Debates of Nov. 8th, 2013

Cluster Munitions

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I rise today to table a petition. The petition is signed by local residents who are urging the government to prohibit any Canadian from being involved with the use of cluster munitions anywhere in the world. I am pleased to table this petition. I look forward to the government's response.

National Strategy for Dementia

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, today I am presenting a petition on behalf of my constituents calling on the Minister of Health and the House of Commons to support an act respecting a national strategy for dementia.

Human Trafficking

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition to the House in support of Bill C-452 to combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Some people may be surprised to learn that the proceeds of crime related to human trafficking are estimated at $32 billion a year. That is significant, which is why I would like to present this petition.

Volunteer Firefighters

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by people from across Canada, from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island, including Quebec, in support of my bill, Bill C-504, Support for Volunteer Firefighters Act.

These people believe that my bill could help small communities get firefighters. It is very important that their voices be heard and that we help firefighters by passing my bill. That is why I am presenting this petition here today.

Animal Transportation

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present to the House today.

The first was signed by people from across Quebec, from Montreal's north shore to neighbourhoods in Laval, including Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Duvernay, Saint-François, Auteuil and Vimont. The petitioners are asking the government to strengthen Canada's animal transportation regulations.

Alvarez Rivera Family

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I would like to present today was signed by hundreds of Quebeckers who want the Minister of Public Safety to review the decision to deport members of the Alvarez Rivera family to their home country.

People are taking action on this. I would like to highlight the excellent work of students at Mont-de-La Salle school in Laval who created this petition, got people to sign it and got thousands of Quebeckers to do something about the plight of the Alvarez Rivera family.

Fisheries and Oceans

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I bring forward today a petition regarding Lake Winnipeg that has been signed by residents of Winnipeg North and many other Manitobans. It deals with the issue of Lake Winnipeg being one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world. It was named “Threatened Lake of the Year” in 2013 by the Global Nature Fund.

The petition calls upon members of Parliament, in particular the Prime Minister, to take necessary action to ensure that Lake Winnipeg receives adequate, if not better, stewardship.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Respect for Communities Act

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

First, I would like to go back to the legal aspects of this legislation. Bill C-2 creates so many legal complications that it is now virtually impossible for a safe injection site to meet all these obligations. Even if it did, the minister could still approve or reject the application.

I want to show that this really does not make sense. In fact, this is disguised legislation to convey the message that the government does not want such sites. However, instead of just saying so, the government prefers to make the legal obligations so complicated that none of these sites will be able to meet all of them. The hon. member for Gatineau demonstrated it very clearly in her speech.

I will restrict my comments to the legal aspects of this legislation. I am going to talk about what the safe injection sites do and about drug addiction.

First, we must understand that safe injection sites rely on an approach used by a number of health care professionals, namely the harm reduction approach.

Under this approach, we know that certain behaviours will be exhibited, even though we would prefer that they were not. Consequently, we deal with these behaviours as best we can to minimize their negative impact.

For example, in the case of sexually transmitted diseases, we realized that even if we told young people not to have sex, they still did. We then decided that since young people were still having sex, we would make condoms available in schools and ensure that young people had access to them. That is what this approach is based on.

It is the same with alcohol. If we tell people not to drink, it does not work. People will continue to consume alcohol. That approach is not effective. This is why we tell them that if they drink they should not drive, that they should drink moderately, or that they should have three of maybe four beers instead of a case of 24. We try to minimize the negative impact. We provide alcoholism treatment programs and support groups for those who need them. At least, we are not burying our heads in the sand and telling ourselves that since no one is taking action we are not going to do anything.

It is exactly the same with safe injection sites. We try to minimize the negative impact of this addiction. There are all sorts of consequences, including overdoses. People may die if they go too far. There is also the whole issue of blood-borne infections because people use dirty needles.

I should also mention that, unfortunately, some people who use these sites resort to prostitution to buy drugs. That is why we step in and hand out condoms. We try to minimize the harmful behaviour that may result from this lifestyle.

