Health Committee on Dec. 10th, 2024

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

Thank you.

I'd like just a very quick response. You said that no province or territory has a plan that's concrete in terms of implementation. Do you agree that the federal government needs to lead, given that absence?

[Dr. Alexander Caudarella]

Well, I think that traditionally.... This is a bit of self-promotion, but the last time there was a national framework, it was actually CCSA that led it.

As you know, the provinces have said quite clearly that they don't want the federal government interfering too much in their business. You have a national pan-Canadian organization that's supposed to bring everyone together and work with both—with the federal government and the provinces and the localities. We need provinces to learn from each other and help each other out. I think CCSA can work very closely with the federal government, but I think this is actually totally in our wheelhouse and in our legislated mandate.

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

Thank you.

Dr. German, in your opinion, what are the most urgently needed reforms at the federal level to reduce organized crime and the toxic drug supply in Canada? This could be either legislative changes or changes in the allocation of resources. Do you want to just expand on your testimony so far?

[Dr. Peter German]

Yes. Thank you for the question.

Really what we need is a national strategy to deal with organized crime and that wraps up money laundering and drugs and other commodities. We need a national strategy. This is not a problem of the police, of prosecutors, of judges or simply of the laws. It's a holistic problem. There are problems in all of those areas.

Obviously, I think, we have to begin with our Criminal Code. Issues such as the onerous disclosure that just swamps prosecutions, I believe, can be dealt with through rules in our Criminal Code that allow for speedier trials. We see this taking place in the United States. It takes place in other jurisdictions. Why can't we do it?

However, I do think we need this overarching strategy first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Johns and Dr. German.

Mr. Williams, you have five minutes, please.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's nice to be at the committee today. Thank you for welcoming me.

Mr. German, we've heard this week from President-elect Trump, who's claimed that drugs are being transshipped from Canada to the U.S. How credible is that claim?

[Dr. Peter German]

Well, we know that illegal commodities go south and we know that illegal commodities come north. We could talk about guns coming north. We could talk about drugs going south. I would not hazard a guess on the actual quantum. I don't know if our law enforcement agencies can provide you with anything accurate.

I would say that most statistics are based on seizures. There are seizures in the United States and seizures in Canada. You really have to use a multiplier on seizures. A very small percentage of illegal commodities actually gets interdicted, so—

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

We have those stats, Mr. German:

In the 12 months up to September 2024, US border agents seized about 11,600 pounds of drugs entering the United States from Canada. Seizures of fentanyl doses more than tripled between 2023 and 2024, rising from 239,000 doses to 839,000. A year ago, CSIS told Trudeau that they had identified more than 350 organized crime groups....

We have the stats. My question is this: How porous is our border? There's the threat from, of course, the increased use of drugs. Is the threat from the United States credible in terms of stating that we have a porous border and that we're not protecting the border, at this point?

[Dr. Peter German]

Yes. I think that's the point. You have the statistics. Use a multiplier for how much actually is transiting north or transiting south.

Yes, we do have problems. We have an unprotected border. I get that. Nothing's perfect. But as I mentioned, we have ports without port police. We don't have a border patrol similar to the United States.

We have issues. There's no question about it.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

We have issues. We have a failure at the border, and this is now going to linger into a trade crisis. What do we do to fix these borders? What do we do to fix these ports? We had some recommendations this week to increase scanners and to ensure that we provide more funding to CBSA. What are the recommendations to fix these porous borders in order to fix our trade relationships?

[Dr. Peter German]

I don't recommend just throwing more money, resources and equipment at the issue. That's a bit of a stopgap. It's a band-aid. You need a strategy. There was a strategy some years ago on secure borders. We looked at this very closely after 9/11. We didn't go quite as far as the Americans did, but we certainly did work with them. I think we have to do that again. This is a time for us to get together with the United States and look at joint solutions.

You can look at any one of these issues. With scanning, for instance, we're not going to scan all the containers coming into our ports, but we can develop better intelligence with foreign agencies that allows us to know when illegal substances are being shipped. Things like that are important. It all requires a large strategy.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

In terms of the ports as a whole, you've talked about organized crime. How vulnerable are our ports to organized crime at this moment?

[Dr. Peter German]

The issue is that you don't need a clearance to work in our ports. There are 30,000 employees at the Port of Vancouver. Only something like 6,000 of them have a minimal security clearance. We couldn't get the exact numbers from Transport Canada, but it's about 20%. You do have people with records who are working in the ports.

