Health Committee on Nov. 29th, 2022

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

—of additional money because of the bilateral agreements.

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

It's just unfortunate, I think, that this is part of a trend we're seeing. We're seeing emergency rooms that are overcrowded from coast to coast to coast.

We know that there are kids ending up in these emergency rooms because the parents can't find children's pain medications and the kids could have fevers. We have people who are struggling with mental health and addiction issues who have nowhere else to go and are filling up our emergency rooms at record rates.

We're seeing an absolute lack of action from this government to actually solve these problems. People are struggling and suffering today. What are you doing to actually make sure people get the support they need so that they don't fill up our emergency rooms?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

It's a great question, because that's exactly what we're doing by building up the integrated youth services. Those kids don't go to emergency anymore. When we look at decrim, when we look at SUAP, that program, we're going to watch the paramedic response, the visits to emergency, the hospitalizations...we are already seeing those changes. Building up a system so that people don't have to go to emergency is exactly what we're doing coast to coast to coast.

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

Minister Duclos...?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

You heard Dr. Bennett. Not only is she the first mental health and addictions minister, but she's also, as you well know, a very distinguished physician. When she speaks about how to make people not have to go to an emergency department because of a failure in the system to access a family physician or mental health in the right place at the right time, these are significant efforts that we need to continue making together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

That's five minutes, Ms. Goodridge.

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

Minister, I see that my time is up, but we are actually seeing a crisis right now in our emergency rooms. The time to act was six months ago or six years ago. It's critical that we get this done now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Goodridge.

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

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the ministers and all the senior officials for being here in committee. It has been a long time since we met in person.

Minister Bennett, I also have several questions for you.

To start, I think there's been some recent confusion regarding politicization of the approaches to addressing the toxic drug crisis, which we know requires an array of responses along a spectrum of prevention, health promotion, harm reduction, access to clinical treatment services, including opioid agonist therapy, other clinical supports, adequate social supports, access to treatment and recovery for those who are ready.

Also, may I mention legislative actions such as those we've accomplished with Bill C-5, which addresses unfair mandatory minimum policies and modernizing drug policy, including, ultimately, decriminalization of personal possession of illicit drugs?

As an MP, I represent the Yukon, which is still struggling in the opioid drug crisis but nevertheless has made some substantial gains in a number of these areas.

My first maybe very quick question is, how much should we rely on values alone versus evidence in determining drug policy or, for that matter, any health policy?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

I think you know the answer, Dr. Hanley. This has to be evidence-based.

I think we have suffered through 10 years of an ideological approach that took one of the four pillars that you just mentioned of international drug policy—prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement—and took out that harm reduction pillar. Now we have to build it back up in the way that you just said. Get the naloxone out onto the streets. Be able to understand that harm reduction includes these things that are four years old—methadone, Suboxone and Sublocade—but also all other safe supply.

As you know, we've reversed 42,000 overdoses in the safe consumption sites.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

On that note, how robust is the evidence to support harm reduction in general and safe supply, in particular, as one of the spectra of approaches to tackling the drug crisis?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

I think the CRISM part of the CIHR is monitoring all of this very closely. Certainly, even in the integrated youth services, research and evidence are very much part not only of using the evidence, but creating the evidence as we go.

It is about us understanding that we have to be going on. In the agreement with British Columbia, we will be measuring the indicators not only on public health saving lives, access to emerg and all of those things, but also public safety as we watch petty crime go down and as we watch the other indicators of public safety.

Evidence is everything in how we take decisions in drug policy.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Minister, I have the privilege of co-chairing with Senator Stan Kutcher the all-party mental health caucus. We met just yesterday, actually, and were presented with data documenting the mental health effects of the pandemic on Canadians.

Another one of the themes we've discussed is how we can build mental health literacy. That's, to me, familiarity with the terms and principles of mental health and mental illness, so that we can all be better equipped to maintain good mental health and to prevent, recognize and respond to mental illness when it occurs. That's whether we are members of the public and citizens, parliamentarians, health care providers or patients.