Safe injection sites prevent people from getting infections from dirty needles. For example, they prevent children from falling on needles in a park or a public area.

Safe injection sites also try to prevent other health problems. We are dealing with people whose hygiene is often a problem. If they go to a safe injection site, we can see whether they have an infection or the first symptoms of pneumonia, and we can encourage them to seek treatment. As for the rest, we can at least try to help these people live a healthier lifestyle.

In a safe injection site, we know that people will inject drugs anyway. Even if we try as hard as we can to prevent them from doing so, we know they will do it.

I searched high and low and, in my opinion, there is no strategy that is safer.

If we tell people to inject drugs at home, they might overdose without anyone around to help them. There are also some who will shoot up on the street. The discarded needles then become a problem because children can fall on them. Then there are people who will do it in apartments, in makeshift shooting galleries, where sanitary conditions are inadequate. I believe that a safe injection site is the best option.

Hon. members may not have noticed, but in hospitals, the yellow boxes containing discarded contaminated needles are locked. This may seem strange, but if they are not locked, people will steal them and use the contaminated needles to inject drugs. This happened to nurses whom I know. People just stole the boxes. Therefore, safe injection sites help prevent health problems that could be much more serious.

Moreover, it is not just in the big cities that people inject drugs. Unfortunately, this also happens in my area. I work with street nurses and I know that clean needles are handed out to prevent the spread of infection. Unfortunately, people are injecting drugs even in remote rural areas like Abitibi—Témiscamingue. We should not bury our heads in the sand when it comes to this issue.

I would also like people to understand that when people who inject drugs come into a safe injection site, the workers do not just show them where things are. An assessment can only be done when contact is made. Nurses assess them when they come in. This is what we always do, as nurses. We constantly assess people's health. It is something of an occupational hazard.

When people come in looking somewhat dishevelled, the nurses will ask questions to see whether those people have a place to sleep, for example. If they do not, workers will then be able to intervene. They will observe how their patients are doing and maybe even realize that they have some kind of untreated injury because they do not want to go to a hospital. There will be a health care intervention.

If the nurses observe increased confusion or symptoms of mental illness or depression, they will be able to intervene and advise the person. That only takes a few seconds. Experienced workers are able to notice these health problems rather quickly. They will talk with the person right away. If the patient has a persistent cough and has trouble breathing, then perhaps the nurse will realize that there is another health problem. If that person is getting a skin infection, someone will follow up.

This means that when people go there for injections, they get a regular health check-up, and a familiar nurse will be able to intervene quickly and provide advice. The individual may not listen to that advice, but at least action is being taken and no one is ignoring the problem. They detect risks and intervene socially, because there are risks associated with injecting drugs.

For example, if centre workers notice that overdoses are increasing in number, they will pass the message along to let people know that there could be drugs going around that may be impure or may be cut with dangerous products that are stronger than normal. They will caution people so that this information can get around. If some people who inject are also involved in prostitution and were in contact with violent or aggressive people, staff will be able to let others know to be careful, because other people have been attacked and they may be at risk.

These centres provide practical social intervention that cannot be found elsewhere. No one would truly rather have this happen in the street and to find someone who died from an overdose in the alley next to their home. That makes absolutely no sense. It should be done in a centre at the very least.

What is more, these centres can help in developing a trusting relationship with the individual.

That way, when an individual feels strong enough to quit doing drugs, someone at the centre can counsel them. Drug addicts will be much more likely to succeed in overcoming their addiction.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's speech and perspective on this issue, but I think, as a nurse, she has probably had many patients over the years who were absolutely desperate to get into detoxification services and rehabilitation services. To be quite frank, those services were not available. People who were ready to make changes in their lives were unable to get the help they needed.

As a nurse, how can the member support putting finances and funding into something when she has told many patients, “I'm sorry. I know you were looking for rehabilitation services and you would really like to have the opportunity to have a life free of drugs”.

