Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member about one of the important aspects to deal with drug addiction, and that is the whole question of harm reduction.
In Vancouver we have the Insite safe injection site, which has been proven to reduce deaths surrounding the issues related to drug addiction and injection drug use. Yet that important facility, which is a clean facility, which has the presence of health care professionals and which is responsible for referrals to other agencies and other kinds of health care, gets a very short leash from the federal government.
We keep hearing the federal government say that more studies are needed. We know there have been 25 independent studies of Insite showing that it does exactly what it claims to do.
We also heard earlier from the member for Vancouver East that the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society had its funding cut by the federal government. Therefore, it cannot do its important harm reduction work on the downtown east side among the aboriginal community. Even a program of hospital visits to support people who seek treatment for their addictions is likely to fail because of this funding cut.
Could the member address the importance of harm reduction and how that should figure in what the government does to address these important issues?