Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a few questions of our hon. member. I want to congratulate him first on his comments and on his understanding of how serious this issue is.
I have been in politics for 25 years now. One of the first things I did in elected office, some 25 years ago this month, was initiate a “dollars against drug abuse” fund. We raised all kinds of money to help in our war on drugs and our fight. Here we are still, and we have made very little progress.
When harm reduction was first mentioned to me some 20 years ago, I said that the idea would be terrible. I sounded just like the folks on the other side of the House. I did not understand it. I said that was not where we wanted to go. We did not want to do harm reduction; we wanted to do elimination altogether. Well, here we are 20 years after that.
I visited that site. I am very supportive of it. I visited with as much trepidation as our members there. I think if the members of the government actually went out and visited the site and spent a few hours there, they would realize that it is really about harm reduction. It is not just for everyone to go there. It is about helping people who need help.
I would like to hear some comments from the hon. member on that issue.