How can she support that position without having the money spent where people really need it, on those who are looking for true changes in their lives?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that there are services for people dealing with addiction. Up to this point, it has not been that difficult to access those services. The hard part is convincing people to go, especially by using a heavy-handed approach, saying that what they are doing is unacceptable. It would be better to tell them that what they are doing is dangerous and that we are there to help, to develop a relationship of trust. In the meantime, we do not want them to get sick or get AIDS because of their behaviour. When they are ready, they need to know that someone will be there to send them off to get help. The services are available. The hardest part is convincing people. If we judge them before trying to convince them to get help, it will often be completely ineffective and there will be no opportunity to develop a relationship of trust. The gentle nudge offered at safe injection sites to convince people to get help will not exist.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that there are many communities across Canada that have different challenges. One of these challenges is trying to deal with the infrastructure of many social injustices, such as drug abuse, which leads to all sorts of elements of crime, let alone social factors that are not very positive.

We need to develop good solid programming that would build on making our communities that all of us live in safe. When we look at injection sites, particularly the one site we have in Canada, I believe there are studies that would demonstrate that the community as a whole has benefited, not to mention the individuals themselves who have benefited.

The member might want to provide further comment in terms of how the community as a whole does benefit, obviously knowing that the individual in question benefits as well.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that the community does benefit. There will be fewer needles and overdoses in the streets. There are tangible benefits for communities. There are smaller communities that will not necessarily have a supervised injection site. However, they have gradually implemented concrete measures. That was not the case 10 years ago. Today, street nurses carry with them materials needed for a safe injection and condoms. They will use these types of interventions in areas where the number of people struggling with this problem is not sufficient to establish a supervised injection site.

These public health measures are extremely effective. However, they have to be implemented together with different social measures as part of a comprehensive solution. It is not enough to have just supervised injection sites. We must address access to education, poverty and different social measures that will help these people to do better. It is a package. This measure has to be part of a set of measures that a responsible government, one that does not look the other way, should adopt in order to fight these kinds of problems.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to speak for 10 minutes to BIll C-2, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Before prorogation, it also went by the name of C-65, for those who have been following this matter, which has after all been in the public domain for some years.

In 2007, unfortunately, the Conservative government sought to close the only supervised injection site in Canada, InSite in Vancouver. At each stage in the legal process, the government faced defeat. The courts—both the appeal courts of British Columbia and the Supreme Court—stressed that these sites served a purpose in Canada and that they followed the guidelines available to users in this country.

I deplore the ideology behind this. In Canada, after all, we do have an anti-drug strategy, like many other governments, except that an incident occurred in 2007. Before the Conservative government came into power in 2006, we already had an anti-drug strategy with four pillars. It was based on prevention, treatment, enforcement and, fourth, harm reduction.

I say “had” because in 2007, the government updated its national anti-drug strategy, and it mysteriously rested on just three pillars. Harm reduction had disappeared. That is where ideology comes in, because the InSite supervised injection site in Vancouver was intended precisely to reduce harm.

It is therefore understandable that the Conservative government should endeavour to make such a change by all possible means, both legal and legislative. The matter went as far as the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court informed the government that it had lost its case on three occasions. Under the law, people have a right to access a supervised injection site. A little later in my speech, I will explain why such sites can be a good thing for the public.

Obviously, the government has turned around and used the last card it held: changing the law so that it becomes illegal and unacceptable to have such sites in Canada, without even considering the studies done over the years.

InSite has been in operation for many years. It is the first, and the one and only supervised injection site to have been set up in Canada. Its purpose is to research ways of helping addicts who have reached the end of the road and who, unfortunately, use drugs. These are not people who use drugs recreationally, but people who have, for a variety of reasons, reached a point in their lives where they really cannot stop. Such people should not be left to their own devices. They need help.

In the NDP, we are really going to ensure that no Canadian is left behind. I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for sharing our belief that the people of Canada deserve a government that cares about Canadians, and not just about their Conservative Party buddies.

