What I'm referring to is what was promised by the minister and then what was delivered. I can share with you a little bit about what was promised by the minister at the time. It was that we would be getting baseline indicators and that we would have a robust set of indicators on health and public safety. The minister, who was Carolyn Bennett at the time, in May 2022, said that we would be able to ascertain not only how many lives were saved but how many emergency department visits and hospitalizations there were, and what we were hearing at the time from urban mayors about petty crime. She said that they were all the things that we know are indicators of whether we're really stemming the tide of this crisis.
I just want to go eight months later. There was another press conference in British Columbia, and that was at the outset of the pilot project. At that time, Minister Bennett said, “I would say that we need at least three months to be able to get this sorted out...also, I think as we let people know what indicators have been chosen”. Eight months later, they didn't have the indicators chosen, it seems. “if people have ideas or they have other indicators that they would like, whether it's a small business or whether people are saying, you know.... What would be other things that we could be measuring that would help determine the efficacy?” One thing that was in the letter of requirements was that the amount of treatment and health care would be scaled up.
There was a study that was released by the Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being, and it stated that, just prior to decriminalization coming into effect, 64% of the communities served by the RCMP in B.C. did not have any access to any drug rehabilitation or treatment. That means that the majority of British Columbian cities did not have any access to these services. While that is not the only service that should be provided, it was one of the requirements to scale up these to make sure that we were ready. As stigma would be driven down and people could be connected to services, they would exist. Unfortunately, they just haven't existed.