Public Safety Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2014

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Yes, indeed.

I think it's good we're focusing here on the bill itself, on whether the bill is adequate or isn't adequate, or goes too far. It doesn't go too far. The Supreme Court decision says that the minister “must consider whether denying an exemption would cause deprivations of life and security of the person that are not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” The minister must always balance the charter rights, and section 7 of the charter, with such factors as deciding whether the impact of such a facility on crime rates...and I think it's absolutely appropriate for the police to be giving some kind of information on that.

Do the local conditions indicate a need for such a supervised injection site? That's a public health decision in terms of the evidence on HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, etc., just as the police can talk about crime. The regulatory structure in place to support the facility, that's all fine. The Supreme Court talks about that. The resources available to support its maintenance, that comes from the provincial minister of health and the municipality. It basically says, do they have these support systems in place? And of course there's community support.

There are about five pieces. I see them as five criteria, not 26 or 27. If the provincial minister of health knows that the provincial minister of health has all of that, it is up to the provincial minister of health to say so and to also go ahead and hire the people who will do this work, etc.

I know you don't disagree with these five factors, but do you believe they actually are too interventionist and go too far?

[Dean Wilson]

I'm going to reiterate what Inspector Scott Thompson just said. It's raising the bar so high that it will never get done. If you read the judgment of the Supreme Court, they again framed it. They said that our right to health has to be balanced with the laws of Canada. If you went to the downtown eastside and saw those 4,000 to 12,000 addicts, whatever the number is, you would say, “My goodness, we need the supervised injection site, because this health is bad and it's deteriorating daily.” As Scott says, with the law, they're working with us there.

I just think that new Bill C-2 will put the bar so high that we'll never be able to have other communities try to use this. It's not the answer in every city, but in some places it is. I know a place in Toronto where it's needed. I know a place in Montreal where it could be used. Those are just two cities I've been to. I don't know if Abbotsford needs one right at the moment, but I think for places like Toronto and Montreal where there are certain neighbourhoods, I'm sure the community there would say, “Yes, let's try something, because everything else hasn't worked.”

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I think there was a great deal of public consultation. I mean, I was there.

[Dean Wilson]

Exactly.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I was the minister responsible for the downtown eastside at the time, just for this particular area, and I found that out.

Mr. Berner, you talked about a conflict of interest by doctors, by Dr. Montaner and the others who did this particular project. Do you think there is conflict of interest when the minister who brought forward this bill, the day it was introduced, the party to which the minister belongs sent out a fundraising letter saying they were bringing forward this bill so they could stop all those junkies from hanging around in their neighbourhood? Do you think that's a conflict of interest?

Also, you said that you run a treatment centre. It's a private treatment centre, and so you make money out of that. Do you believe that is a conflict of interest, the fact that Insite may cause governments to try to put in public treatment centres as opposed to private treatment centres? Do you think those are conflicts of interest? You seem to know a lot about conflicts of interest, Mr. Berner.

[David Berner]

Let me answer your second question first.

I don't run a private treatment centre. I work at a private treatment centre, and I know many of the non-profit treatment centres and I often work with them. That is not a conflict of interest. My interest is in supporting prevention and treatment.

As to your first question, I'm not prepared to do your politicking for you, Dr. Fry; you do it yourself.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I'm sorry that you couldn't answer that question. You seem to know so much about conflict of interest.

I would like then to talk about the VPD because I think the Vancouver Police Department is sending people to Insite if they find a problem with street drugs.

When I travelled in Switzerland and in Germany looking at some of the sites that had started there, we went on the street with the police and they did the same thing. When they found out there was a real problem that could harm addicts on the streets or people who were using, especially intravenous drugs, they immediately referred them to those safe injection sites. I think that is an attempt at reducing harm to a person.

I want to congratulate you on what you say you have been doing, because I think it's really important that police are not only there to find the criminals, but are there to protect people. That's a really solid source of protection.

