Public Safety Committee on Oct. 29th, 2014

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

I just want to begin by saying that when the process for InSite in Vancouver began 11 years ago, there was a great fear from many of us—it was a controversial discussion, and a lot of consultation took place—that InSite would become this lightning rod, that it would be held up as a panacea for solving everything, and that everything would revolve around that. Of course, that's not the case. A safe injection site is really part of a solution. It's really part of an overall health strategy for dealing with injection drug users and drug overdoses and health and treatment and so on.

It's very interesting, because I saw the debate that happened in Vancouver and that eventually settled down. Now the facility is very well accepted. I see the same debate taking place here today. It is the fear that somehow InSite is responsible for every problem that we have with drug use. I think we should remember that the purpose of a supervised injection facility is primarily to prevent people from dying from drug overdoses and to help people connect to treatment options. There is a very well-used saying in the downtown eastside that a dead drug user can't get treatment. It's certainly a place to begin.

So it's very disappointing to me today to hear a representative from a police association pose the question “Which neighbourhood will be sacrificed?” It's very, very disappointing for me to hear that, because it makes me realize really just how much fear there is and how little understanding there is about what a supervised injection site means and what it actually does.

To just give one quick example, earlier in the summer this year there was a spate of bad drugs on the street in Vancouver. There were public warnings issued by the police department. There was a number of overdoses. In fact the police department issued statements and e-mails urging drug users to be extremely cautious and told them to go to InSite. It was a public health advisory from the police department who were seeing what was taking place on the street.

To Dr. McKeown from the Toronto Board of Health, thank you very much for the excellent brief that you sent in. One of the concerns that I saw in your written submission, and I think was echoed in a brief from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, is that in effect Bill C-2, and I would like to focus on the bill, doesn't ever indicate what level of information, research, opposition or support would actually result in an application being accepted or denied. So in effect there is never a threshold that is given.

I would like to ask you whether or not there is any other service you provide where you might have to meet criteria where that would be the case, that you are actually going into a unknown situation where you have no idea what it is you actually have to meet. It seems to me with this bill that the criteria are so open-ended, with no threshold established, how would you ever know that you'd collected enough information or enough opinions?

[Dr. David McKeown]

It's also my reading of the bill that there is that uncertainty. As I said in my remarks, I think legislation should provide a clear process and certainty when it comes to legal approvals of processes.

Furthermore, this really stands out. I can't think of another health service that requires a vote from so many different interests. If you think about it from a patient point of view, you're going to see your doctor and why should the doctor's neighbours and the local officials have a say in what services you can get from your doctor?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Yes, I do think that's a very pertinent point. In fact, this is a question that we put to the department officials just a couple of days ago. We asked what other health service in Canada has to meet this kind of criterion—or any criteria, for that matter. What was interesting was that their response was, well, they didn't really know, because of course health services are approved by provinces and not the federal government—which begs the question of why the minister, in the first place, is so inserting himself or herself into this debate, because the Supreme Court of Canada laid out the five broad areas, but this has now gone far beyond that.

I'm just curious to know, is there any other situation that you are aware of where you actually have to in effect get permission from a police department to provide a health service?

[Dr. David McKeown]

I cannot think of any, although, as I've said, I think there is a process that is appropriate to go through, not the process that's laid out in the legislation but just as a matter of a good neighbour approach, that the representatives of the local community and businesses and local police are important stakeholders.

In fact, in places where supervised injection services have been successfully implemented—of course, we're familiar with InSite, the one example in Canada, but there are many places around the world where they have been successfully implemented—there has been a good partnership with the police so that what the police do to maintain public order fits well with the health objectives of the service.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would agree that having their involvement and consulting with local jurisdictions, with police, is a good thing to do, but to actually make it a legal requirement of the bill makes it very difficult.

In terms of Toronto's situation, I know there has been work under way to look at a supervised consumption site. Can you tell us what work has been done and how you envisage that service being part of a health strategy in Toronto? How far ahead are you in that work, and where are you now given that you're facing this bill?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Very briefly, please.

[Dr. David McKeown]

I think the most important piece of work done was the TOSCA study, which looked at health needs in Toronto for injection drug users and what the health benefits would be of the implementation of that service. It did demonstrate that with a model of supervised injection embedded with other primary health services that serve drug users, three sites, for example, would provide a significant benefit in the areas in which the sites were located. That was a feasibility study, if you like, that incorporated a large amount of information about drug use in the community, the impact of supervised injection, infectious disease rates, and overdose. It took us much closer to a model that I think is suitable for our patterns of drug use.

