Debates of Jan. 27th, 2014

Situation in Ukraine

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

(Motion agreed to)

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 motion that this question be now put.

Respect for Communities Act

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this will be my second time taking part in our debate today on Bill C-2. This allows me to make an initial comment about the very concept of the debate. I have been in the House since early this morning and, from the moment when we began this debate on Bill C-2, it seems to me—unless I slipped away for a few moments—that I have not heard one Conservative member make a single remark about the validity of their own bill. This clearly raises questions as to the very concept of the debate. In a chamber where we should be sharing ideas and finding solutions, I get the impression that the members of the NDP have been on the same wavelength for hours but the other members are not even listening.

In my first speech on the same issue, just before the holidays, I relied extensively on facts, statistics, studies and scientific articles published in newspapers or medical journals to show the facts. Unfortunately, there seems to be a tendency in Canadian, Quebec and even municipal politics—at every level—to have debates that are based more on opinions than on actual facts. I believe that science and objective facts should still be the basis of our discussions. This does not mean that, because the facts are specific, we must necessarily share the same view at the end of the debate. However, it seems to me that we should at least agree on the basic facts.

For my second speech, I intend to use a more empathetic approach. Let us set aside statistics and studies and try, for a few short minutes, to put ourselves in the shoes of an individual—one of our constituents—who, for one reason or another, has tried hard drugs and is now struggling with a severe addiction.

It seems quite inappropriate to paint society as black and white, or as good and bad, as several Conservative bills try to do, and say that an individual who is addicted to hard drugs is living with the consequences of his behaviour, that it is his fault and that he has only himself to blame. Even if it were true that this individual has only himself to blame—and I do not agree with that—it does not mean he is not entitled to get help from society to get out of his predicament. When an individual is suffering from this addiction, several others who are close or not so close to him also suffer. Therefore, we should rely less on perception and more on reality.

I remember that my late mother—may God rest her soul—was convinced at one time that a young man who tried smoking a marijuana joint would definitely end up a wreck. Even though she and I did not do drugs, we had many discussions on this issue, and I tried to prove to that she was wrong. However, her perception went beyond the scientific facts that I could show. This revealed something even more extraordinary: the fear of the unknown and the fear of something we do not know how to fight. Well, it seems to me there is only one effective way to fight fear, and it is called education.

Looking at Bill C-2, I see that it covers everything but education. If we were to talk about education in reference to a centre like InSite, we should also talk about the neighbouring parks in the community, but I am thinking mainly of the parks that have been made safer because needles no longer litter the park.

Moreover, what is true for Vancouver is also true for Montreal, Trois-Rivières and all small cities, not just the major centres.

InSite is a successful formula that helps reduce crime. If we are really concerned about heroin use—and there is every reason to be, of course—we should also be able to recognize initiatives that reduce crime rates. InSite is one of them.

InSite also helps reduce infections. Addicts can get an infection through injection drug use, but others can get infected entirely involuntarily by stepping on a needle thrown away in a public park.

InSite also helps reduce the relapse rates for drug users. In other words, when addicts choose to go clean to overcome their addiction, organizations like InSite help them and let them reach their goal with a better success rate.

I have some examples from my own riding. They are not injection sites, but agencies that do street work with people suffering from addictions, often multiple addictions, people thought to be hopeless who, for just a few dollars, managed to reintegrate into society and the workforce.

This hardly ever makes the headlines. The government probably prefers photo ops with big cheques announcing that it has funded such and such a program that creates jobs. It seems to me that bringing people back to life also deserves a photo on the front page of the newspapers. Some people might not be as socially sensitive as they should be.

Support is the key to everything. When people decide to inject drugs at a place like InSite, they are no longer alone. They are back in contact with society and agencies that can help them overcome their addiction.

What better way to combat illegal drugs than to eliminate drug users by rehabilitating them. We all know that organized crime is behind the drug industry. Since the crime is highly organized, we have no choice but to organize the resources that will help victims overcome addiction. InSite is one such resource.

