Justice Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mayor, I want to interrupt for one second. Could you slow down just a little for our interpreters? They are having a hard time keeping up with you.

[Diana McQueen]

Okay, certainly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you.

[Diana McQueen]

Sitting on our Premier Klein's task force with Dr. Colleen Klein and others on this committee, we came to realize that this was indeed a provincial and Canada-wide problem. In Drayton Valley we had the courage as a whole community, with its whole support, to tackle this problem, not burying our heads in the sand, to say this is an issue affecting our young people—and not just young people, but many middle-aged people as well. We wanted to tackle this problem. That's why you see this resolution that we sent.

We have had great success in our community using this holistic approach of prevention, education, enforcement, and the whole team effort. We've had a reduction of meth significantly, according to our RCMP and the provincial regulator, ADAG, the Alberta Drug Awareness Group. Those statistics have held within our community for a period of about three years now.

We're very proud of the work we have done, but we feel that although we have had some reduction and have done a huge education process, in the number of youth, teachers, business owners, and community people we have spoken to, it has really been on the prevention side—letting them know what chemicals are used to produce this drug and the real facts about this drug compared with other drugs. It was a real awareness program and certainly a great deal in our community. I commend the entire community.

But I look at this piece of legislation...and I want to commend those within the federal government who approved the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act as well, but I think we need to go a little bit further. Although we've seen some reductions and are starting to see that trend, we want to make sure that trend continues. While the economy is hot, other drugs are being looked at—the more expensive drugs. We know economies are cyclical as well, and we don't want to see a trend backwards with this drug.

Whatever we can do to monitor and control the substances coming into our country and the possession and sale of those chemicals, we need to do. And we need to regulate how large quantities of chemicals are sold.

I was listening to the prior witnesses talking about Wal-Mart or the drug stores or those kinds of things. There are ways we can put these behind the counter, and there are ways we can regulate the sales with reporting requirements. It is indeed, as was mentioned, a tool. I'll use an example.

In our community a few years ago we used the tool of a curfew bylaw. The curfew bylaw has never actually been enforced, but it has been an excellent tool for our RCMP community police officers to be able to use, to give warnings to the children. Also, it's a tool for parents to use.

This legislation is yet another tool—and I know you have other legislation as well—for them to draw on. I think the more tools we have, the more helpful it is to our police services, regardless of whether they are provincial or RCMP. We should do whatever we can to give them more tools, to give our communities more tools and more fight, but also to send a clear message out that Canada does not want to see this drug in our communities, that Canada understands the devastation this drug is creating among young people and those who are using this drug, and that we will do everything we can, as Canadians and as legislators, to stop the sale and the possession of these chemicals and this drug.

I'll leave it at that for any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mayor.

If you would stand by, we have one other presentation from the Drug Prevention Network of Canada. Listen in, and then we will get to questions, both to you and to Mr. Bigras, regarding your presentations.

I'll turn the floor over to André Bigras, please.

[André Bigras, Executive Officer, Drug Prevention Network of Canada]

Thank you.

Bonjour. Good day.

l'd like to begin by commending you for addressing this very serious issue that is impacting Canadians, along with the youth of this nation, and by thanking the committee for permitting our group to make a presentation on this sensitive yet critical issue. We applaud and support this bill one hundred percent.

My name is André Bigras, and l'm representing the Drug Prevention Network of Canada. Our organization was founded in 2005 with the goal of seeing the Canadian drug strategy bring a balanced approach to illegal drug issues, use, and abuse. Our focus is on prevention/education, treatment, and enforcement.

To give you a better understanding of who we are, the role of a DPNC board member is as follows.

Each member is an equal participant on the Canadian national board dedicated and subscribing to the following principles: to promote a healthy lifestyle, free of drugs; to advocate no use of illegal drugs and no abuse of legal drugs, including alcohol, tobacco, and solvents; to oppose legalization of drugs; to support the United Nations conventions and treaties concerning drugs and psychotropic substances; to participate with and support the DPNA.

Each board member shall support demand reduction principles and foster communication and cooperation among NGOs who are working to stem illicit drug use in and around the world.

Each board member shall foster citizen involvement and community cooperation to address the drug problem at the local level.

Each board member shall encourage conferences and initiatives focusing on drug prevention education, the establishment of drug prevention networks and community anti-drug coalitions, and the promotion of positive, healthy, drug-free norms and attitudes in society.

There is not any one magic solution that will resolve our drug problems, but we can make a positive impact by implementing many small steps, having a multi-dimensional approach that must give a consistent message that illegal drugs are dangerous, and that even prescribed legal drugs and over-the-counter drugs, if abused, can also be dangerous.

The new drug strategy for Canada is definitely heading in the right direction, and the Drug Prevention Network of Canada looks forward to working within the framework of this new drug strategy to improve conditions for the addicts and Canadians.

