Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand in the House today to speak to this issue. It is a very important one, not only for the people of our country but in particular for the community that I represent in Vancouver Kingsway, and in Vancouver.
In many ways, the bill before us causes us to think about two things. The first is about the proper and appropriate way to make public policy in this chamber for the people of this country. Second, of course, is the specific issue of the proper policy approach to supervised injection sites. In summary, there has been a lot of talk on this, but in its essence Bill C-2 represents an attempt by the government members to make it very difficult to open up a supervised injection site in this country. We presently have one supervised injection site in Canada, and that operates in my hometown of Vancouver.
I want to start by sharing with the members in this House, and Canadians, some of the realities of what we are dealing with.
Again, I come from Vancouver. It is a port city, and it has one of the highest rates of heroin addiction in the country.
Let me tell members what Vancouver looked like before InSite was opened. I had people coming to my office asking me as a member of Parliament to do something about needles that were found in the alleys behind their houses where their children were playing. I have had parents and teachers come to me to tell me that they had to do a walkabout of their schools in the morning to pick up used needles in their schoolyards.
We had an epidemic of heroin overdose deaths in Vancouver, where for a period of time there were deaths from overdoses almost weekly. I have had business people, particularly in Chinatown where a lot of the drug market is in Vancouver, who complained to me that their customers were being chased away by the prospect of seeing heroin addicts openly shooting heroin outside the doors of their stores and in the alleys, never mind the ambulances and police sirens that inevitably come when people have had overdoses.
That is what Vancouver looked like before InSite opened.
I want to talk about facts, because we will put facts before this debate. Between 1987 and 1993, the rate of overdose deaths in Vancouver increased from 16 deaths per year to 200 deaths per year. The rate of overdose deaths in east Vancouver dropped by 35% after InSite opened in 2003.
Over one year, more than 2,171 referrals were made for InSite users to addiction counselling or other support services.Those who use InSite services at least once a week are 1.7 times more likely to enrol in a detox program than those who visit infrequently.
Commencing one year after Insite opened, there was a significant drop in the number of discarded syringes, injection-related litter, and people injecting in the streets. Injection drug users who use InSite are 70% less likely to share needles. Reducing needle sharing has been listed as an international best practice in the reduction of the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.
InSite users are more likely to seek medical care through the site. This means fewer trips to the emergency room, an improvement in health outcomes, and a savings in taxpayer dollars.
Over 30 peer-reviewed studies published in journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and the British Medical Journal, the most respected medical journals in the world, have described the beneficial impacts of InSite. Conversely, multiple studies have looked for the negative impacts of InSite, but none of have come up with evidence demonstrating that it harms the community.
Safe injection sites operate in 70 cities and six European countries and Australia. A study by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in 2004 showed that supervised injection sites reach out to vulnerable groups. They are accepted by communities, help improve the health status of the users, and they reduce high-risk behaviour, overdose deaths, and drug use in open spaces.
Illicit drug use is an issue that all of us in this chamber regard as a problem. People from all parties across the country would like to look for strategies whereby we can assist people who are addicted to drugs get off the drugs. We share that goal.
The issue really is this. Where we have drug use, what is the appropriate way to achieve that goal? I am here to tell the House that in Vancouver, if members drive with me down to Hastings and Main Street any day of the week, at any time of day, they will see hundreds of people in the streets who are drug addicts. The question is not whether or not they will use drugs. The question is whether or not we will provide them with a safe, clean place where they can do drugs under the supervision of a nurse, where if they overdose or have a problem, they can get medical care, and most importantly, where if by any grace of God they want to access treatment, they have someone there.
Alternatively, we can ignore this and we can continue to let those people purchase and use their drugs in alleys and public spaces or in front of businesses in Vancouver with no medical attention, where they are sharing needles, spreading disease, harming business, costing taxpayers money and dying.
That is the reality of the debate before us. What we have here is an issue of science and evidence-based policy-making versus a moral, ideological one. We have a question of public policy where we ask whether we want to try to make it easier to provide these kinds of health services to Canadians or whether we want to set up roadblocks, as the bill would.
The bill would set up a set of criteria that would make it almost impossible for Canada to open a second supervised injection site. That is harmful for public policy. It is bad for the health of Canadians. It is bad for taxpayers. It is bad for business. I implore every member of the House to put science before ideology and stop the bill from going forward.