Now, sure, 95% of people in the ports are upstanding citizens, but it's well documented through media reports and so forth that we do have an organized crime component. That's important to deal with.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

We've heard recently that there are increased cyber-attacks on our ports, which is also opening up our vulnerabilities. Have you heard of this? Have you written about this? What can we do about that?

[Dr. Peter German]

No, I have not written about anything with respect to cyber. That's outside my purview.

It doesn't surprise me. The thing to keep in mind is that our ports, as opposed to very advanced ports in Europe, revolve around human beings. Their ports are much more automated than ours. We do have that human component in our ports that you don't see in many other ports.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. German.

Ms. Brière, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for joining us today.

Ms. Welz, please accept my deepest condolences for the loss of your daughter. Thank you for sharing your daughter's story with us, for sharing your story with us and for advocating for change in Canada.

Dr. Caudarella, as you know, we have the Canadian drugs and substances strategy. This strategy encompasses a number of aspects discussed today. These aspects include prevention, education, substance controls and access to support services for people who use drugs.

This is a complex crisis. I think that everyone agrees that there isn't any one‑size‑fits‑all solution. You also said that we have an implementation issue. What's the solution?

[Dr. Alexander Caudarella]

You're right. A strategy exists. The issue isn't a lack of strategy. It's just that we need more right now. We react a great deal, but we need to start planning more for the long term.

In terms of implementation, many resources have been allocated to specialized services. However, what's being done to help family doctors, for example? That's why we wanted to take action at the level of small towns. No small town can put $5 million into a trajectory‑changing initiative.

We also really need to look at certain issues. We know that we can take action on four fronts to really reduce substance use. These fronts are price, advertising—in the case of legal substances— accessibility and attitude. How can we change attitudes? For example, we just learned that, in Ontario, more young people aged 13 to 15 are using substances compared to last year. Why is use on the rise? Is it a culture issue?

Why do some countries in Europe, for example, have fentanyl on the scene, but have never faced the same level of drug problem? Why don't some parts of Canada have this issue? It's about implementation, but also about targeting needs. Of course, fentanyl trafficking must be stopped. However, we must also look at the parts of the country that don't yet have a fentanyl issue. Why isn't more work being done in those areas? In Vancouver, it isn't necessarily possible to change the situation. However, fentanyl still isn't very prevalent in many places in Quebec, for example. The same applies to eastern Canada.

The key is to hold discussions in order to focus on the right things. It's also important to support the implementation of measures across the board. Instead of giving resources to specialists and specialized services, it's necessary to help general practitioners. It's important to take action in both the medical sector and in the social services and education sectors, for example.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

It's ultimately all about risk factors. Thank you.

Mr. Rikhardsson, thank you for joining us and for providing a brief overview of the Planet Youth model.

As of what age can young people benefit from your program?

[Dr. Pall Rikhardsson]

Basically, we say that prevention starts at birth. The risk factors, and the protective factors that address those, really have no lower age. Usually, we see these programs and interventions being implemented for kids from around the age of eight until 12 or 13.

As my colleague Dr. Caudarella talked about, it's all about improving the social environment of these kids, increasing social capital among parental groups, providing them with meaningful and organized leisure time activities, and so on and so forth. It's about the environment and changing the environment for the younger generation, so they will behave differently—reducing the demand for drugs and the need for treatment.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you.

In your remarks—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Brière. Your time is up.

Mr. Thériault, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Caudarella, I was wondering whether you knew about the Quebec government's 2018‑28 interdepartmental action plan on addiction. It includes 14 departments.

During its tour of a number of Canadian cities, the committee discovered that more integration was taking place on the ground in Quebec and that this approach should be promoted. For example, a front‑line harm reduction organization may be in contact with a quaternary care hospital that conducts addiction research. These people talk to each other.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Dr. Alexander Caudarella]

For years, I've been asking myself one question over and over again. Why is the overdose death rate five times higher in Ontario than in Quebec? Many factors come into play. However, I believe that one reason stems from the integration of services, as you said. For example, general practitioners in CLSCs have access to more resources, including psychologists.

A cultural difference also comes into play, of course. That said, I believe that the difference lies mainly in the capacity to conduct a good triage and to take a holistic view of the situation. I'm not saying that everything works perfectly in Quebec. However, I believe that this capacity for integration plays a key role in Quebec's success in this area. We can see this approach in the parts of Europe that have also achieved some success.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. German, your remarks are helpful. During our meetings dedicated to this study, I've often said that law enforcement constituted the least effective component of the national strategy. To some extent, that's what you're saying this morning.

In turn, a number of witnesses said that it was wishful thinking to believe that organized crime could be dealt with strictly by law enforcement.

As someone who is familiar with the issue, what do you think?