Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Justice hands out $2 million to the Canadian Bankers Association, the Insurance Council of Canada and the Retail Council of Canada to fight crime, over 2,000 people in British Columbia over the past decade have died of drug overdoses. In 1998, 371 died and from January to March of this year 48 died from overdoses in greater Vancouver.
Drug overdoses in British Columbia are reaching epidemic proportions and the Liberals choose to fund lobby groups to fight crime rather than deal with the drug tragedy. The effects of a government devoid of a drug strategy led this weekend to a riot at the Kent maximum institution in British Columbia where inmates high on heroin went on a $50,000 rampage. Add heroin to inmates already known for violence and escape and you have a recipe for this kind of carnage.
It is time the government got serious on the drug and drug overdose issue. The solution to this tragedy and the consequences we saw this weekend at Kent can be found at the street level, not in the boardrooms of lobby groups.