Health Committee on June 3rd, 2024

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Perrin, you are the former senior criminal justice policy adviser for the Conservatives under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. You've heard the Conservatives of today talking about opposition to safe consumption sites, to safer supply, to decriminalization, actually blaming all of the deaths on these policies from the NDP in British Columbia. Can you talk about your concerns about this rhetoric and also what policies you would not recommend be adopted by the Conservatives and why?

[Prof. Benjamin Perrin]

I'll be honest. I'm feeling pretty frustrated with the distractions that I've been hearing talked about today in the committee. I was checking on social media right now, and one of the committee members is already posting gotcha clips from this committee hearing in the process of the hearing happening. Is this about hearing evidence about how to save lives, or is it about your social media channels? Is it about getting hits, or is it about saving lives? I'm disgusted by that, actually; I'm disgusted.

The lives that are going to be lost.... We know the opposition to supervised consumption sites kills people, and the federal special advisory committee on the epidemic of opiate overdoses had projections from December 2023. They projected that hundreds more would die if these harm reduction measures were not scaled up across the country, and their forecasts have been proven correct. This will only worsen if we have a federal Conservative government that suppresses, shuts down and fails to fund and support these life-saving medical interventions.

In terms of policies that I would recommend not be pursued, to start with, we're being told that our goal should be to bring people home drug-free. One of my co-panellists frequently talks about addictions. He's not talking about actually saving lives. He's repeatedly referred to evidence about addictions, not saving lives.

We don't have an addiction crisis. We have a toxic, unregulated drug crisis. Again, the research shows that if our focus is on simply detoxing people and getting them off drugs, if that's the main goal, that has an elevated risk of death. When your treatment is all about detox alone, it's not medically recommended. I would not recommend that kind of treatment and recovery.

Second, the idea that we can stop fentanyl at the border has backfired. Fentanyl is now being made here in Canada. We know that from the RCMP. Additionally, we've been told “jail, not bail”. In the context of this crisis, a better slogan would be “jail means death, without fail”. That's for people with opioid use disorder.

When we look at the data, who is dying? In Alberta, former premier Jason Kenney said that for every Albertan who died of unregulated drugs, half had been in custody in Alberta within the last two years. In B.C. it's two-thirds of all people. We need to stop locking people up and perpetuating this failed war on drugs that is only making things worse.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Professor Perrin.

Next is Mr. Doherty, please, for five minutes.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first comment will be a comment for Mr. Perrin and not a question, so there's no need to reply.

Actually, I do have a question.

Mr. Perrin, do you have a medical degree?

[Prof. Benjamin Perrin]

No.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you.

Next is my comment. Not one person from the Conservatives, whether it's our leader or ourselves—not one of us—has said anything about safe consumption sites. In any policy, any conversation, there are many tools in the tool box. You're conflating the issue with your anger or frustration towards the Conservative team, and—

[Prof. Benjamin Perrin]

So you publicly support supervised consumption sites today? Do you publicly support them? Are you willing to say that on the record?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Perrin, I'll ask the questions.

[Prof. Benjamin Perrin]

Yes or no, sir? Yes or no, sir?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Perrin, I'll ask the questions. Thank you very much.

I've been on the record as saying there are many tools in the tool box.

Dr. Somers, I appreciate Dr. Powlowski asking the questions regarding the database and the destruction of the database, but you've also said that there have been activists who have waged war against you in terms of defaming you and discrediting you. Can you elaborate a little more on that, please?

They were paid activists—sorry.

[Dr. Julian M. Somers]

Thank you.

It started some time ago. We were stymied in gaining access to additional data to link with the databases that we already had. Those were actions by the province and the BCCDC. It really became most clear when we published the rapid review.

I don't understand Professor Nosyk's remark. He clearly is not interested in dialogue. He signed a letter that maligned, publicly, our work. The only time I've spoken to him, he told me that he was emotionally angered by it, because at the time he had responsibilities to conduct research on safe supply. Almost all the signatories—well, all the signatories of that letter that I know—have financial interests in the very topic we were reviewing. We didn't conclude anything that was unusual at the time. It was that there was an absence of evidence. Professor Nosyk has even confirmed that today, saying that things were just getting started.

What we did was point out an awkward thing, which was that the standards for introducing a pharmaceutical in any form of practice in our country and around the world typically follow rigorous assessments of their safety and their effectiveness. In this case, we decided that we were going to implement a measure without any of the controls we used for COVID vaccines—looking for positive effects, if there were any, and for harms, if there were any. We simply launched into it.

As we now know, the studies that were produced were fashioned on the fly. There was no traceable component in the drugs that we introduced in order to enable, in a fairly obvious way, the ability to detect diversion if it was occurring. Not only do we have this odd mashup of evidence today, but more importantly, we clearly adopted a double standard in proceeding with this very experiment. Is that because of the people we're discussing?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Are there documents you feel this committee would benefit from being able to read that might support us in going down the path you suggest we should petition to try to get?

[Dr. Julian M. Somers]

There are a few that come to mind immediately.

One is the safe supply review, which we call “A Public Supply of Addictive Drugs”. I think it's premature to be using the word “safe” in the label.

The second is a review we conducted on decriminalization. It will correct some of the misunderstandings that have been stated even here today. Police chiefs in Canada and in B.C. both wrote reports on decriminalization, stating they were supportive only if robust measures were put in place to help people who police officers encounter, and that has not been done.

The third document I'd recommend is the Stanford-Lancet Commission report.

The fourth is the Portuguese national drug strategy, which is a document rich in its complexity and in its direction, and which, I think, illustrates for other nations how we can get our heads collectively around a concerted approach that isn't referring vaguely to tools and tool boxes and making things hyper political but is actually integrated and purposeful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Dr. Somers.

Can I ask just one question?

Those are four public documents, I believe.

[Dr. Julian M. Somers]

That's correct.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Would you be able to provide the committee with those this week by any chance?

[Dr. Julian M. Somers]

I would, happily.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you both.

Ms. Brière now has the floor for five minutes.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Somers, do you have any evidence that Fair Price Pharma has made any profit from the sale of a safer supply?

[Dr. Julian M. Somers]

I haven't seen their financial documents, even though, as we're aware, not-for-profits can still pay people. I'm not aware of the flow-through of funding or their success in obtaining funds in the first place.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Has the B.C. government offered you access to a new database to continue your research?

[Dr. Julian M. Somers]

No, unfortunately, they have not. It's my belief their intention was to ensure that there was no capability to assess the performance of the programs they have grown over these last few years.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you.

Dr. Nosyk, we all know that the opioid crisis is complex, with various facts. We also know that one of the challenges for opioid users is their long-term retention once they have started opioid agonist treatment. Would you agree that the difficulty keeping people on that kind of treatment is the result of stigmatization as well as a lack of options?