I understand the reluctance of the NDP to talk about the opioid crisis, given how much they've had a hand in facilitating it through their safe-supply policies for this country.
I was thinking, as I listened to my colleague Mr. Doherty's family experience with this, that there are a lot of us around the table who have virtue signalled around the question of an opioid crisis for quite some time now. We are the Standing Committee on Health. I am a rookie—a newcomer. I would imagine we would be exercised by the defining issues Canadians are being confronted with, particularly the most vulnerable Canadians.
In the aftermath, the PMB we're looking at pretends to be a review of the lockdowns. The lockdowns, COVID policies and pandemic policies we have been dealing with—which the witnesses are here to inform us about—have had massive impacts on the mental health of Canadians. Thousands of people lost their livelihoods as a result of terrible COVID policies. They have, in turn, turned to drugs.
The federal government is ready to offer up a solution with the safe supply of opioids. This Liberal-NDP coalition is obsessed with a culture of death through its policies on medical assistance in dying and safe supply. It requires leaders of conviction to step forward to confront it at this committee, in Parliament and around the country.
Mr. Doherty, I'm grateful for your courage in moving this motion.
I encourage all members of this committee to pay close heed to it.
I have a couple of reflections from my own home province of Alberta.
Seven thousand Albertans died of opioid poisoning between 2016 and 2022. That's seven thousand people. The numbers, as Mr. Doherty notes, are probably higher. This is what we know. The Alberta government and civil society have been informed by an amazing organization that is led by an individual in my riding. His name is Dr. Vause. His recovery-oriented model for victims of the opioid crisis is a force of nature. It is a holistic approach for patients and their families. It has returned 70% success for victims of opioid addiction.
This Alberta recovery-oriented system of care is something that, in our great federation, we could examine closely as a model that could be replicated everywhere. Their capacity is only about 23 patients and their families at a time. When you think about the scale of what I just described, with 7,000 people having died already, it's a scaling that cannot come urgently enough. Replicated properly, it will take a year or two to get teams of people deployed in places around the country.
In London, Ontario, because of the safe-supply policies of the Liberal-NDP coalition, the price of hydromorphone has gone from $20 to $2. They're flooding the market and killing Canadians. It requires us to examine this issue with the gravity it deserves, so we can bring home our loved ones drug-free.
Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Doherty for raising these issues, and for the opportunity to reflect not just on what we're seeing in Calgary but also on the price we've experienced in Alberta.
I encourage members of this committee to take this as seriously as a heart attack and elevate it to the place it deserves in consideration of our public life in Parliament.
Thank you very much.