I know that you have agreed with me somewhat that the list of criteria is so overwhelming no one would be able to meet them. Can you tell me a little about what the drug scene was like in Vancouver and what it is like in that little bubble now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

I'm sorry but your time is up. We'll have to wait for a response at another time.

We will now go to Ms. Doré Lefebvre.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Sorry about that, Scott.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being with us today.

Mr. Wilson, you can take your time to put on your headphones because I am going to start with Mr. Thompson.

I have a quick question for you. I come from the Montreal area. Community organizations, jointly with the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, the mayor of the city and the Government of Quebec released a report in 2011 entitled Report of a feasibility study on the implementation of regional supervised injection services in Montréal . Everyone was consulted and everyone was of the opinion that steps needed to be taken to have supervised injection sites in Montreal. It is one of the items in the City of Montreal's homelessness action plan.

Have you heard about the plan to implement supervised injection sites in Montreal? If you are aware of the plan, what do you think about it?

[Insp Scott Thompson]

Frankly, I'd be reluctant to comment because I don't know the details. As I did say in my testimony, we're reluctant to comment because every city, every town has their own issues and concerns. Really, we're familiar with Vancouver. In our view we're reluctant to comment about other cities and what they come up with because frankly, it's really up to them, given the city—Montreal, in this case—to make their own decisions and go through their own process.

They can ask us questions. I've certainly shared with the Montreal police our operational and policing plans for SIS from 2003 to assist them, hopefully, if they ever have to go down that path to provide public safety services around a given site.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson.

Mr. Wilson, thank you very much for joining us today. My congratulations for your five years of sobriety. It is a real pleasure to have you here.

Do you have any comments for us about the fact that the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, the mayor, the Government of Quebec and regional organizations agree that there should be supervised injection sites in Montreal. What do you think about that situation?

[Dean Wilson]

I totally agree. I've actually worked with Cactus, the group of people who are investigating. I guess the government has asked Cactus to be the front-line people in Montreal. I've been out to Montreal numerous times and worked with Cactus. You know, one only has to go up to St-Hubert Street to realize that it would be a perfect place to have a supervised injection site, and I think they're doing the right thing. I also believe that one of the things they're looking at, the mobile unit, is an extraordinarily good idea. That way, if there were all of a sudden an area that was overrun by, I guess, the drug issue, you could go in there and put a stopgap measure in there right way while you build up other services around it.

It's really important to get the people involved at that level. People on the streets are so paranoid. It's funny; they've changed their ideas of the police in Vancouver because of people like Scott Thompson and his crew, but they're so paranoid about police and the government and everything, thinking all they want to do is put them in jail or whatever and they don't want to help them, that it's very, very hard to get to those people. A mobile unit, I think, would be an incredibly good way of getting people involved in the medical aspect of their addiction.

It took me 30 years to walk through the doors and finally say, “I can't do this; I need help”. I tried many other times, and usually there was about a two- or three-week wait. By that time my circumstances had changed and, you know, I had left.

I think what Montreal is doing, and the whole Quebec government, is a really good idea.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You have 30 seconds.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you. I am going to ask you another quick question.

In Montreal, 68% of drug users have hepatitis C. Do you think that people in that situation could benefit from a service of that kind, either mobile or set up in one location?

[Dean Wilson]

Yes, I myself am one of the 68% who has hepatitis C. I actually won the HIV lottery, as I call it. But, yes, one of the things about HCV rather than HIV is that the disease model is longer, more chronic, and it's going to cost the government.... If they think HIV has been a real health hazard, wait until HCV starts hitting the neighbourhoods. It travels through communities a lot faster than HIV does. It's going to be a health catastrophe. If we had a mobile van or something like that, we could start teaching these people how to deal with the illness.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.

Certainly to our witnesses today, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Thompson, and Mr. Berner, thank you so kindly for coming in today. The chair will excuse you now.

Before the chair suspends for the other witnesses, I will bring to the committee's attention for deliberation that the chair has received a submission and some follow-up information from Mrs. Landolt's testimony, but it is not translated. It is sitting here and it is in the possession of the chair and will stay there either until it is translated and/or the chair has some direction.