I'm wondering if you could speak to the importance of supporting better mental health literacy and what role we can all play in improving that.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Firstly I want to thank you and the all-party mental health caucus, which worked so hard on that handbook for mental health literacy for all parliamentarians and our teams. It has been hugely important that people are using the right words and are able to understand their feelings and describe their feelings, but also know how to navigate themselves or their loved ones to help.

I think that when we look at stigma, the best way to replace stigma is with education. When we raise the mental health literacy of our population, we can understand that we've been asking the wrong questions. It's not, “What's the matter with that person?” It's, “What happened to that person?” in terms of being trauma-informed.

Is what we are giving culturally safe, or is it a high barrier because people have been treated badly before and are afraid to reach out for help?

If we could do more on mental health literacy in the curricula of all the schools across the country.... It has been the goal of Dr. Kutcher that when we have health classes, there are mental health classes, too, so that people are able to be in touch with their feelings, so that stress for an exam isn't an anxiety state and so that the grief after someone has died is not a depression.

What are normal emotions, and when do those normal emotions tip over into the kind of illness that requires treatment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Dr. Bennett.

Mr. Garon, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Duclos, in a number of municipalities in Quebec, and probably in the rest of Canada, as well, there seems to be a fairly substantial slippage in terms of medical cannabis cultivation licences. I hear about this frequently from elected municipal officials. It is even believed that, in some cases, criminal organizations are now using licences for criminal purposes.

I'm not asking the officials, I'm asking you. What level of priority are you giving to this problem? As minister, what concrete steps have you taken? Now that cannabis has been legalized, marketed and regulated, is there less and less need for licences? Without abolishing licences, should the rules be tightened quite substantially?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

That's a great question.

Let me first quickly remind you why medical cannabis has become so important in recent years. It's mainly because, prior to the legalization of cannabis, it was the only way people could have access to cannabis. Moreover, this right had been recognized by the courts. That's why this way of obtaining cannabis for medical purposes was recognized and continues to exist now.

With the legalization of recreational cannabis, things have changed a lot. As I mentioned earlier, the situation in terms of health, safety and youth protection, in particular, has improved significantly.

That said, there is always room for improvement. There is an important opportunity to take advantage of, and that is the review of this piece of legislation—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I apologize for interrupting you, but I have only a few seconds left.

How much of a priority is this issue for you?

Municipal officials talk to me about it almost every month.

What have you done, as minister, to correct this situation?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

This is a very important priority. If you have not already received them, we will be sending you some very important details that we provided a few weeks ago that indicate how seriously the department is taking this issue. You can then share that information with your constituents.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Minister, I will watch my mail very carefully.

Thank you very much.

By the way, I was also waiting for your Christmas card.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I believe you received that email a few months ago. However, owing to your heavy workload, you may have forgotten some of the details. In any case, we will send it to you again with updated details.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you.

Mr. Johns is next, please, for two and a half minutes.

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

In another Order Paper question, I asked whether the government agrees with the recommendations of its expert task force on substance use. In response, it was indicated that the government agrees with the spirit of the recommendations. One of those recommendations was, “An expert committee should be convened within three months of this report to lead the design of a national safer supply program, with the goal to increase access to safer supply for up to one (1) million Canadians at risk of death from drug toxicity.”

Last week, in response to the Conservative leader's misinformed comments about safer supply, you said, “The evidence is clear on this. Safe supply saves lives.”

It's been nearly a year and a half since the task force made that recommendation. What steps are you taking to establish a national safer supply program? Have you established a committee to lead the design?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thanks for the question.

Yes, indeed the national community of safer supply has been struck and is advising the government, as is Shannon Nix in her part of Health Canada.

I don't know whether Heather wants....

I'd be happy to let you know the members of that committee and the work that is being done.

I think the community of safer supply is working hard with those who are prescribing, but I think, Gord, you and I know that the coroner's report in B.C. is extremely troubling. Only 30% of the people who died of opioid overdose were actually diagnosed with opioid use disorder.

I think we know we have to go further than just a prescriber model.