There really is no area in Toronto that is like the downtown eastside in Vancouver, and the InSite model is not appropriate, in my view, for the patterns of drug use in Toronto. However, embedding supervised injection as a service with other primary health services, in community health centres, in existing harm reduction services, I think is very appropriate. That's the direction in which the board of health has pointed us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Dr. McKeown.

We will now go to Mr. Carmichael, please.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.

As I've listened to your opening comments and some of the early questions, I must admit I am alarmed. I'm not overly surprised, but as my colleague opposite mentioned, there appears to be an introduction of fear into this. However, fear was part of the initial debate in the original InSite development, and that debate has settled down.

As I listened to both Mr. Skof and Mr. McCormack, I'm not sure what has settled down. It sounds like the reality, from your perspectives....

In my limited time, I'm going to address my questions to both Mr. Skof and Mr. McCormack.

It sounds to me that the issue is as significant as it was at the beginning of the InSite debate and discussion, with users injecting, as Mr. McCormack said, four to six times per day. Where do they get their drugs? How do they pay for them? They turn to crime.

That is a difficult part of this equation in terms of balancing where we as a committee are going to take this bill. During our first meeting on this bill, we heard testimony regarding how the government's national anti-drug strategy aims to prevent drug abuse through its prevention action plan.

Mr. Skof, could you comment on the importance of continuing this strategy and any work your police force may do collaboratively in this regard? Then I'll ask Mr. McCormack the same question.

[Matthew Skof]

Thank you.

I think it's important for everyone to know that I have never advocated based on just a position of abstinence. I've always sat as a representative of the police, as well the association, on every harm reduction committee available in Ottawa, including COMPAC, as Mike was mentioning, a community-based police advisory group. Our strategies aren't just enforcement. The police have to engage in multiple aspects of it, and it can't be in isolation. We obviously consult with the community just as much as we're advocating here for the health community to make sure that we're consulted as well when it comes to this bill.

With regard to having a strategy, it can't just be one focus. You have to have multiple strategies, and they work in conjunction with law enforcement, which is our primary function. We can't just do law enforcement without consultation with the community, and to resource and access all the other programs available as well. That's how you have the highest success rate.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. McCormack.

[Michael McCormack]

First of all, again, where we want to see the emphasis....

I want to clarify a couple of things. This not fearmongering. This is not fear. We're coming to it from a very practical and business case oriented discussion around this bill, around InSite. The doctor brought up a great point. I started off my discussion by saying that we're very concerned about the way InSite's been run in its current configuration. That is the Vancouver model. It's completely different, and it's not a cookie-cutter model that can be applied everywhere. That was the first statement.

The next thing is that we try to get treatment. We try to get people off drugs. We do it through drug treatment court. We try to streamline our people into the health system. We want to get people off and away from drugs.

What we're trying to do is emphasize the point that, when we're looking at these types of issues like supervised injection sites, there are a lot of balls in the air sort of thing with different resources. And when we're talking from a policing perspective, we're giving you a boots-on-the-ground perspective on the types of issues we need to deal with. We need to deal with the resources that are going to be required. We need to look at that. We are not looking at a treatment place where people go and they get the...as I said, I compared it to a methadone clinic. This is quite different.

We have to look at it with a really broad brush and a different lens to ensure that all the resources and all the stakeholders.... It is important that the police have a role in this, because we're the ones who inevitably have to deal with it in a positive or negative way.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you for that, Mr. McCormack.

I think Mr. McKeown did stress quite clearly that one model doesn't fit all, and I think that point is well taken this afternoon. I appreciate that comment.

I wonder, Mr. McCormack, what your sense is from colleagues across the country as to their thoughts on injection or consumption sites. Are they concerned, and have you heard any ramifications to policing and police resources from colleagues across the country as to the demands on their available resources?

[Michael McCormack]

Yes. I spoke to the people in Vancouver. That's where we were looking. InSite is the program everyone is looking at as the benchmark.

When we look at what happened in Vancouver, for instance in eastside, they had to put an additional 81 police officers into that community, into that area. There is a demand on police officers. There is a demand that they are there. Not only that, in talking to our Canadian Police Association president, Tom Stamatakis, who represents the Vancouver officers, there is the issue of police officers going in after midnight or the early hours of the morning and picking up syringes and stuff. It wasn't that the people were going to InSite and using inside the actual facility. A lot of the people go outside. They still inject on the street.