We will now suspend briefly while we ask our other witnesses to come forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Colleagues, we will reconvene for the second hour, though it will be a bit less. We apologize for the short delay. We had some challenges with the video conference, but we're all hooked up and live now.

On behalf of the committee, the chair would like to invite our witnesses to make a brief statement of up to 10 minutes, and hopefully less. After that, we will open the floor to questioning.

With us for the second hour we have, from the Pivot Legal Society, Adrienne Smith, health and drug policy staff lawyer. Welcome. From the Society of Accredited Senior Agents, we have Barry Lebow, founder.

By video conference from Vancouver, we have, from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, Donald MacPherson, the executive director.

Time is tight, but how could I miss Mr. Tom Stamatakis, from the Canadian Police Association. Welcome.

We will take you in the order of introduction, so we will start with Adrienne Smith.

[Adrienne Smith, Health and Drug Policy Staff Lawyer, Pivot Legal Society]

Thank you, Chairperson and honourable members.

I'd like to begin by saying that this is a bad bill. From a legal perspective, the bill is a hyperbolic response to a subtle point of law. It will likely not withstand constitutional scrutiny, and it invites an expensive and pointless charter challenge.

As a representative of the Pivot Legal Society, an organization that uses the law to address the root causes of poverty and marginalization in Canada, this bill will restrict access to a proven health care service, which will result in needless human suffering for some of the most vulnerable Canadians.

I would like to use some of my time to correct something that the Minister of Health said in her remarks on Monday. She spoke about the necessity of this bill, and she said that Bill C-2 was required because of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision. With respect, the minister is mistaken.

I propose to briefly outline what the Supreme Court of Canada said to show that Bill C-2 is a significant departure from the guidance of the court and to outline some of the consequences of this bill coming into force.

I don't believe that this committee needs background about the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, but I should say that it is a blanket criminal law. Exemptions under section 56 suspend the action of that law for certain purposes, and it's in this exemption that Insite currently exists. In a section 56 exemption, the law is suspended.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness talked last week about the 101 places where drug users could act illegally. But, contrary to what he said, in technical terms, the act is suspended, not broken.

In the Supreme Court of Canada case PHS v. Canada, which is the court case about this section, there were a number of very clear findings: that a supervised injection service is a health service; that people who inject drugs are exposed to a number of harms as a result of their illness, to the extent that their charter rights are engaged; and that the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, as we've heard many times, has a dual purpose: one is to protect public health and the other is to protect public safety. Also, the minister's discretion must be exercised within the parameters of the charter, and she must balance this dual purpose.

In the context of Insite—and significantly, this is the point of the PHS decision—when there is not evidence of a public safety threat, exemptions must generally be granted. They're presumptive, nearly, and to ensure that the minister's discretion in balancing did not lead to arbitrary decision-making, there were five permissive factors, which are very narrow, and the minister must consider them if they're available. That is all that is required.

What Bill C-2 does is a significant departure from that. It answers the requirement that exemptions generally be granted, which the court directed, with a presumption in the bill that exemptions will generally be withheld. It ignores the requirement that the CDSA is a balancing bill that requires aspects of public health and public safety by framing the question of supervised injection service as a narrow public safety issue, and only in a negative way. It also expands the court's five permissive factors into 26 impossible criteria, which will lead to a limiting of the availability of this necessary health service.

With respect, Bill C-2 is more about this federal government's distaste for this kind of health service than it is about anything the court said. The results of this are problematic and unconstitutional. The effect of Bill C-2 will be to frustrate the application process for health care providers and restrict access to supervised injection services and approvals for future centres.

For the reasons that are set out in my brief which is before you and for those following at home can be downloaded from the parliamentary website, the bill perpetrates a number of head-on assaults to other constitutional provisions that are the legal backbone of this nation.

