Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the Minister of Health for his non-partisan tone in terms of setting the base for what is to be surely a very important debate.
I was a little surprised, though, when listening to the member for Langley—Abbotsford. I recall that in December 1999 when we tried and in fact went ahead with putting a research addiction facility in Charlottetown under correctional services, he opposed it. He said it was an outrageous thing. Yet in the party platform of the reformed Alliance people in 2000, they said “...we will also increase funding for rehabilitation and education, and treat addicts through immediate access to rehabilitation facilities”. So again we see the kind of contradiction that those reformed Alliance people have on this very important issue.
My question to the Minister of Health is this. He spoke about the Toronto experiment in terms of treatment and rehabilitation and how this might be a template, perhaps even a blueprint, for other centres. I wonder if he could elaborate on that, because it seems to me that at some of these grassroots kinds of facilities where community people are involved at the very basis in a very meaningful way, we end up developing and building things that could be of national importance.