Madam Speaker, I am aware of projects like the NAOMI project and Insite. I do quite a bit of work with Direction 180 in Halifax, which is a low threshold methadone clinic.
Working with people with opiate addiction is a pretty intense environment in which to work. There are a lot of barriers and struggles faced by those clients, yet I have seen them succeed. I have seen them, as the member put it, move back into society, get jobs and get apartments. Maybe more important, I have seen people not die.
I go to way too many memorial services for clients of Direction 180 who have not been successful. There was a homeless memorial just last week for people who had died as a result of homelessness or who did not make it through these kinds of harm reduction programs.
I am absolutely in support of harm reduction. These are wonderful projects. They should be funded not just to get people off the streets and back into the workforce, but also to stop them from dying.