This is important for two reasons. There are two sets of consequences that will flow from this bill, and the first is legal. Bill C-2 will not withstand constitutional scrutiny. It will invite an extensive and pointless charter challenge and a long series of litigation on a point of law that is already settled, under a legislative framework that is arguably worse than the one the Supreme Court of Canada condemned. If the Insite decision was a question about how the charter rights of drug users were violated by an initiative to prevent access to supervised injection services, it is difficult to see how this is not exactly the same thing.

The second public health outcome of Bill C-2 is arguably more important. Passing Bill C-2 will have devastating and unconscionable consequences for the most vulnerable of Canadians who are members of our community. The barriers the bill presents to accessing life-saving health care will allow a heartbreaking public health emergency to continue under a law and order agenda and expose patients and communities to infection, to suffering, and to death.

I live three blocks away from Insite in Vancouver's downtown eastside. On Thanksgiving weekend, when healthier Canadians were sitting down and eating their turkey suppers, a narcotic opioid drug called fentanyl was being passed off by street dealers as heroin. It is indistinguishable to users, but it is an order of magnitude more powerful than heroin.

As a result, on Thanksgiving Monday there were 10 overdoses; on the Sunday before, there were 16, and there were five the following day, all of these at Insite. Nobody who overdosed at Insite died. Unfortunately, some people did die. I understood that it was two. One was a young woman. One was a man named Tony Snakeskin. I hear from my colleague Mr. Wilson that there were in fact four. These people died because they were alone and they did not have access to medical care.

This is a question not just for Vancouver but for all of our communities. In the summer of 2014, the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal investigated 83 cases of overdoses. Twenty-five of them were fatal. In other neighbourhoods across the country, thousands of people have died, and countless more will die if they do not have the access to supervised injection services that the court said was required.

To conclude, I will say that Bill C-2 is contrary to what the court ordered. It is unconstitutional, and it will allow people to die.

As I just mentioned in English, the Minister of Health told you the the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Canada (Attorney General) v. PHS Community Services Society requires you to pass this bill. With respect, I must tell you that she is wrong.

What the decision indicates is that the rights of drug users are protected by the Charter and the minister must grant an exemption to allow supervised injection sites.

Bill C-2 could result in useless legal proceedings because the government cannot tolerate the existence of this kind of care. While we wait, our neighbours will die. It is unconstitutional and we cannot countenance anything of the kind.

The bill says quietly that the federal government does not value the lives of people who use drugs and people whose lives would be saved by this service.

Subject to your questions, those are my submissions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Ms. Smith.

We'll go to Mr. Lebow.

[Barry Lebow, Founder, Society of Accredited Senior Agents]

Mr. Chairman, and honourable members, my role today is to speak from a real estate perspective about depreciation and stigma.

My name is Barry Lebow. I'm from Toronto. I've been a real estate professional since 1968. This is my 47th year in real estate. I'll dispense with, of course, my CV and everything, and say only that I've testified at over 500 trials across Canada and the United States. A large percentage of those had to do with real estate depreciation and stigma cases in the years I was an active appraiser. With about 10% of the cases actually making it to court, and most cases being settled, I've written probably thousands of reports that have gone to courts around the world on this subject. Some years ago I was awarded the Meritorious Service Award by the Toronto chapter of the Real Estate Institute of Canada, and I've obtained 14 designations in real estate, four of which deal with appraisal. I retired from being a full-time appraisal professional after 30 years as a member of the Appraisal Institute of Canada.

Today I spend most of my time working with seniors in Canada from a real estate perspective. I'm the founder of the accredited senior agent designation program for Canadians, which has now reached about 3,000 realtors coast to coast.

During my years as an appraiser, under the Hazardous Products Act in the 1980s, urea formaldehyde was banned in Canada. But what does that have to do with this? About 80,000 to 100,000 homes in Canada were affected by UFFI, and most people were in a panic because they believed their houses were going to lose value. The courts have found, especially in Quebec, that there is no scientific proof that UFFI causes health concerns, but go tell that to people whose houses have urea formaldehyde. They believe it. Buyers believe it.

