Minister, you can hear the urgency in my voice.
I went to Portugal. There were six deaths per million based on drug-related deaths. Canada is at 180 from the poisoned drug supply. B.C. is at 430. My Island Health is at 503. In my community, for those under the age of 59, it is 2,100 deaths per million. This is from fentanyl and benzos. This is not from a safer supply. This is from a street supply—“tranq”—of mixed drugs.
This government had an expert task force made up of police chiefs, social workers, experts in drug policy, expert people with lived experience and indigenous leaders. They made clear recommendations that you needed to stop criminalizing people who use substances, provide a safer supply to replace the street drugs and ensure that you invest heavily so that we have “just in time” treatment, recovery, prevention and education. You haven't done that. It hasn't been done at the scale that's needed.
I want us to get to six. We can have hope that we can get to six deaths per million. Every death is too many. When are you going to come up with a plan, and will you reinstate the expert task force so that they can guide your government on recommendations and hold you to account in making sure you have a plan and timelines to implement it?
Will you reinstate that task force to do that?