Thank you very much, Chair.
My deep apologies to the translators. The passion, I'm afraid, overtook me, and I apologize deeply for that.
That being said, why did I wander back to the bill at hand? Because there were accusations around this table that said this was a filibuster to get rid of Bill C-293.
I would love nothing more than to continue to talk about this bill. Sadly, there's something that is way more pressing when 20 Canadians a day are dying; 20-plus Canadians a day are dying because of a failed NDP-Liberal coalition experiment. Unfortunately, the NDP member, who believes himself to be the arbiter of this committee, continues to want to interrupt, even though perhaps, if closer attention was paid to the incredibly important words I'm saying, he would understand the connection to the injustice attempted upon the Conservatives in suggesting that this was a filibuster related to Bill C-293.
That is why I needed to make that connection to the matter at hand, related to homelessness and the ongoing opioid experiment, which continues to be perpetrated, propagated and perpetuated by the petulant Liberals. That causes great consternation for all of us who sit on this side, the Conservative side of the House.
What we know very clearly is that safe supply is a failure. It is a failure, an abject failure. It doesn't matter which euphemism we wish to say about it, whether we want to call it “safe supply” or “safer supply” or “safest supply”. Again, those are the superlatives we have at our use in the English language. Whichever one we want to use, we know that it is an experiment, and we know that it has failed. We know very clearly that this is a lesson from history. Not to be too trite, but we know that those who refuse to listen to, know or believe history are doomed to repeat it.
When we look back at the Purdue Pharma fiasco, at the tragedy, as mentioned in this article, we know very clearly that Purdue Pharma misrepresented the risk of addiction. As this article talks about, there was a systematic effort to minimize the risk of addiction and the use of opioids for the treatment of “chronic non-cancer-related pain”. One of the most critical issues regarding the use of opioids in the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain is the potential of iatrogenic addiction. I'll come back to that.
The article states, “The lifetime prevalence of addictive disorders has been estimated at 3% to 16% of the general population.” When we look at that, what does that mean? It means, for those being prescribed opioids for chronic non-cancer pain, that even by giving them opioids there was a likelihood that they were going to become addicted to them.
Now what are we doing? At the current time, this NDP-Liberal government is not prescribing them carefully in small quantities and in small dosage amounts. They are giving these medications to Canadians for free in large quantities: an incredibly potent opioid called hydromorphone. When we look at that, colleagues, that is anathema to the suggestion that, after the historical tragic events related to Purdue Pharma, we all need to hear the lessons thereof, such that we are now doomed to repeat them, and that is exactly what we shall do.
Mr. Chair, if I may, may I have a point of clarification? If I agree to adjourn this meeting, will I still have the floor when we pick it up next time?