Madam Speaker, I do not disagree with what the member has said, but what we have to overcome is the tendency in Canada, because of the division of responsibility between the federal and provincial governments, to have piecemeal action.
What can easily happen in Canada is that the Government of Canada can have some ideas in the area of health, the delivery being a provincial responsibility, but provincial governments take a different approach and we end up with a patchwork. That is why we have pilot projects: the Government of Canada cannot deliver health services. Nor would we want to. That is provincial. We in the government sometimes fund pilot projects hoping that we can demonstrate whether something works. If it does, we make that information available to provinces, which might adopt the practice.
However, the member is right in that there is a patchwork at the moment. What we need is a co-ordinated national approach whereby we bring the provinces on board and come to some common ground as to how best to prevent, to treat, to deal with enforcement and to deal with harm reduction.
I would hope that the special committee the member has proposed today would develop a strategy for an effective, uniform and pan-Canadian approach so that we do not leave out some people.