Thank you.
I certainly don't support this bill. It has been a travesty in terms of both process and substance.
One of the organizations that wanted to appear, and of course couldn't because the timeline was so short, was the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, which is a government agency. I read their brief very carefully. I was very interested to see that they actually did not agree with many of the clauses that we've now commonly referred to as a to z.
In fact, what they were suggesting was setting up a ministerial advisory committee made up of public health officials, community representatives, and police. They had a different approach, but of course, unfortunately, they never were able to come before the committee. I do find it very distressing, I guess, that even a government agency like the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse didn't get to appear before the committee because we only had two meetings.
This process has been very frustrating. I've been here for 17 years, and I don't think I've ever seen a bill handled in this kind of manner, whereby you don't even get an opportunity to speak on the amendments. It has been very difficult. We wanted to have legitimate debate.
At the end of the day, my great fear is that unfortunately a political conclusion that the government has about safe injection sites is going to override any evidence, any demonstration of what has been a good operation at InSite and at the Dr. Peter Centre, and all of that will be for naught, because this bill basically will now be not just a barrier but a massive wall that won't allow anything through. I do think that's a travesty of public policy, which is what we're here to do.
I think we can disagree, but to enact legislation that sets out criteria that make it so impossibly ridiculous for anything to be approved.... I don't know. It just smacks of a sort of hypocrisy. It smacks of a lack of respect for the law itself. I find that very difficult. I appreciate that members have different points of view, and I really respect that, but this is going to be a really bad law. It's going to undo years of work that has been done in good faith, and that's very unfortunate.