Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Winnipeg North for his comments and for seeing this effort for what it is.
This is not a health minister who is conducting an effort to make Canada a more healthy place or Canadians healthier people. This is a government that is rolling from one scandal to the next, looking to shore up the base and to fundraise off legislation that comes before Parliament, as if that is all Parliament was good for: some activity for the fundraisers across the way and for a government that has lost its way.
My question is quite specific. If the government is interested in having less crime and improving the health of Canadians, with regard to the one injection site we do have in the country, the current government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, of taxpayer money to sue all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court ruled against the government and its efforts to shut down a health initiative. The one site we have is supported by the police, the local municipalities, and the local voices who live there, knowing that it actually reduces harm. Why then would the Government of Canada, regardless of its political orientation, not be supportive of more of those projects, where they are deemed to fit, and where there is a problem, and where Canadians are asking for them?
When it comes to pipelines and other projects that it wants to push through, the government does not care about local voices. However, when it comes to safe injection sites, suddenly the public has a veto.
I wonder why the double standard exists. We all know why that is; it is ideology coming from the Conservatives.