This is a thinly veiled attempt by the Conservative government to put an end to supervised injection sites across Canada. Vancouver is not the only city that wants one; Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa do as well. Other Canadian cities have looked at the same scientific studies as we have and have concluded that it is a part of Canada’s anti-drug strategy to provide assistance for people who—let us face it—may continue to use drugs.

My colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles was speaking earlier about apartment buildings she owns in upscale suburban neighbourhoods in Quebec City, where people were unfortunately shooting up in the alleyways.

They left their potentially contaminated paraphernalia in the alleys, near places frequented by young and not-so-young members of the public.

It is therefore burying our heads in the sand to believe that the solution is to close injection sites in Canada and that our streets will be safer and our neighbourhoods less dangerous for our children. That is not true. It has actually been demonstrated that if these people are not using drugs in supervised injection sites, they will do so anywhere, even in places that cause concern. I am referring, for example, to playgrounds in this country.

I do not wish to oversimplify either, but I am genuinely convinced that my Conservative colleagues would prefer to have heroin addicts using drugs in a supervised injection site, with nurses and social workers who can help them overcome their difficulties, rather than in neighbourhood parks where children play.

I said that there had been studies on the subject, and it is true. More than 30 peer-reviewed studies have been published in such journals as the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and the British Medical Journal. The writers describe the benefits of InSite in Vancouver. Moreover, studies of more than 70 similar supervised injection sites in Europe and Australia report similar outcomes. InSite constitutes one of the most important public health breakthroughs in Canada. We believe that this site and other sites in Canada can generate similar benefits and should be allowed to provide services under appropriate supervision.

The word “supervision” is really important here. I will provide some explanation of how InSite operates. First, it is open seven days a week, from 10 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. There are 12 injection stations. Users bring their own substances. People at home should not get the idea that the government pays for people’s drugs through InSite. On the other hand, staff members provide injection equipment. It is this that is so important, because we know that there are many health risks if users use the same needles or share them around. People in utter misery are not overly careful.

People can develop and transmit blood-borne infections. I am talking about diseases such as hepatitis and HIV. This is a huge burden on the Canadian health care system. However, the Conservative government decided to cut $31 billion from health care transfers to the provinces. It will be harder and harder for the provinces to balance their health care budgets. Of course, it is even more difficult for the provinces to treat people with HIV or hepatitis A, B or C.

I really wonder whether the government has a heart. Where is its compassion? Does the idea of helping one's neighbour still exist? Helping one’s neighbour should be a universal value, but perhaps the Conservative members prefer helping their neighbours only if their neighbours can help them back or only if they have never in their life made a mistake.

However, people do find themselves on the street, they become prostitutes or they use drugs, if not both. Some of them have had a difficult life. Sometimes, they were abandoned by their family or they experienced violence and sexual abuse in their childhood. It is no secret that adults take drugs, and it is not surprising that children take drugs. People who find themselves on the street join together, and unfortunately sometimes they fall into the hell of drug use. We must do more to help them.

The Conservative government thinks that it will solve the problem by closing supervised injection facilities in Canada. In fact, the reverse is true.

I am going to end on this note. I really think the government’s anti-drug strategy—a strategy I hope it will soon change—should include the fourth pillar I mentioned: harm reduction.

Prevention is important, but I would like to stress the fact that treatment is just as important. It is important to punish drug dealers, but when people are needy and destitute, they need help finding a way out. They need help, and this help can come from supervised injection sites.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great interest to my hon. colleague and to the debate all this morning.

Twenty-five years ago, I was working on the streets of Toronto with the homeless men coming out of prison and dealing with issues of addiction. Twenty-five years later, my daughter is now doing similar work on the streets of Toronto. When we talk about what has changed, it is really dismal to see how conditions have actually become worse for people on the streets, thanks of course to actions such as the Harris government's cutting of social housing and mental health services.

What my daughter tells me in terms of addiction is that the biggest costs they are facing right now are in the emergency wards, with people getting sick and people dying, as well as the heavy cost of police, who actually have become the front-line social workers in many situations. When we talk to the police on the ground on inner-city Toronto, they are saying that it is a complete waste of their resources.

