Thank you very much.
I would also like to thank you for inviting me and granting me the opportunity to speak today. As mentioned, my name is Chris Grinham and I am co-founder of a non-profit group named Safer Ottawa. My wife and I founded Safer Ottawa in 2007 to address the issues of discarded needles in our area.
From 2007 to 2010, we spent spring, summer, and fall cleaning up needles, crack pipes, and other discarded harm-reduction equipment from the streets, parks, churches, daycares, businesses, and residential properties in Lowertown, Sandy Hill, and the ByWard Market. By the end of 2010 we had collected over 6,000 needles and 27 gallons of harm-reduction equipment off our streets.
It was at this point that we realized that we needed to do more. To improve the situation and make our streets safer, we focused on three areas: involvement, education, and awareness.
For involvement, we worked with the City of Ottawa, Ottawa Police, the Ottawa Needle Hunters to create and implement a rapid needle-response program for cleaning up discards when found, as well as to redesign and improve the strategies used for proactive needle hunting.
For education, we worked with Ottawa Public Health, Ottawa shelters, and various outreach programs and agencies to ensure that clients were properly educated on safe disposal locations and techniques, and informed on the risks and hazards of discarding their equipment where others may come into contact with it.
For awareness, we worked with the residents, community associations, and Neighbourhood Watch programs to ensure that residents were aware of the dangers, aware of what to watch out for, and aware of what they should do should they find discarded needles or other equipment.
In short, in order to improve the situation of discarded needles in Ottawa, we had to involve, consult, educate, and work with the community, health organizations, municipal government, Ottawa police, and other partner agencies. This strategy has been very successful. The issue of discards in Ottawa is significantly better than when we began. This very effective form of collaboration and inclusion is the goal of Bill C-2.
It is no secret that our organization has been vocal in opposition to the implementation of supervised consumption or injection sites in Ottawa. This is not from any moralistic “drugs are bad” or “drugs are illegal” standpoint but, rather, our stance is the culmination of years of researching the subject, meeting with the experts, and sitting down with agencies that advocate on all sides of the issue. Why then do we support Bill C-2, which is, in essence, a bill that puts into place a framework to implement a site we oppose? It is because implementing such a site is ultimately not our decision, and because in our experience we have encountered several individuals in professional capacities that were providing information that was inaccurate and incorrect, something we believe to be extremely dangerous, especially when dealing with subjects as important as addiction and disease.
Our first encounter was back in 2009, when our then medical officer of health, Dr. David Salisbury, insisted that the needles we were collecting off the streets of Ottawa were not coming from the needle exchange program but rather from other sources. He suggested a syringe black market, Hull needle distribution sites, and the largest offender was, according to him, Ottawa pharmacies. He said legitimate purchases from pharmacies and other sources present a significant portion of needles on the street, something the pharmacists of Ottawa took great exception to. This, of course, was not correct.
More recently we've had to contend with comments from Dr. Mark Tyndall, head of infectious diseases at the Ottawa Hospital and vocal advocate for a supervised injection site in Ottawa. Earlier this year in an Ottawa Sun article, Dr. Tyndall made several comments in support of supervised injection sites that were incorrect and misleading, not the least of which was that HIV rates in Ottawa are probably the highest of any major city in Canada. The truth is that not only is the HIV rate in Ottawa not among the highest, it is in fact among the lowest. He then went on to say that injection sites prevent overdoses. However, this again is simply untrue. In fact, InSite's own data not only shows that overdoses happen regularly at their facility, but that they have increased two and half times since 2007 and 2008.
In 2007 and 2008 there were 197 overdoses at InSite, and in 2012 up to 497. We were told in an e-mail from Vancouver Coastal Health that during the 2013 calendar year, there were 616 overdoses at InSite. In fact, just this month there was a two-day period where 31 overdoses occurred. InSite has claimed that no overdose deaths have occurred on the premises. While that may be true, what they cannot tell you is whether or not a death has occurred from an overdose at InSite once a client has left on their own or in an ambulance. We have made several freedom of information requests to Vancouver Coastal Health and the B.C. ambulance services, and the answer is simply that this information is not tracked. So it is impossible to state definitively that no deaths have been caused by injection drug use at InSite.
You may have heard that in Ottawa there are 40 overdose deaths per year. This is true, but it is always quoted, or almost always quoted, out of context. Usually advocates will quote this number when discussing how injection sites prevent overdose deaths, suggesting that through association these 40 deaths could have been prevented with a supervised injection site in place. What they neglect to mention, or perhaps are simply not aware of, is that, of these 40 overdose deaths each year, three or four are attributed to injection drug use.
For these statistics and more we have supplied an Ottawa snapshot. Unfortunately, we were not aware it needed to be bilingual, so it will be translated and supplied to you later.
It is our belief that by ensuring proper and effective consultation, Bill C-2 will address the problem of incorrect, inaccurate information, which we believe to be imperative. The issues of addiction, with aspects ranging from homelessness to mental health, from crime to harm reduction, and disease transmission are extremely complex and, in many cases, so interwoven that in order to address one you must address several others in tandem. These issues simply cannot be looked at from one side. They cannot be dealt with from a purely medical response or a purely criminal response.
As we did with Safer Ottawa, in order to begin tackling these issues, you must first bring everyone together from all sides. Let all opinions be voiced and heard. Doing so helps to ensure that whatever strategy is developed, it will be the one that has taken the most into account with the most accurate information, thus being the best solution that has the most positive effect.
This is why we support Bill C-2 as it is designed.
Thank you.