I was talking about an agency back home called Point de rue that works with young people dealing with all kinds of problems, including addiction. I had a minor hand in two projects that have restored hope and life to many of those young people.

There was a project back home by an artist named Jean Beaulieu, a world-famous painter and stained-glass window maker. He put people to work 40 hours a week making stained-glass windows (cutting, polishing and soldering) while sticking to the plan. Each piece honoured a celebrity, and at the end there was a public exhibition. More than 90% of the addicts who took part in this program reintegrated into society.

This agency, which enjoyed extraordinary success, has unfortunately closed its doors because the Conservative government stopped subsidizing such agencies. With that attitude toward fighting homelessness, soon Point de rue will also be closing its doors, not just Jean Beaulieu's stained-glass-making project. For a photo exhibit project that was held at the office of the member for Trois-Rivières, young people from Point de rue went to South America as part of an international support project and took that opportunity to launch a photo campaign.

Unfortunately, since time is short, I will simply say that the values of every parliamentarian here today, whether they are religious or humanist, should instill in us the duty to overcome our prejudices, face reality and do the work entrusted to us—to serve Canadians.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member said a couple of things in his speech that stuck out. First he talked about the merits of our bill on this side of the House, which I will speak to in a second.

However, he also brought up something very interesting about what is taking place in his own riding that does not have an InSite. He said that in his own riding there are people who work with addicts on the street and understand how they cope from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. I remind the member opposite that InSite was created as a safe place for someone to inject heroin. Other people have talked about other drugs. This is heroin, not cocaine or methamphetamines, but heroin. We have to clearly understand that.

The member has a valuable point. There have to be street workers to ensure these people get the message that there is hope for them. They do not need to walk into InSite to find that out; they need street workers to find that out. Again, I emphasize to the member and all other members that heroin is an illegal drug that is obtained illegally anywhere in the world.

There have been well over 1,200 overdoses. My question about InSite is, how do we control the purity of the heroin coming into the site?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I led anyone to believe that I agree with Bill C-2 through anything I may have said, I would like to set the record straight right now: Bill C-2 is a bad bill. I decided to instead talk about empathy.

My colleague wants to know how the Point de Rue organization works. The organization has street workers who are the point of first contact with vulnerable individuals. That is essential.

However, the problem is not solved in the streets. Solutions are found when we convince people living in the streets to visit an organization such as Point de Rue. Point de Rue is not an injection site, but rather an organization that helps the less fortunate. Once these people are persuaded to come in, we can help them regain their humanity and tell them that we will support them in their decision to overcome their addiction. There is much to be done.

Time and space are required to build relationships with these individuals. It is important to provide a physical location where they can feel that they belong, that someone is listening to them and that they have a network of people to help them overcome the feelings of isolation that are unfortunately often associated with drug use.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you know this, but there is a Conservative website that has been fundraising on the issue of InSite. I cannot believe it, but it is alarming people into thinking that InSite is going to be like a spa where cocktails of drugs are available for people to take, and that these InSite locations are going to sprout up like fast food stores across Canada. That is clearly not the case, in either of those instances.

My question for the member is this. The member for Kootenay—Columbia indicated a few questions ago that it is a good thing that InSite locations exist because if people get too pure of a dose of heroin, or they overdose, then at least they are at a location to be taken care of instead of being left on the street to die. I am wondering if my friend agrees it is a good thing that InSite exists to help people who cannot be guaranteed of the quality of heroin they are getting on the street.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely essential that we have facilities such as InSite.

The most basic reason is that, as soon as people who use drugs, such as heroin, come to InSite, they are no longer anonymous users who do drugs in the recesses of a park or in a dark alley somewhere. Those persons are now known and recognized. They begin interacting with others. At that moment, anything becomes possible in terms of changing the situation.

