Health Committee on Nov. 5th, 2024

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Effectively, the government became the drug dealer.

[Shaun Wright]

That would be one perspective, yes. It adds to the supply, to some degree.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

That is incredibly frustrating.

We had a mom here who said that the government became the “drug lord” when her son was prescribed this so-called safe supply. Do you agree with that statement?

[Shaun Wright]

I might not choose those words, but yes, I do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Wright and Mrs. Goodridge.

Next we have Dr. Hanley, please, for five minutes.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I'll go back to you, Ms. Aalhus. You mentioned the inhalation room at Blood Ties. I've had the opportunity to visit there a few times. I find it quite disturbing that, as you mentioned, it's one of only a few inhalation rooms in the country. Can you tell me more specifically about its initial set-up and what you've seen in the increasing demand for services there?

[Jill Aalhus]

We knew from our work in the Yukon over the last 30 years that inhalation is the primary form of consumption in the Yukon. It was really important for us to consider this context and ensure that inhalation was available at our facility. I think it has been key to our success within the program. In the first eight months of our supervised consumption site, we had only 220 visits to the site. In June, when the inhalation room opened, we had over 170 visits in that month alone. We now see 3,200 visits a month, and 95% of the consumption at our site is by inhalation.

When I share this data, keep in mind that our population in Whitehorse is only 30,000. If we didn't have inhalation, I don't think we would see even the 5% of people who are consuming by injection. People come with their friends who consume, or they often smoke and inject at the facility. I think it's been a life-saving part of the service.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

We have seen, I believe, an increasing pattern of drug use through inhalation around the country. At the same time, we've seen an increasing trend, in most jurisdictions, that threatens the existence of supervised consumption. Fortunately, that has not been the case in the Yukon.

If this were a threat in the Yukon, what would you see as the consequences of an impending closure of that site?

[Jill Aalhus]

Even though this isn't being discussed currently in the Yukon, the political rhetoric around the country has concerned me for several years, and more so increasingly. I'm not trying to be dramatic when I say that I'm having nightmares now because I'm afraid we're going to lose our service and lose more lives.

We've reversed over 100 overdoses at our site. That's 100 times that people could have passed away in our community. We see so many losses. We would see so many more. I don't want to go back to the days of reviving people in the snow and, yes, it frankly terrifies me.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

The Yukon government, the minister of health, has declared a substance use emergency, and it has for some years.

How do you feel we're doing? Are we getting somewhere? What would you see as the most urgent next steps?

[Jill Aalhus]

The supervised consumption site has been more successful than any of us envisioned. There are still a lot of barriers for people in the community, particularly people living outside of Whitehorse. Remote and northern work has unique challenges, but there are community members who are contacting us and really wanting to do this work. There's a team of grandmothers in Old Crow, a fly-in community in the heart of Vuntut Gwitchin territory, who are going door to door to distribute harm reduction to the youth.

I think the Yukon needs to look at exploring those community-led solutions and working with knowledge keepers, elders and people with lived experience to provide these services outside of Whitehorse. We're making progress, but people continue to die. We need more.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Particularly with a northern lens in mind, hopefully in the coming weeks, we will be getting to the report stage of this study, considering a report and recommendations for what more we can and should be doing, particularly at a federal level.

What reflections would you have? What would you like to see in terms of recommendations, particularly reflecting the northern reality?

[Jill Aalhus]

Northern, remote, indigenous and rural communities are disproportionately impacted by this crisis. I think we know that in small places our strength is our people, our communities and the care people have for each other.

In this rural and remote context especially in the north, we need to use that strength. That could look like exploring peer- and community-led models, and really centring the voices of communities and, hopefully, addressing this crisis so that we can stop this devastation.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, both.

Dr. Ellis, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thanks very much, Chair.

I'll add my voice to thanking the witnesses for being here.

One of the things we haven't talked much about, Mr. Wright, is related to drugs coming into this country or drugs being manufactured here. We certainly heard recently about the massive drug bust that happened. Guns and quantities of cash, etc., were seized at the same time. Obviously, part of your jurisdiction is some parts of B.C.

Can you tell the committee if you have had experience with drugs coming into this country, precursor drugs perhaps? Also, are these illicit drugs being made here in Canada?

[Shaun Wright]

Thanks for the question.

I don't have a particular amount of experience with regard to the transnational and international nature of it. However, over several years, really when the fentanyl crisis started, the majority was being imported. It's now my understanding that much of it is actually being manufactured in Canada as a source country now.

I would say a lot of that has to do with what is my understanding of fairly lax controls around precursor chemicals in this country as opposed to some other countries, such as the United States.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Perhaps even the U.K., which makes those precursor substances illegal until they are made legal. Is that not the case?

[Shaun Wright]

I don't have knowledge of that, but I would agree with that, yes.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thanks very much.

Mr. Chair, I am going to move a motion that I brought forward on Friday. I apologize to the witnesses, although this is certainly germane. The concern from the Conservative side is that there's much more to be learned about this particular topic. As I said, that motion was tabled on Friday, November 1.

I'll just read the motion if that's appropriate:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), given recent reports from the British Columbia coroner service that the death rate from illicit drugs among women and girls is up 60% from four years ago, the committee extend its study on the opioid epidemic and toxic drug crisis in Canada for three additional meetings to deal specifically with the dramatic impact of the opioids crisis on women and children.

Mr. Chair, obviously this is another extension of this meeting. It's very clear to Canadians who are paying attention to this committee and hearing the testimony that's been presented that the NDP-Liberal experiment related to opioids and providing the so-called “safe supply” and illicit drug dens is not helping the situation.

I find it odd, too, that often what we hear from interested parties is that it's now necessary to provide evidence as to why these practices should be stopped when, indeed, there was no evidence that they should have been started in the beginning, except for ideological purposes.

That being said, I'm continuing to hear from people who have worked on the front lines and have seen the devastation wrought on communities, specifically with regard to women and girls. I think that it's time we continue this study.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Ellis.

The motion is in order, so the debate is now on the motion.

I have Dr. Powlowski and Mr. Johns on the speaking list.

Dr. Powlowski.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I would like to preface my remarks by saying that my understanding is that Planet Youth will most likely be at the next meeting, the one existing meeting that we have on the opioid crisis.

That being said, I'd like to propose an amendment to the Conservative motion, which would then read as follows: “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee extend its study on the opioid epidemic and toxic drug crisis in Canada for up to three additional meetings to deal specifically with the dramatic impact of the opioid crisis on women and children, the role of drug courts in addressing addiction and the use of mandatory treatment for mixed substance use in mental disorder cases.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

I think what you just did was read the motion as amended.

If I understand it correctly, you are proposing to delete the words “given recent reports from the British Columbia coroner service that the death rate from illicit drugs among women and girls is up 60% from four years ago,” and to add, at the end of the motion proposed by Dr. Ellis, “the role of drug courts in addressing addiction and the use of mandatory treatment for mixed substance use and mental disorder cases”.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I think the other change has been to change it to “for up to three additional meetings”. I don't know if that was in the original motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I thought it was.