What I had to do in the early years—and that's how I got involved with this—was, no footprints in the snow, work with CMHC in an advisory capacity to figure out the loss in value of houses with urea formaldehyde and the stigma effect of having had it even if people had it removed. Eventually houses did sell. I tracked thousands of homes across southern Ontario, and eventually I did about a thousand cases involving urea formaldehyde, about 70 of which went to different courts in the province of Ontario.

I found myself in a new vocation: stigma. By default stigma is basically theoretical. It's simple. It's a depreciation that lingers after something is cured. With that said, I always joke that I'm probably the leader in stigma in Canada, because no one else wants to specialize in this type of field. I've lectured and done cases involving asbestos, all kinds of oil and other types of contamination, suicide, murder, and yes, haunted houses. I have a course called “Selling the Haunted House or the Impact of Stigma on Real Estate”, which teaches real estate agents what to disclose to buyers.

You may ask what haunting has to do with anything about this. One of the most famous cases we have had in North America was that of the ghost of Nyack. The ghost of Nyack is a very fascinating case because somebody bought a house and it wasn't disclosed to them that it was supposed to be the most haunted house in America. They in turn took it to court, and the court kicked it back. The people weren't satisfied. They took it to the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The Supreme Court of the State of New York basically said a haunted house is real, because if people believe it to be real, it's real.

That leads us to what real estate stigma is all about. Bill Mundy, a well-known professor in Washington state, once said that real estate stigma does not have to be real to be realized, and that is what it's all about. It's about perception.

Years back when I was a kid, Ralph Nader came out with a book called Unsafe at Any Speed. He said the Corvair was the most dangerous car in North America. It took years of investigation. When it was over, it was no safer and no less safe than any other car. When that news came out in the newspapers, it was buried somewhere between the obituaries and the comics because it wasn't sensational.

I can go into all kinds of stuff. In Toronto, where I live, my town, I just have to mention a certain intersection, and people know it to be notorious for crime, but I know it as a neighbourhood where people raise their families in peace.

People have perceptions. When I look at the three decades I've been studying this, there are perceptions out there. There is a class distinction. The lower the economic class of a neighbourhood, the greater the impact of word of mouth. They perceive it; they believe it. You're going to have a problem with safe injection sites. The problem is, where are you going to put them? The problem's going to be, people are going to perceive problems. The reality and the public's perception are two different things. The public will believe it. Word of mouth will be there.

I look at stigma. People are afraid because real estate values across this land are large. They're the highest they've ever been in history. People don't want anything to negatively impact their value. That includes the retailers who have stores along a commercial strip, or whatever. People are going to say “not in my backyard”.

The last thing I wanted to say is, in Ontario we have under rule 21 of the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act, 2002, about disclosure, the material fact. Anything a real estate agent knows about a property, and that includes proximity, the real estate agent has to disclose. We have a problem with that bill. The regulation is not defined, but the worst problem in Ontario is there is no statute of limitations. It has to be disclosed forever.

I want to reiterate one more thing. As I said, perception of depreciation or stigma doesn't have to be real to be realized.

With that, I'll wait for your questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lebow.

Now we will go to Mr. MacPherson, please.

[Donald MacPherson, Executive Director, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition]

Thank you for inviting me to speak to this committee today on such an important issue for Canadians, especially those experiencing severe addiction and mental health issues.

In our brief, which is a collaboration with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, we have outlined many of the benefits of supervised consumption services around the world and our concerns with Bill C-2 as it is currently drafted. We, along with others appearing before you, have made the point that the services that Bill C-2 is focused on are evidence-based, have been around for close to 30 years in various jurisdictions, and are a part of a comprehensive approach to developing systems of care for people with severe addictions at the margins of society.