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

Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member for Trois-Rivières, this is the second time I speak to Bill C-2. I made a speech before the holidays and, today, I am pleased to voice my opposition to the bill once again.

To begin, Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome you to the start of the spring session. I would also like to extend my best wishes for a good parliamentary session to your entire team—the House clerks, translators, pages, security personnel and all of the members, regardless of political stripe.

Today, there are many topics I would like to discuss in relation to Bill C-2. For example, I would like to talk about health and public safety, the Conservatives' fear-mongering campaign surrounding the InSite safe injection site and the Supreme Court decision in 2011.

I would like to begin by talking about health and public safety. A safe injection site is a sanitary, hygienic location where intravenous drug users can shoot up under the watchful eye of trained staff, such as psychologists and nurses.

Drugs are not sold there, despite what some might think. It is often the place where support personnel make first contact with a user. InSite in east Vancouver was the first of its kind to open in 2003. Since then, more than 70 cities in Europe and Australia have set up similar services.

Since InSite opened, Vancouver has seen a 35% decrease in overdose deaths. Furthermore, InSite has been shown to decrease crime, infection rates of communicable diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis C, and relapse rates for drug users.

Before InSite was set up, the rates of communicable diseases among injection drug users skyrocketed in Vancouver. There was also a 12-fold increase in overdose deaths between 1987 and 1993.

As a result, community partners and the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority decided to set up the InSite project. In addition to a 35% drop in the rate of overdose deaths, InSite had a positive impact on a number of other levels, in public health and safety alike.

According to a 2004 study by Wood et al, there was a significant drop in the number of discarded needles and injection paraphernalia and in the number of people injecting drugs on the street, just in the year after the site opened.

In addition, 80% of respondents living or working in Vancouver's downtown east side support InSite. Over 30 studies have shown the benefits of InSite as a supervised injection site. Not one study produced evidence of a possible negative impact of a place like InSite.

I would also like to briefly speak from experience. As a mother of a young daughter, I am increasingly aware of the potential dangers in our communities. I am seeing public safety in a new light.

I have already said this in my first speech on Bill C-2, but I think it is worth repeating. Montreal has no injection sites. When I was little, my mom and I used to walk around Montreal. Whenever we walked through a park, my mother would tell me to look on the ground. Whether we were walking on grass or gravel, we had to look down on the ground in case there were syringes or things like that. We had seen syringes before when we were walking in the parks or on the street. I was struck by that. Unfortunately, that is what many people have to do to avoid stepping on a needle, especially in the summer when they are wearing sandals. It is unfortunate and sad, but that is the way it is.

I am the deputy critic for public safety. I did research on InSite to see whether a site like that actually had a positive impact.

Looking at the studies and personal experiences of people, especially those living and working in east Vancouver, there is no doubt that InSite has had a positive impact on people's quality of life and that it has made communities safer, especially in an area like east Vancouver, which, as most members in this House know, is unfortunately a place that is home to a large population of injection drug users. It is a unique little pocket of Vancouver. It is important to be aware of this when talking about InSite.

I believe in the importance of safe communities and to achieve that, it takes work. As legislators, we have a responsibility to not be complacent when drafting bills and to take action in the best interest of Canadians. This brings me to my second point, which was mentioned in the last couple of speeches, right before I rose to address the House. It has to do with the fearmongering and fundraising the Conservatives are doing in relation to Bill C-2. There is a campaign on the Conservative website called “Keep heroin out of our backyards”. I would like to quote from the text written on that page. It reads:

Do you want a supervised drug consumption site in your community? These are facilities where drug addicts get to shoot up heroin and other illicit drugs.

I don’t want one anywhere near my home.

Yet, as I write this, special interests are trying to open up these supervised drug consumption sites in cities and towns across Canada—over the objections of local residents and law enforcement.

We've had enough—that’s why I am pleased the [Conservative] government is acting to put the safety of our communities first.

It goes on to say:

The...Liberals and...[the] NDP are against us. They want to repeat the experiment of Vancouver’s Insite facility across the country — maybe even in your community.