I have to agree with whoever brought up the comment—I agree with it on a different level—that InSite is not the cure-all, and it's not the major fix. That's a big concern for policing.

So it is a demand on police resources, and as I said, we're going to have to look at it. When we're talking about the federal strategy on policing and the demand on police resources and police budgets, this is something we really need to be involved with and we need to look at it from a business case scenario.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. McCormack.

I have one minute left, so I'll address this to Mr. Skof.

In your mind, is there any other involvement police should have with the consultative process as we go down this path?

[Matthew Skof]

From what I've seen from the tabled legislation, I think associations and police departments are both going to be provided an opportunity. As I've expressed, I just want to make sure that when people are looking at it from a police perspective the whole spectrum of policing is considered.

As long as the associations, which I believe are already inclusive in the legislation...I think it's acceptable, what we have.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Carmichael.

On behalf of the committee, I'd certainly like to thank Mr. Skof, Mr. McCormack, and Dr. McKeown. Thank you so much for testifying and answering our queries today with regard to Bill C-2 and its implications.

Thank you once again. We will now suspend for a change of witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

We are back in session. We have three more witnesses with us here today.

From the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, we have Chief Bryan Larkin, chief of police from the Waterloo Regional Police Service and of course a member of the drug advisory committee. Welcome, sir.

From Safer Ottawa, we have Chris Grinham, representative. Thank you, Chris.

From REAL Women of Canada, we have Gwendolyn Landolt, national vice-president. Thank you very much.

We will take your opening statements. As we are a little pressed for time, if you can shorten them a little bit the chair would certainly appreciate that, as would our witnesses and our questioners so that we can hopefully get as many rounds in as possible.

We will start off with you, Chief Larkin, for your opening statement, sir.

[Chief Bryan Larkin, Chief of Police, Waterloo Regional Police Service, Member of the Drug Advisory Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you today.

It's a pleasure to be here.

By way of introduction, my name is Bryan Larkin. I'm the serving chief of the Waterloo Regional Police Service. I've been a police officer for 24 years. I sit as a member of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police drug abuse committee. As well, as a community builder, I've had the opportunity to serve as the chair of the board of directors of the Stonehenge Therapeutic Community, which is a residential drug treatment centre that provides a full spectrum of addiction services, including supported housing, for Waterloo and Wellington counties. This opportunity, coupled with my policing experience, has provided me tremendous insight into the social challenges and the impact of substance abuse in our communities.

CACP president Clive Weighill of the Saskatoon Police Service and I would like to express our sincere appreciation to this committee for allowing us the opportunity to contribute to this important community safety and well-being discussion, which ensures local community input into decision-making on potential safe injection sites within our communities. On behalf of Chief Weighill, I'd just like to make a quick statement.

As law enforcement leaders, we always focus on ensuring the safety of our communities. Our officers are the most vulnerable among us. We are dedicated to the protection and security of the people of Canada. Likewise, our colleagues in the Canadian Armed Forces proudly serve Canadians by defending our values, interests, and sovereignty, both at home and abroad, and we'd like to join in mourning their loss.

We've all been shaken by the recent tragedies in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and here in Ottawa. It was truly an unprecedented week for all first responders, but, as is typical with Canadians, such tragedies bring out the best in our people, our leadership, and our collective resiliency. Parliamentarians and staffers from all political parties are to be commended. Through a moment of terror to uniting in resolve, you each provided incredible leadership and have demonstrated that we will not be deterred, nor will we continue to stand still. We will move on as Canadians do.

We'd also like to recognize the House and Senate security staff, including one of our own CACP members, Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers. We'd like to make that statement before getting into this important discussion.

As many of you are aware, the CACP, through its 20 committees related to public safety and justice, contributes extensively to the House and Senate committees. For your own background, the CACP represents in excess of 90% of the policing community in Canada, which includes federal, first nations, provincial, regional, and municipal police leaders and services. Our mandate is clear: it is the safety and security of all Canadians through innovative police leadership.

In 2007 the CACP adopted a drug policy that was developed through our drug abuse committee. This policy sets out the position of our CACP members on this very important national issue that has a direct impact on Canadians and our communities on a day-to-day basis.