I have worked for many years in the field of drug policy and have been a participant in the broad public discussion that has been taking place in Vancouver, B.C. over the past 20 years focused on building a more effective response to drug problems in our country. As a staff person with the City of Vancouver for 22 years, 10 of those working as the city's drug policy coordinator, I know only too well the challenges for municipalities and local health authorities attempting to do the right thing, which is to put in place a comprehensive system of care for people with drug problems in the community. This includes drug treatment facilities, detox units, scaled-up methadone programs, supportive housing projects for people with addictions and mental health issues, needle exchange projects, other types of social development programs, and yes, supervised consumption services.

Because of the stigma of illegal drug use, each one these services is a challenge for municipalities and health authorities to implement at the local level. It requires a great deal of time, energy, commitment, and resources to get these services up and running and provide much-needed help to people. Believe me, there is a great deal of public process at the local municipal level to situate any of the services that I have mentioned.

Bill C-2 will add an extremely onerous extra layer of work for those at the local level that will most certainly have the effect of preventing the scaling up of supervised consumption services across the country where they may be needed. The 26 different pieces of information required before an application can even be considered would not be required of any other type of health service. At the very least, Bill C-2 will cause a significant delay for localities to implement a timely response to what are often the urgent realities of the unregulated illegal drug scene. An example of this urgency is the recent spate, mentioned by my colleague, of overdoses due to fentanyl in Vancouver, when the Vancouver police, to their credit, urged people to use Insite in an effort to prevent overdose deaths. Thirty-one overdoses took place at Insite over Thanksgiving weekend, none of them fatal. This is a tool that other localities do not have access to at this time.

We are very sorry that this legislation is not coming before the Standing Committee on Health. After all, the primary purpose of supervised consumption services is to intervene in urgent public health contexts where vulnerable citizens are at high risk of serious and sometimes deadly consequences of injection drug use. Consumption services can mitigate this risk, including improving the health and safety of the communities where they might appropriately be located. A hearing only before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security does not seem adequate to consider the complexity of the health and social issues engaged by these kinds of services. Indeed, supervised consumption services are themselves a balanced approach in that they address both public health and public order issues in communities.

Another contextual comment I wish to make is to note the great divide in the testimony of our health and enforcement colleagues. The divide between the leadership of these two fields of work in our communities is of concern to us and seems to be vast, with virtually all professional health associations that have provided expert advice, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Vancouver Coastal Health, and the Toronto public health department finding Bill C-2 significantly problematic on a number of grounds.

On the enforcement side of things, for the most part, in spite of all the evidence from existing supervised consumption services projects, it seems that there is not even a willingness to consider a trial or pilot project to see what the experience of different models in different localities might be. In the face of all the evidence of 30 years of positive experience of integrated consumption services into the systems of care in Europe, in Vancouver, and in Sydney, Australia, there seems to be a firm position against any such trials on behalf of our police leadership.

We think that the divide between these two critical fields of public service is unfortunate, as we are certain that the health and enforcement institutions in this country share the goals of healthy, safe communities for all Canadian citizens, including those who use drugs.

As we have written in our brief, by advocating a focus on public safety at the expense of public health, the context of these hearings being a prime example, the bill runs counter to the court's emphasis on striking a balance between public safety and public health.

By making it even more difficult to implement supervised consumption services, Bill C-2 ignores the Supreme Court of Canada's assertion that these services are vital for the most vulnerable groups of people who use drugs, and that preventing access to these services violates human rights.

In the words of the chief medical health officer of Vancouver Coastal Health, Bill C-2 as currently configured will “effectively act to block exemptions” and “the provision of life-saving medical services to some of our most marginalized citizens and result in deaths and serious illnesses that are entirely preventable”. If this is the case, it is our judgment that this clearly contradicts the spirit of the Supreme Court decision on Insite.

Making it more difficult to open consumption services in Canada is clearly out of step with the commitment that this government has expressed to address Canada's serious mental health situation as well. Consumption services aim to engage marginalized people who use drugs. In Canada the percentage of homeless people who have either a mental illness or a substance abuse diagnosis is 86%, and the percentage of homeless people with a mental illness who also have a substance abuse problem is 75%. Many of those who inject drugs would benefit greatly from the engagement with health, social workers, and drug treatment professionals through their participation in a comprehensive supervised consumption service program.