This is fearmongering, as my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord pointed out. It is absolutely unbelievable that they are fearmongering and spreading misinformation about what a supervised injection site like InSite actually does. What bothers me even more is that the Conservatives are using Bill C-2 to raise money. The more they talk about it, the more they create fear among the public, the more they raise money to fund their next election campaign. It is absolutely unbelievable. It is disgusting. I cannot believe that they are using a topic as important as supervised injection sites to try to raise money. This takes the cake. If you do not have good arguments and resort to fearmongering, as the Conservatives are doing with this, I think it means that you have already lost the battle. Not us, but them. This is even worse than electioneering. There are so many adjectives I could use, but I will leave it at that.

As my colleague from Trois-Rivières pointed out, what happens is that people either start to fear the unknown or are unable to properly explain a subject, or maybe they simply do not understand exactly what a supervised injection site does. They are playing politics here. They are not able to explain why these supervised injection sites are in the best interests of Canadians, in terms of both health and public safety. The Conservatives are trying to convince the public that they are the champions of public safety because of the measures in Bill C-2, but that is not the case. The Conservatives are using these measures to try to win votes. They are also trying to mislead Canadians, and that is sad.

I would like to take a few minutes to talk about the Supreme Court's 2011 ruling. This bill is contrary to that decision, which called on the minister to consider exemptions for safe injection sites as a way to reconcile public health and public safety issues. The ruling urged the minister to examine all of the evidence in light of the benefits of safe injection sites, not to devise a long list of principles on which to base his decisions. The NDP believes that any new legislation about safe injection sites should respect the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling.

That is not what is happening with Bill C-2. The NDP believes that harm reduction programs, including safe injection sites, should benefit from exemptions based on evidence that they improve community health and save human lives, not on ideological beliefs.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned that no one has claimed that drugs are sold at InSite. I do not think anyone has ever claimed that any drugs have been sold at InSite. I do not think that is the case at all.

InSite, in fact, would probably capture an area of about 10 square blocks in all of east Vancouver. The reality is that anyone who buys heroin in Surrey or Richmond is not going to drive to the InSite site in east Vancouver to inject. It is just too far away.

Our government has brought forward legislation that clearly indicates and defines, if a city so chooses, how to apply for an injection site.

From the perspective of applications for injection sites, how many sites does the member or her party believe would suffice for the city of Montreal?

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question suggests to me that he may not know how such sites operate or what measures have been undertaken.

My colleague from Vancouver may know that Montreal is trying to set up a facility like InSite. We are not talking about some guy trying to set up an organization because he thought it might be nice to have a safe injection site in Montreal. That is not at all what happened. The City of Montreal, community partners, the police, psychologists and nurses have been working together to conduct a major study. We are talking about a whole lot of people who believe they need to find a way to make this kind of system work.

With respect to public safety, they have achieved something really important. I would encourage my colleague to read this really interesting report because Montreal is trying to set up a safe injection site.

My colleague opposite asked me a question because I am from the Montreal region. If we had such a site, it would have a significant impact on people who, like me, live in the area surrounding Montreal. Organizations such as Sida-Vie Laval are in favour of that kind of service, with staff who are working toward the same goal. It would have a positive impact on the whole community in Montreal proper and in the surrounding area.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech and for all the points she raised.

She mentioned that a number of voices have been raised against this bill, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nurses Association and many other experts.

Last summer, an editorial in the Globe and Mail came out strongly against this approach and the content of Bill C-2. Specifically, it said that, in the clauses and the preamble, there was not one mention of the fact that the supervised injection site was saving Canadian lives. That has been made abundantly clear in a number of ways.

Could the hon. member elaborate a little more on the opposition to Bill C-2 that has come from various sources?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard for reminding us that a whole range of people and organizations are opposed to Bill C-2.