I'll give you a brief overview of the CACP drug policy. Our strategy is balanced. We believe in a balanced approach to the issue of substance abuse and abuse within Canada. It consists of prevention, education, enforcement, counselling, treatment, rehabilitation, and, where appropriate, alternative measures as well as judicial diversion of offenders in order to ensure appropriate support as well as to counter Canada's drug problems.

Our mission is very clear. Our goal is to transition to a healthy lifestyle in order to provide a second chance at life. We believe in a balanced continuum of practice distributed across each component. In addition, the policy components must be fundamentally lawful and ethical, must consider the interests of all, and must strive to achieve a balance between societal and individual interests. We believe that, to the greatest extent possible, initiatives must be and should be evidence-based.

The CACP supports the principles being established as a part of this bill, in particular the need to balance public safety with public health. In fact, that is the future of community well-being. The future of community safety is more collaboration and enhanced integration.

The CACP is not making a specific statement with regard to supervised consumption sites. Our position is that the decision to support or not support supervised consumption sites is a local community issue. It must be localized.

We are pleased to see a clear process that will provide criteria for community consultation prior to a decision being made by the Minister of Health. As all of you know, there are 90 safe consumption sites across the world, two of them in Canada, and we would concur that there's no one unique or cookie-cutter approach. The needs, the demands, and the impacts vary from community to community.

Bill C-2 establishes 27 criteria that an applicant must meet before a supervised consumption site is granted by the Minister of Health. One of these criteria requires that the applicant make contact with and obtain the input of local police services, as noted in proposed paragraph 56.1(3)(e):

a letter from the head of the police force that is responsible for providing policing services to the municipality in which the site would be located that outlines his or her opinion on the proposed activities at the site, including any concerns with respect to public safety and security.

I want to thank and acknowledge and applaud the inclusion of such.

Again, the CACP maintains a neutral position on the actual merits of safe consumption sites. Our focus is on public safety and security. This is why we believe that while law enforcement is an integral part of the decision-making process, we are simply one stakeholder. We are one partner. It is the greater community response that is required. It is the collaboration that is the spirit that builds healthy and strong communities in Canada.

We want to reiterate that every community is unique, and that is reflected, we believe, in the spirit of the bill.

Thank you very much. Merci .

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Chief Larkin.

We'll now go to Mr. Grinham, please.

[Chris Grinham, Representative, Safer Ottawa]

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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Grinham.

We will now go to Ms. Landolt, please.

[Gwendolyn Landolt, National Vice-President, REAL Women of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I very much appreciate being invited to come here to speak.

REAL Women of Canada was an intervenor in the Supreme Court of Canada case on the drug injection site in Vancouver. Our organization was the only one of 15 intervenors that did not have a financial, personal, or professional interest in the outcome of that case. Our concern was entirely based on the addicted individual and the implications for his or her family and society.

lt is essential that any discussion on Bill C-2 and drug injection sites to which Bill C-2 relates is based on factual evidence. Evidence indicates that InSite, which is the only drug injection site in North America, has given rise to very serious problems, which Bill C-2 is trying to address.

During the debate in the House of Commons on Bill C-2, reference has repeatedly been made in the debate that over 30 peer-reviewed studies indicated that InSite was purported to have curtailed crime and disease, and led to a 35% reduction in deaths caused by drug overdose.

The crucial point that was not disclosed during the debate in the House of Commons was that these 30 studies on lnSite were all carried out by the same individuals from the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, located at UBC, who were one and the same activists who had lobbied for the establishment of the drug injection site in the first place. As a result, they had a personal interest, as well as a conflict of interest, in ensuring that InSite be deemed successful. That is, their research was carried out for the purpose only of supporting the political objective of continuing the operation of InSite.

According to information obtained under the Access to Information Act, between 2003 and 2011 these same researchers from the B.C. centre at UBC, who had previously lobbied for the injection site, have received over $18 million from the Canadian lnstitutes of Health Research to carry out their research on lnSite. All their studies were peer-reviewed only by supporters of the drug injection facility. Also, these researchers, contrary to standard scientific procedures, have refused to share their data with other researchers so that their studies can be replicated. Without exception, these advocates and researchers concluded that the injection site was reducing harm and death rates for addicts.

