Yes, Mr. Speaker, the numbers are startling. It is $600,000 to $1 million to treat one patient with HIV. Clearly what these InSite injection sites do, which I said in my remarks, is prevent the use of dirty needles and an increased incidence of HIV.
I will quote a member who spoke about HIV the other day, the member for Vancouver Centre, a doctor, who has a lot of knowledge in this particular area. She said:
I just wanted to talk about HIV for a second. I wanted to paint a picture of what was then and why people felt it was essential to move forward on this issue. In 1989, there were 120 new cases out of 100,000 in Canada. After InSite, in Vancouver alone, this had dropped to 31. In the rest of Canada, the number of new cases remained the same.
The point is that the evidence is there if we want to look for it. We have to look for it. The government has a tendency to avoid the evidence. The evidence is there. Look at the economic savings to Canada, to say nothing of the potential for a better human experience. The economic savings alone as a result of reducing HIV and other health costs are tremendous.