My Conservative colleagues are always talking about being tough on crime, but the real dangers of crime that we see in the inner cities are desperate addicts. It is the same even in smaller communities, where people who are not on methadone and are not able to have safe injection become dangerous criminals. Then the police and the emergency services are the ones who have to deal with these very sad cases.

I would ask my hon. colleague this question: why would the Conservatives once again choose a dumb-down approach when very straightforward systems that work with health care and police have been proven time and again to be effective?

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my NDP colleague for his question, and I congratulate him on his understanding of the issue.

Many studies have shown that supervised injection facilities were good for the public, that they improved public safety and that they were less costly for taxpayers, who must pay for hospitals and emergency centres. Taxpayers also pay the salaries of police officers.

To explain how much these facilities help people, I will say that in one year, 2,171 InSite users were referred to addictions counselling and other support services in order to get off drugs. Those who used InSite at least weekly were 1.7 times more likely to enrol in a detox program than those who visited only rarely.

These statistics show that this kind of facility can help people get off drugs and become productive members of society.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I have been to Vancouver several times over the past few years, and I have looked into this issue. Has the member actually ever been to Vancouver and seen the people on Hastings and seen whether the policy he is espousing in this House matches the reality that is on the ground?

The member has mentioned that we need to look at these holistically. He is accusing the government of not looking into such issues as homelessness. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Working with the Government of British Columbia, we have together supplied more affordable housing in the Lower Mainland than any other government, particularly the NDP government that made cuts to a number of different areas. We have also helped support the provinces with record-high amounts of transfers, both in social transfers and in health transfers.

All of these things this member has opposed. After all of these investments, he continues to accuse us of not being compassionate. That is how we get things done in this country. It is not by saying things that are not true in this House, but by getting real things done.

I would like the member to comment on those matters.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the question from my Conservative colleague goes to show how arrogant the government is. He assumes that I have never been to Vancouver, whereas in fact I have been there several times. In Chinatown, there are people are on the street who are clearly living in poverty.

The Conservative government boasts about helping the Canadian provinces and fighting homelessness and poverty, but it is not true. The Conservative government slashed the homelessness partnering strategy, the HPS, which benefited Quebec. This is a government that likes to talk the talk but seldom walks the walk on these important issues.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Malpeque.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Here comes intelligence.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, there is a little heckling on the other side. We were having a little discussion across the aisle, but it is a friendly discussion.

I really did not intend to speak on Bill C-2, because it will in fact go to the public safety committee, of which I am a member, and which I very seriously think that it is the wrong committee for the bill to go to. It should be going to the health committee.

However, what encouraged me to speak on the bill before it gets to committee was something I heard while driving in yesterday morning. There was quite an extensive interview on CBC's Ottawa Morning by Robyn Bresnahan with Dr. Gabor Maté, if I am pronouncing that name correctly. At some point in my remarks, I want to quote some of the information that Dr. Maté presented, because he works at InSite and presents some very good evidence that we should be considering as a committee and in the House in our discussion of this bill.

I might say as background, because it came up in earlier discussions and questions when people asked if they have ever been to InSite in Vancouver or to the Downtown Eastside or Hastings, that I have been there a number of times, some of those times as Solicitor General.

I have said a few times that my initial impression was what a loss of humanity, to a great extent. I can remember driving up a back alley one night in a marked police car when we saw a young woman—whose age I could not tell, but I suspect she was around 18 to 25—sitting on a step with a needle in her arm. It was not necessarily a clean needle. That shocked me. We stopped and talked to her. We were not there to arrest her at the time; I was doing an oversight of that particular area.

I will admit that when I first visited the safe injection site, I did have mixed opinions, because on the one hand, there we were, giving and injecting illegal drugs, and maybe that really does not click rightly with our psyche.

