Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll follow up on that. We know that Alaska saw a 45% increase in toxic drug deaths last year alone, and its death rate is now higher than British Columbia's. In fact, Lethbridge is triple that of British Columbia where they closed safe consumption sites. In Regina, where they don't have a safe consumption site, it is 50% higher—actually more than that— than British Columbia for their death rate. Baltimore is 400% more than British Columbia. Tennessee and West Virginia are both higher. They don't have safe supply. They don't have decriminalization.
Professor Fallu, you hear politicians blaming safe supply flooding our streets or decriminalization as the drivers of the death rate. Maybe you can comment on that. I will say that in British Columbia, the death rate went from 7.9 per 100,000 to 30.3 under the Christy Clark and John Rustad government in the three years prior to the NDP government, and that actually went from 30.3 to 46 under the B.C. NDP, but then it came back down to 41 since decriminalization.
Maybe you can speak about that because that provincial government didn't have safe supply, and it didn't have decriminalization.