Crystal meth is one of the most deadly, yet cheap, drugs available in Canada. People under its influence feel a sense of power, and of sexual power, which also leads to sexually transmitted diseases. It also impacts the part of the brain that controls judgment and rational thought, making it a dangerous drug. Being very addictive, it adds to the need to implement laws to try to minimize the damage it is doing, especially to the youth of this nation. It's one of the easiest drugs that leads to addiction and one of the hardest ones from which to break free.

The recommended amendments to this bill are one step in that direction and are fully supported by the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, even though the precursor control regulations have been recently tightened. Companies selling precursor chemicals need to acquire an end-user statement from anyone purchasing the named chemicals, thus ensuring that only legitimate manufacturers are able to obtain the precursor chemicals. This gives us control over who is purchasing these products.

With these controls, we need laws and the inspection and enforcement capabilities, or they are basically meaningless. An analogy is that if one removed the fence around an apple tree and removed the penalty for taking apples, in a very short period of time there wouldn't be any apples left.

That same logic applies to our new drug laws. If they don't have any weight behind them, they are ineffective. This again reinforces the need for a multi-dimensional approach to the desired modifications, one of which is in front of us today. Some apples will always be stolen, but the majority might be left on the tree with proper safeguards.

I would recommend that we start with the products that are available in drugstores, such as ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, which are necessary key precursors to manufacturing methamphetamine. Given that one requires nearly 700 pills to produce one ounce of meth, the pharmacies could limit the amount of packages of ephedrine to two per customer or place these products behind the shelves where one needs to ask for the product. Anything and everything we do to restrict its availability becomes a detriment to some. The more restrictions, even small ones, the harder it becomes for the manufacturing of methamphetamines.

The greatest Christmas gift we can give our society is hope. The greatest gift we can give to parents is to minimize and restrict, to the best of our ability, the easy access to drugs and precursor products and to have in place treatment facilities to restore those who fall prey to this scourge. We also need to give the tools to enforcement agencies to stop the dealers, manufacturers, and importers of drugs or precursor products. This comes into line with Canada's new drug strategy of having compassion for addicts while punishing those trying to destroy this country's greatest asset, our youth.

I apologize for not presenting this in both official languages, due to the short notice given; however, I will answer questions in French.

I respectfully submit my testimony.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bigras.

Mr. Lee, you're first on the list.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you--

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mayor, can you still hear us?

She can hear us, but we can't hear her.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Let's try.

Hello to Drayton Valley.

[Diana McQueen]

Good afternoon.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Yes, we're good.

I wanted to ask a question of Mayor McQueen.

Obviously she has developed a whole lot of political skills in Drayton Valley, one of which includes not stopping at the end of a sentence, thereby precluding your opposition from getting any intervention in. But we got through the translations okay here on the Hill. I want you to know that.

If Parliament were to pass this law, it would fulfill kind of a societal denunciation effect by bringing attention to this particular drug and showing that we've noticed this drug scourge. But are you able to outline for us from your experience in Drayton Valley a situation in which this law might have been used, or some particular factual circumstance in which it might have been helpful?

I would have thought you would get the biggest bang for your buck from the treatment, education, and enforcement envelopes you've mentioned. This law falls under enforcement; you've obviously had some success with the education side and possibly with the treatment side. Could you indicate some factual sequence or real-life scenario in which you think this law might help you in Alberta?

[Diana McQueen]

Thank you for the question.

When we did the prevention and the enforcement, we worked with the RCMP and asked what tools they would find useful as well, so that they would have more success with regard to the enforcement side. That's how we came up with this resolution. I believe this bill really supports that resolution's intent.

We've done a lot of things, but what's happening here is that it's very easy for people to get access to the drugs used to produce methamphetamine. The more we can make that difficult for people, the less this drug will be there. When we're looking at large quantities of sales, we have to do a better job. We put monitoring the possession of those drugs, those chemicals, in the resolution, because in fact you'll see some of those chemicals used quite often, and there's not a problem. You'll see them on the farm or those kinds of things, but the purpose is to have a tool to monitor those. We are keeping track of who is buying these kinds of chemicals and where they are. It also gives some information to the RCMP to be able to monitor that, to question why large quantities of something may be going to specific buyers on a regular basis. It's a tool, if you will.

I think the bill is trying to even go further, and we certainly support the intent of Bill C-428. We support the amendment.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

That's good.

I can see that the bill itself does not fall within the four corners of the resolution that you adopted and forwarded on to the FCM. It's my understanding that Health Canada...that the regulations for the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act have been amended, and much of what's in your resolution has actually been adopted, which is great. I'm sure you're very pleased with that, but I'm still looking for a hook to hang my hat on here in terms of the bill itself.

I understand the general intent of the bill, and I understand your support for the bill, because it adds some enforcement infrastructure, if I can put it that way. Is there anything else you could tell us about the bill, or facts or circumstances in your community, that would relate directly to the bill itself?