However,when we look at the results, we very quickly start to change our opinion. When we talk to some of those people and actually sit down and have a sensible discussion, rather than completely judging them for what they are doing and how they got into these illegal drugs and got addicted, and when we learn something of their backgrounds—whether they got into prostitution, were on the street, were in abusive families, or whatever it might have been—we can restrict our judgment somewhat and look at what InSite is doing for them in giving them their lives back to a great extent and, I think, providing much better public safety for the community.

That is important. There are fewer needles, and they are using safe needles. They are using proper sanitary conditions. It is proven that there is less HIV as a result. There are a whole lot of health benefits as a result of the injection sites, and we have to look at the evidence.

I will admit that when I went to InSite initially—and I was one of the ones involved in the decision to do it—one of my first questions was “Why would we do this?” I mean, it just goes against the grain to see illegal drugs injected. However, when we look right through to the end, we realize there are benefits to the individuals, benefits to the public, and benefits to health and safety as a whole.

That is what we should be looking at. This is more a health issue than a public safety issue, although I will admit it is both, but from both perspectives, whether we are talking about health or public safety, Bill C-2, as introduced by the Minister of Health, is a very bad and very dangerous bill. If passed, it will hurt public safety. It will injure health and will end up increasing crime.

The government has an agenda of being tough on crime, but I maintain that the net result of this particular bill 10 years down the road will show very clearly that it was a bad bill and the wrong direction to go.

As a party, we support evidence-based policies that reduce harm and protect public safety. That is what InSite was proven to do.

To give a little more background, the bill really flows from a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that declared the Minister of Health's 2008 decision not to grant an extension of the exemption of subsection 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which had allowed Vancouver's safe consumption site to operate since September 2003, had violated section 7 of charter rights.

That section says:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

Determining whether there has been a breach of section 7 involves a two-part analysis for the courts. In considering potential section 7 violations, they must ask two questions: whether there is deprivation of the right to life, liberty, or security of the person, and if so, whether that deprivation is in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

The Supreme Court found that both conditions had been met. Therefore, the Supreme Court ordered that the minister grant an exemption to InSite under subsection 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That is partly why we are here today.

The Supreme Court further explained that the Controlled Drugs and Substances Acts has a dual purpose, public health and public safety, and that the minister should strike an appropriate balance between the two. Therefore, here we are with Bill C-2, and I submit that the bill does not strike the appropriate balance. In fact, Bill C-2 goes far beyond what the Supreme Court ruled in terms of factors to be considered when granting an exception. That is why we are somewhat faced with a dilemma.

I will first go to what provoked me to speak on this issue. That was the interview I heard on the radio, which I think is very good documentation that should be on the record in the House.

To back up, the arguments made by Dr. Gabor Maté were as a result of an interview with Robyn Bresnahan yesterday morning on CBC. I will quote from the transcript. Dr. Maté, when asked a question about where we are at as a country on addictions, and our treatment of addictions, said:

It's better than some countries in the world, but in terms of science, in terms of human compassion, in terms of what we know about addiction, it's very backward.

He means our policy. He went on to say:

Because it [meaning Canada] sees addiction either as a matter of choice that needs to be punished, and so we have increasingly draconian laws against people that use substances despite all the international evidence that that approach simply does not work.

Or it sees addiction simply as a primary brain disease, as if there was some genetic reason why people become addicted. The reality is that people are becoming addicted because they were traumatized and hurt in childhood. And that early trauma and that early emotional loss in childhood shapes the personality in such a way as to create low self-esteem and shapes the brain's physiology in such ways as to make that person susceptible to substances.

And so neither our treatment, nor our legal approaches take into account the impact of trauma and emotional loss and their effect on brain physiology.

He makes the argument about why some people are addicted. When asked a question about the work he has done in lower eastside Vancouver, he was asked if he could give an example of what we are talking about here. He answered as follows:

Yes, and I worked for 12 years in Vancouver's downtown east side, including at the supervised injection site which our current government tried to shut down. In 12 years of work, I did not meet a single female patient who had not been sexually abused as a child.