At Vancouver's Insite, 65% of participants have had a previous diagnosis of mental illness. Given these numbers, putting barriers in the way of implementing supervised consumption services seems at odds with this government's stated commitment towards the mentally ill in Canada. One would like to think that the government would want to facilitate the development of one more evidence-based tool in the tool box to help address mental health and addictions in this country.

A recent systematic review of injection sites released last week, conducted by four researchers from France and one from Switzerland, reviewed 75 relevant articles. The findings of the systematic review were as follows. All studies converged to find that supervised injection services were efficacious in attracting the most marginalized people who inject drugs, promoting safer injection conditions, enhancing access to primary health care, and reducing the overdose frequency. Supervised injection services were not found to increase drug injecting, drug trafficking, or crime in the surrounding environments. Supervised injection services were found to be associated with reduced levels of public drug injections and dropped syringes.

I will close by reminding the committee that the issue of supervised consumption services came to the fore after a decade-long public health and public safety disaster in Vancouver, and indeed British Columbia, during the 1990s. Thousands of people died and many more became ill during that period. The epidemics of overdose, HIV, hepatitis C, and injection drug use overwhelmed Vancouver's inner city. At the time, Michael O'Shaughnessy, the director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, coined the phrase “deadly public policy” to refer to the mix of municipal, provincial, and federal policies in the areas of social assistance, housing, mental health and addictions, and lack of funding for health and social programs, and enforcement practices, etc., that contributed to inadvertently creating the conditions for an HIV epidemic among injection drug users to flourish in Vancouver.

In British Columbia much time has been spent trying to undo those deadly public policies with some good successes. If Bill C-2 is implemented in its current form, our organizations would certainly consider it to be a step backward, creating yet another deadly public policy as it clearly will have the impact of denying marginalized and often seriously ill Canadian citizens and their communities access to proven life-saving health services.

I thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you, Mr. MacPherson.

Now, from the Canadian Police Association, we have the president, Tom Stamatakis.

[Tom Stamatakis, President, Canadian Police Association]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to address you this afternoon as part of your continued study on Bill C-2.

As you mentioned, and as most of you know from my previous appearances before this committee, I have the privilege of currently serving as president of the Canadian Police Association, an organization that represents over 54,000 front-line police personnel, both civilian and sworn officers across Canada.

My opening remarks today will be brief. However, I have been closely following the testimony given by other witnesses before this committee. The term “evidence-based” seems to be used quite often, so I'd like to offer you the following today, which should give you an idea of my experience in the area and why I particularly appreciate having the opportunity to present to you today.

I served for 25 years as a constable with the Vancouver Police Department. Currently, along with my duties at the CPA, I am president of the Vancouver Police Union, where Canada's only supervised drug consumption site operates. I believe I can provide you today with an important and first-hand view around why public safety should be an important consideration when discussing supervised consumption sites.

From a front-line policing perspective, Bill C-2 is an important piece of legislation which our association wholeheartedly supports. We believe it strikes an appropriate balance between the needs of protecting community health while taking into account the very real concerns that have been raised by all levels of law enforcement and members of the community regarding supervised drug consumption sites.

I know that your committee has heard concerns raised by opponents to this legislation that the conditions imposed by the bill are onerous and will be difficult to meet for the organizations seeking to open new sites. As a police officer, I am somewhat sympathetic to concerns that paperwork and regulatory frameworks can be difficult and at times even next to impossible to work within. However, I can say that this is the environment that law enforcement professionals work within every day. We don't have the option to cut corners and take the easy way out. Our efforts must be meticulous to pass muster by judges, crown and defence attorneys, community stakeholders, as well as the myriad of oversight bodies that constantly police the police. I don't think it's asking too much of those who wish to work with illicit and dangerous drugs to meet that same standard.