If you don't have any, that's okay; I'm just curious.

[Diana McQueen]

Not in particular. But I think the point is that it is still very easy to access those particular substances, so we need to do something. If you can't access them, it makes it more difficult for the production of methamphetamines. I think that's what the bill is speaking to, and that's the support we would have.

Because we did not have this tool, I don't know how it would specifically affect our community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I will start with Mr. Bigras.

You seem to be inviting us to use certain legislative solutions that would reduce the supply, particularly in drugstores, of certain products that would contribute to the making of methamphetamine.

Could you elaborate on that idea?

[André Bigras]

I think that the drug problem is one that involves the whole community. We could work together, in partnership with the drugstores, to try and establish regulations on a voluntary basis on their part. If 75% of the drugstores agreed with us, they would be on our side. It would be neither legislation nor a regulation, but it would rather be an attempt to work in partnership with them in order to try and reduce the availability of the product to the public.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

You are talking about the availability of the components used in the preparation and use of methamphetamine.

Were this bill to be passed by the committee and sent to the House, do you believe it would change anything? It certainly would not change anything in the pattern of drug use, because it is a bill that uses criminal law. It does not adhere to harm reduction strategy.

Could your organization talk to us about the reality? Why are young people using methamphetamine these days, and how could this bill act as a deterrent to that clientele?

[André Bigras]

Part of our society accepts regulations and laws. We at least want to affect that percentage and cause people to think about prevention, education, law enforcement and available treatments for those who have unfortunately been caught up in drug use.

It isn't just one thing. There are a series of things that could bring about a change in our society. A clear message that this is unacceptable has to be sent to society. In the past, the messages were mixed. You had to say no to drugs because they were dangerous, but we were distributing needles and crack pipes.

I believe that has to change and a clear message has to be sent on prevention and education. We have to tell our young people that we care enough about them to try and educate them and do prevention work.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I will not engage in an argument with you on harm reduction strategy, I will leave that to my colleague Ms. Libby.

In fact, your logic is somewhat debatable insofar as in Canada, we have had a prohibitionist strategy in place for drugs since the 19th century.

We turn out statistics, investigation after investigation. Methamphetamine is a somewhat different reality, but I'm having difficulty understanding how a single new clause in a bill could have such a deterrent effect.

In fact, you are saying that if we make this law, one segment of users, particularly young people, will pay attention to it. Up until now, there is no study that supports that point of view, quite the contrary. I'm not asking you to answer that.

If I have some time left, I would rather address the mayor.

We heard about the originality of an experiment carried out in your city. I do not really understand what is original about that model. I'm convinced that your town council, of which you are the mayor, is very concerned by this issue. You talked to us about a combination of education and deterrence, which it seems to me is done in many communities.

Where is the originality of the experiment that you carried out in your municipality?

[Diana McQueen]

I think what makes it original for us is that the whole community came together with this: all of the agencies, the schools, the health and social services, pastors—the entire community pulling together, as our motto is. We were proactive in this. A lot of the communities in Alberta didn't want to talk about it. Nobody wanted to say they had a problem with methamphetamine. Whether because it would hurt their community relations or because it would hurt their economic development, nobody wanted to talk about it. Our community wanted to deal with this problem to protect the young people who were being hurt by it.

We're a very proactive community. I think that's where the difference really was for Drayton Valley; we got ahead of the problem before it got too far along. We started dealing with this long before any other community would talk about it. Many communities asked us, “Why are you discussing this? Why would you want to hurt your community and your economic development?”

We worked hard on this; we were proactive. We put in the prevention dollars and the enforcement dollars and used a holistic approach from the entire community. Our entire community was behind us on this, once we were able to let people know about this drug in particular—and this is the drug that we focused on—its devastating effects, the quick way one could become addicted to it, and the difference with respect to the chemicals that are used in this drug compared with some other drugs.

I have to say that what was unique for Drayton Valley is that we gave our citizens and the entire community the entire truth about this drug in the awareness stage. We went after it extremely hard, so that people knew.

We also were helping other communities within the province and within the country—in Saskatchewan and B.C., for example—sharing the information we had.

I think what is unique for Drayton Valley is that we have a great reputation for sharing resources and pulling our community together and making sure, if there's an issue, that we deal with the issue, as hard and difficult as it can be. That's what makes it unique.

I have to give the Province of Alberta great accolades for getting behind this initiative too, on the enforcement and the prevention side, making sure through AADAC that education and an awareness of this drug was available to lots of people in the province. They as well are working with our community, the province having the same type of approach, so that we can educate people on the harm of this drug.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mayor.

Madam Davies.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to both of the witnesses for appearing today.

Mr. Bigras, I think you said that your organization is fairly new, from 2005. Is this the same organization that Randy White is a founder of?

[André Bigras]

Yes, it is.