One such study on lnSite was published in a British medical journal in April of 2011. The study erroneously claimed that there was a 35% reduction in overdoses in the 500 metres surrounding lnSite, while in the rest of Vancouver, the rate decreased by only 9%. However, an international team consisting of three Australian medical doctors, a Canadian academic, and an American psychiatrist found serious and grave errors in the study, which entirely invalidated its findings. Also, a B.C. coroner's report has shown that overdoses actually increased in the area by 14%, or 11% if population were adjusted, between 2002, before the site opened, and 2005, when the study was carried out. Other evidence further contradicts the claims of these advocates and researchers from the centre at UBC that this InSite has been successful and that Bill C-2 is redundant.

One study that is never, ever reported is in fact the government's own expert advisory committee on drug injection sites. The federal government established an expert review committee to determine whether the claims of those supporting InSite were legitimate. The findings of the expert committee were released on March 31, 2008. The expert committee found as follows. Only 5% of the drug addicts in the area used the drug injection site, and of these, only 10% used the facility exclusively for their injections.

In other words, 90% of the drug addicts continued to inject their drugs on back streets, alleyways, etc., leaving their contaminated needles behind.

Two, there is no proof that the site has decreased the instance of AIDS and hepatitis in drug addicts.

Three, there is no indication that the crime rate has decreased.

Four, only 3% of InSite clients are referred to treatment.

According to Inspector John McKay, responsible for policing the drug injection site, 65 police officers from the Vancouver Police Department are required to patrol the five-block area surrounding InSite in order to control the crime. The police officers are prohibited from charging addicts with possession, and instead are obliged to escort them to the injection site.

The drug addict or casual observer obtains illicit drugs of questionable purity from a drug trafficker in the area, which he or she then brings into the site for drug injection purposes. The drug injection site, in fact, becomes a honeypot, a meeting point for drug traffickers.

According to the government's expert committee, it is estimated that each addict causes $350,000 worth of crime each year in order to purchase drugs from a trafficker to feed his or her addiction. It is not surprising, therefore, that in 2006 Vancouver had the second-highest rate of violent and property crime of any major city in the United States or Canada.

These are some of the reasons why more than two dozen major European cities have signed the 1994 European Cities Against Drugs declaration, opposing drug injection sites and free distribution of drugs. Officials from Berlin, Stockholm, London, Paris, Moscow, Oslo, etc., have embraced the principle that the answer to a drug problem does not lie in drug injection sites.

Another problem has arisen with the Vancouver drug injection site. In November 2013, an audit was undertaken of InSite, which is operated by the Portland Hotel Society. The audit revealed that the directors and executives used much of the approximately $21 million per year that it received from the federal and provincial governments for their own personal use. The examples include wining, dining, travelling, staying in luxury hotels, flower arrangements, hair salons, spas, and limousines, all being placed on the business card of the association administering InSite. The co-executives and the board have been dismissed, but it indicates that keeping the drug addicts on drugs only enhances those who are supposed to be helping them. It only helps mainly those who are operating InSite.

Well-off individuals such as doctors, lawyers, airline pilots, can afford to obtain treatment for their addiction. It is the addicts without money or support who are shuffled off to InSite, where they inject themselves continuously with street drugs, which only deepens their addiction. This results, eventually, in the addict having further degradation and often a terrifying death. The problem of drug abuse is not solved by enabling drug addicts to use more and more drugs, or assisting them in using a drug injection site.

The real question we must address is whether addicts should continue to be marginalized and manipulated—or should they be helped with treatment, so as to return them to healing, and to a normal life with their families? It is obvious that a compassionate society should not kill addicts by furthering their addiction, but rather should reach out to them by way of treatment.

Bill C-2, which seeks to provide a moderating influence on the problems that have arisen with the InSite drug injection site in Vancouver, has shown how necessary it is to curb the abuses that have taken place. Moreover, there are better and more competent ways of dealing with drug addiction than the proliferation of drug injection sites.

The criminal justice system today serves as a major engine that gets addicts into treatment and recovery. The drug courts make recovery possible for thousands of offenders each year. In fact, according to experts in the field in the United States, 50% of people in treatment are there because of referral by the criminal justice system.

International research indicates that treatment of drug addiction actually increases when drug enforcement occurs. That is, positive results flow from drug enforcement in that one of the aftermaths of police operations is that there is a marked increase in the proportion of drug users seeking treatment. This is because drug courts allow the conviction to be suspended if the offender agrees to take treatment and be monitored through regular urinalysis and counselling. Those who complete the drug-free program receive a suspended sentence or conditional discharge. Those who fail are required to return to the regular court system for sentencing. When offered a choice between drug conviction or treatment, the addict invariably chooses treatment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Mrs. Landolt, could you wrap up, please?