again, eight milligrams is significant, because that is what is being issued in safe supply regimes. They're given approximately 30 tablets at a time, I understand.

Can you comment a bit on what you've seen about the price of hydromorphone on the street?

[Fiona Wilson]

I'm sorry. I'm not up to speed on the price of hydromorphone. I know it's very cheap, but I also know it's not hydromorphone that is killing people in our province.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

That's a fair statement.

That being said, you talked a bit about your tour of duty in the Downtown Eastside previously, which I thought was an unusual comment, given that you were serving in a metro Canadian city.

Why did you characterize it as a “tour of duty”?

[Fiona Wilson]

In the Vancouver Police Department, we commonly talk about different areas that we work in as a tour of duty. I've done three on the Downtown Eastside. I did a tour of duty in professional standards. It's just a common police phrase.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Certainly. I have a military background, so I would not comment on serving in a downtown area or metro Vancouver as a tour of duty, but I understand you have a different way of referring to things. Thank you for that.

Deputy Commissioner McDonald, do you have any idea of the street price of hydromorphone in B.C. in general?

[D/Comm Dwayne McDonald]

We have specifics that we could provide at a later date. I understand, from what I'm told, that the price of hydromorphone in the illicit market has gone down significantly in the last while.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

If you could look at the prices over time and table them with the committee, we'd be very appreciative. That would be excellent. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Ellis.

We'll go to Mr. Jowhari, please, for five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for their important testimony and the services they provide to keep our communities safe.

Deputy Chief Wilson, you talked about education campaigns and how important they could be. You also talked about how sophisticated these criminals are becoming in making the illicit drugs look very similar to the safe supply drugs.

What kind of education campaign can all of the various levels of government work on with law enforcement and support organizations, specifically in the areas hard hit with illicit drugs?

[Fiona Wilson]

There are lots of opportunities for collaboration with respect to education.

To clarify, I was talking about organized crime creating what appeared to be pills that look like prescription medication. It's not necessarily safe supply, but a whole myriad of prescription medication.

However, I honestly think that when it comes to education, a lot of it should really be health-led. Police play a role in education; there's absolutely no question about it. I can certainly speak for the VPD. We have countless initiatives. We work on getting out and educating youth in particular about the perils of drug use, whether they are through our schools or community centres. There are all sorts of programs that we run.

However, I would really like to see the health sector take the lead when it comes to educating our youth and our public about the perils of drug use. I think that's a really important thing for us to consider any time we're thinking about these initiatives. If we truly want this to be a health-led approach, then we do need the health sector to take the lead when it comes to things like education, prevention and treatment on demand.

It's not to say that there's no role for police in that, but I feel like we've been doing that for many years.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I want to go to Deputy Commissioner McDonald.

We've talked about a number of different issues, from safe supply to safe consumption sites to illicit drugs that are killing people. However, the bottom line is that these drugs are getting into Canada. What are some of the programs that are being rolled out at the border to block these illicit drugs from getting into our country?

[D/Comm Dwayne McDonald]

I'll comment from a federal policing perspective.

Combatting transnational organized crime, whether it's at land borders, ports, through air services or marine, is one of the top priorities for our federal policing units. We work with countless partners all over the word to combat the entry of primarily pharmaceuticals or their precursor materials. We've had great success, but there is much more work to be done.

Part of the success is intelligence sharing—we have excellent relationships with our partners—and part of it is in the joint forces operations. We work with the Canada Border Services Agency, which works with United States partners and others to combat that, and we continue to do so.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Our border with the U.S. is one of the largest land borders. Can you give me an idea of the degree of the challenge that we have in managing that big border, or is that an issue?

[D/Comm Dwayne McDonald]

Certainly, we do have one of the largest undefended or open land borders in the world, but we also have excellent relationships with the U.S. authorities and our partners.

It does present challenges. We clearly have large commercial transportation networks for legitimate goods that transit throughout North America. Those also present opportunities for organized crime elements to manipulate those transportation routes to import illicit goods.

However, we have had great success and we continue to have it. The border presents challenges, as you're aware, but we've increased our technological aspects, our intelligence aspects and our joint enforcement aspects as well in combatting those crimes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I have 10 seconds.

Where, internationally, are we getting most of these drugs being imported into Canada?

[D/Comm Dwayne McDonald]

If we're talking about the precursor materials that are predominantly used for fentanyl production, they're coming from Asia, India and South America.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

To our panel of witnesses, this almost never happens. We've now completed three full rounds of questions and we have just under 10 minutes left on the clock. I'm going to propose two minutes for each of the parties to finish up our time.

Is everyone okay to proceed in that fashion?

If witnesses can stay with us for another 10 minutes, we're going to go now to Dr. Ellis for two minutes.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thanks, Chair.

I'll go to you, Deputy Chief Wilson, if I might.

You talk about multiple exceptions to the exemption in the decriminalization experiment. It would appear to me that there wouldn't be many other public places for people to use drugs if your wish were to come true, which would allow people to take back the downtowns that they would like to visit, like Dr. Powlowski.

Was that the aim of your comments?

[Fiona Wilson]

Recognizing that part of the challenge here is that when people use drugs alone, they are more likely to die because there's no chance for intervention if they are not with other people, I think it's really important for us to balance the safety and feelings of safety of all community members with the rights of people who use drugs and with our efforts to keep them safe, so yes, I do think that we should we expand the locations in public spaces where people will not be allowed to use drugs.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much, Deputy Chief Wilson.

Dr. Day, how does the federal addiction policy impact your incredibly innovative way of delivering your policies in Alberta for drug addiction and treatment? Is it positive or is it negative?