The Government of Alberta has made safe supply illegal in the province. That's our right. It's our responsibility under the Constitution and the division of powers. We will continue to do that so long as we are elected as a government.
However, what else would you have Alberta do now, other than come and plead at this committee, and write letters to the minister that go unresponded to in substance, because we see 65 million pills a year being pumped into safe supply? Each one of those eight-milligram pills are more powerful than street heroin. These are pharmaceutical-grade opioids being mass distributed unwitnessed. What would you have Alberta do beyond opposing it here and making it illegal?
We need the federal government to take action on what is the most radical policy in the world. No one is doing this anywhere else. It's a failed policy. It's devastating.
I'm all for what people call “harm reduction” if it's naloxone kits, if it's drug treatment centres, if it's a virtual opioid dependency program or a needle exchange, but it becomes harm production when you become the purveyor of the hard, powerful drugs themselves. We oppose that.