I don't particularly want to use my appearance here today as a platform to re-litigate the merits or drawbacks of supervised consumption sites, but while I will certainly concede that proponents of these sites are passionate advocates who are sincere in their beliefs, I can say that as a police officer who has patrolled and worked in the downtown eastside, there is a significant public safety cost that absolutely must be considered when thoughts are given to opening new sites.

The simple fact is that drugs that are consumed at these sites are illegal substances. An individual doesn't walk to their local pharmacist to obtain their drug of choice. A criminal act takes place with the procurement of their drug. With the grey area that has been created around Insite in the downtown eastside, our officers are asked to exercise incredible discretion in their policing efforts, but the drug dealers are ready and particularly eager to exploit this discretion to the fullest extent possible.

Another unfortunate truth is that those who are using these drugs are not cashing in their RRSPs, selling their stock options, or using their discretionary income to buy their illicit drugs. They're resorting to often desperate, and most often, criminal behaviour in order to obtain the resources necessary to purchase the drugs. This leads to an increase in theft, assault, and prostitution in the immediate area around the site, and sometimes an attempt to inject drugs.

All of this comes at a cost. Very few unbiased observers would walk the downtown eastside of Vancouver and claim using only the eye test that Insite is an overwhelming success. I certainly wouldn't claim that everything in the neighbourhood would be rainbows and unicorns without the presence of Insite; it is an unfortunate and unavoidable byproduct of its continued operation.

This isn't to suggest that we should turn our backs on those who have fallen victim to addiction. It would be impossible for me to list all of the initiatives taken by police services and other agencies across this country to deal with drug consumption. I firmly believe we can build on those programs that have been found to be successful, but while drug initiatives vary widely in scope and in operation, the one constant is that public safety is never jeopardized and the protection of our communities' most vulnerable is always paramount.

Unfortunately, the debate around Insite and any other proposed consumption site has become extremely charged, and in a number of cases very personal. I have witnessed and been targeted by those who don't appreciate my advocacy on behalf of my members in opposition to these sites. While I do try to see the debate from their perspective, I hope today they might try to see it from mine. I have walked the downtown eastside. I've spoken regularly with police officers who are given the difficult and dangerous task of patrolling this area on a regular basis. I can say without a doubt that while studies may trumpet the health benefits of supervised drug consumption, those same studies always underestimate the public safety cost that comes as a result.

In our estimation, Bill C-2 is a reasonable response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision that allows Insite to continue operations.

This proposed legislation doesn't close the door on new consumption sites, but does set an appropriately high standard that needs to be met before these sites can open. It asks for input to be sought from a number of stakeholders, including law enforcement, and our association appreciates the steps taken by the government in this regard.

I would like to conclude by offering one suggestion for amendment within the legislation. Proposed subsection 56.1(3) specifies the consultation conditions that need to be met before the minister authorizes any new supervised drug consumption sites. Proposed paragraph 56.1(3)(e) says that a letter must be obtained from the head of the police force that is responsible for providing police services in the municipality in which the site seeks to operate.

While this is a good first step, I believe the legislation should go further. For instance, the act itself should also specifically designate the president of the local police association union or the staff relations representative as a key stakeholder in the process.

While police executives must have a role in determining conditions for any drug site, the reality is that many executive positions within the police service are determined by a police board that can often be beholden to local politics, whatever they might be. In many jurisdictions across Canada, a police chief's employment is determined by the police board, which is dominated by provincial and municipal political appointments. The president of the local association, however, is elected solely by the front-line civilian and sworn members that make up the police service. His or her views would be shaped by those he or she represents and they would be free to make those views known to the minister.

Aside from that small change, the Canadian Police Association is happy to offer our support for Bill C-2, as we believe that public safety concerns do need to be put on a par with community health concerns when it comes to supervised drug consumption sites.

Once again, I thank you for the opportunity to appear today and, as well, I thank you on behalf of my colleagues who were able to appear last week on this proposed legislation. I look forward to any questions you might have.