I want to thank all of the witnesses for appearing today.
Thank you, Superintendent Wright, for your long years of service.
I'll give a special thanks to Ms. Aalhus, who made the effort to travel from the Yukon to be here.
It's so important that we draw upon experience, expertise and evidence for this study and try to leave our personal biases behind.
Superintendent Wright, you expressed an opinion about an emphasis on harm reduction to the exclusion of the other pillars, but facts from Health Canada about overall spending over the five years from 2017 to 2021 show that 58% of spending was on enforcement, 18% was on prevention, 13% was on treatment, 8% was on harm reduction and 3% was on research. It seems like we're spending an awful lot on enforcement. As important as that is, I'd love to see documentation on how successful we are in winning that war.
Ms. Aalhus, your fellow witness described harm reduction as something that facilitates drug use. Is that how you see it as a harm reduction expert?