Thank you, everyone, for appearing.
The committee has heard a great deal of testimony already, and some very strongly held views, some of them directly contradictory, so we have a little bit of sympathy for our minister, who is seeking to sort out the merits of a particular proposal for a supervised injection site. Last week, we heard from the Ottawa Police Association and the Toronto Police Association. They testified that “supervised injection sites perpetuate and encourage heavy, damaging drug use”. They said:
In creating injection sites, we create concentrated trafficking zones. Traffickers will carry only enough drugs to make small but frequent transactions. If stopped by the police, these traffickers will claim immunity, relying on the presumption of innocent possession with a known boundary around the supervised injection site.
They say that supervised injection sites bring “an increase in crime”. They list some of the crimes that they're concerned about and say that the sites “contribute to social and economic deterioration and further victimization where they are located”.
I could go on, but I won't. I'm just asking you, Mr. Stamatakis, whether these observations are in accordance with your own research and your own observations, or whether you would have something different to say.