He went on to make the argument of how some people turn to drugs to either overcome trauma or stress, or whatever. I am quoting him because we should be careful, in all instances, not to judge people and say they clearly had a choice. People say yes or no, but there are reasons that these things happen in some people's lives, and that is a sad thing.

Further on in the interview, and this is where he turns to evidence on the value of InSite, he talks to people about drug injection sites. He said:

I get emails, hundreds of them, thanking me for this perspective.

The only sense that I'm yelling into the wind is when it comes to policy. The people higher up seem not to understand these things. They don't want to seem to hear them. And one example of that of course is what's happening currently with the government's withdrawal of Health Canada's decision that would allow Vancouver physicians to prescribe heroin to a small number of patients.

What I'm saying is that there's tremendous appreciation...for this perspective.

He means that InSites are valuable, but not from the people who make the policies. He is saying that people on the ground, people who work with these individuals on a daily basis, know that it helps these individuals and that it is good for public safety. That is evidence. We need to be looking in this discussion at the evidence, not at the ideology. He went on to say:

Well, we do our best to articulate a scientific, evidence based perspective and my only wish is that as a physician, if I'm expected to practice evidence based medicine, so should the politicians be expected to practise evidence based politics.

The evidence internationally does not favour what is currently happening in this country by going against the InSites.

The last point I would make from that interview is what he said about the supervised injection site itself. He said:

But supervised injection sites don't promote addiction. They simply reduce the harm. It makes a lot more sense to use sterile water than puddle water from the back alleys. It makes a lot more sense to use clean needles rather than share them, dirty ones, and transmit HIV. So that the evidence from Vancouver, evidence in dozens of studies now is that there's less disease transmission, better health, more movement into treatment facilities, much less cost to society, every piece of evidence point to benefit and no evidence point to any kind of harm.

Listening to that interview yesterday morning, I thought it was the picture for Bill C-2. That person has spent more than a decade working in that environment and has seen the benefits of injection sites. Bill C-2 turns us away from the potential to give people the opportunity to get their lives back.

These sites protect others in the area, and society in general. They have controlled injections, and there are less dirty needles and less HIV.

My colleague from Vancouver Quadra made the argument the other day about less disease. She pointed out, as we all know in this House, that this site is supported by the province. It is supported by the police authority. Why, then, is the government in this Ottawa bubble, in this town of seeming ideology these days, looking to shut it down and move backward?

I firmly believe that this is an ideological bill, from a government that seems to oppose evidence-based harm reduction measures such as safe injection sites. We certainly believe that safe injection sites should not just be in isolation. They should be part of an evidence-based national drug policy that saves lives, reduces harm and promotes public health.

There is more that needs to be added. When I was in Downtown Eastside Vancouver, there were drug courts, I believe they were called at the time. They have a purpose too. Instead of being sentenced to prison, the addict agrees to certain conditions set down by the court, and if they meet those conditions, they do not end up in prison and they can regain their lives. We need a broader national strategy than just safe injection sites.

I submit that the results of the bill would increase crime, not lessen it. It would damage health care to others in society, take away the opportunity for the people who use those injection sites to be better citizens and contributors to the economy of the country, and lead them to more crime.

I believe the bill would lead to more dangerous streets, greater costs in hospitals, and a tremendous increase in the loss of human dignity. The bill is clearly the wrong way to go.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a few points that the member perhaps did not address very well.

As someone who was formerly involved in local politics, decisions around what goes in neighbourhood zoning is very important to those communities. The ability for a community to have some say in terms of what is located where is a critical measure. I am wondering why, for one, he does not believe that communities should have the ability to have input into these decisions.

I have a second point that I would really like the member to focus in on. One of the rationales is that this is going to allow people to move through into treatment. From my experience, there are many people who want to deal with the difficult demons of their addictions and their rehabilitation. There are not enough services. There is not enough support.

On the opportunity in terms of increased detox, increased rehabilitation, why is the member not really focusing on the people who are desperate, struggling to get off drugs, and do not have programs and services available to them?