She rightly mentioned the Canadian Nurses Association. It is important to look at this also from the perspective of health and consider the impact it can have in our communities.

As I mentioned earlier, all those who are working hard for a supervised injection site or service on the island of Montreal are opposed to a bill like Bill C-2, which could derail all their efforts. We are talking about people in the field of public safety, meaning police officers in Montreal. We are also talking about community organizations, doctors and health care services. That is a lot of people.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to Bill C-2 , an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

I remain very concerned about the government's motivation in introducing the bill in the face of a unanimous loss. The Supreme Court of Canada in 2011 unanimously defeated the government's position on this matter. To read the bill, it would almost suggest that the government has not read the judgment or is flying in the face of that judgment.

It also causes me great concern that the Minister of Justice would see fit to introduce the bill in the face of his obligation under subsection 4.1(1) of the Department of Justice Act, wherein advice from his officials on the constitutionality of legislation is required. However, we know that the standards of the Department of Justice these days are very low in that regard, having had the benefit of a whistleblower who told us that instructions had been sent to departmental lawyers saying that if there was even a 5% chance of a provision or law passing muster under the charter, then it would be fine to recommend it going ahead as constitutional and to introduce the law.

I say this by way of preamble, because as a reformed lawyer, I have many friends who were involved in this litigation. Colleagues have told me that this is simply a bad-faith effort, or at least a patently unconstitutional response to the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. They cannot wait to get this in the courts again, not believing that it could possibly pass muster, for reasons I will try to outline in my remarks.

The Downtown Eastside of Vancouver has disproportionately high levels of illegal drug use, poverty, and homelessness and high rates of HIV and hepatitis C infections. InSite came to the rescue with the approval of the City of Vancouver, the police department, and stakeholders in that troubled community. It succeeded in reducing blood-borne illnesses and in providing access to counselling, detox, and other services that simply were not being accessed by this high-risk population.

As colleagues have pointed out, studies have shown that InSite contributed to a 35% reduction in deaths by overdose in that troubled area of Vancouver as compared to nearby neighbourhoods. The reduction was only 9% in other neighbourhoods compared to 35% in the Downtown Eastside.

This is not the report of merely an academic who looked at statistics. This report was co-authored by the world-famous expert Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. In a moment, I will contrast this success rate for the safe injection site with what is happening in my community of Victoria. There is a very troubling difference between the two communities.

There is a worldwide trend that InSite was part of. It is a trend that was outlined in June 2012 in a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy. The title of its annual report, “The War on Drugs and HIV/AIDS: How the Criminalization of Drug Use Fuels the Global Pandemic”, I think is provocative. It is a report from world-famous scientists and other public policy experts.

I found it interesting that in their analysis of places such as the InSite facility, which was referred to in their study, they concluded that criminalization actually encourages unsafe injection procedures, like sharing needles, as addicts hasten to inject in order to avoid detection and law enforcement. That global commission supported InSite and other safe injection facilities.

As my colleagues have pointed out, this initiative was undertaken, long before it was in Canada, in places like the Netherlands, Germany, all over Europe, and Australia. It seems that the current government simply does not get that the Supreme Court of Canada was looking certainly at public safety and also at public health concerns. The Conservatives do not seem to get that part of the judgment.

That is not just me speaking. A number of colleagues, such as Professor Elaine Hyshka, in a 2012 edition of the Canadian Journal of Public Health, concluded that the Conservatives' approach to drug use is “motivated by ideological principles of punishment and retribution towards drug users”.

It is that part of the Supreme Court of Canada's judgment that I must go back to, because it seems that it has been ignored by the government in enacting Bill C-2 in response to the Supreme Court's unanimous decision:

The Minister's failure to grant a [section] 56 exemption to Insite engaged the claimants [section] 7 [charter] rights and contravened the principles of fundamental justice...[It is also] grossly disproportionate.... [during its eight years of operation, Insite has been proven to save lives with] no discernible negative impact on the public safety and health objectives of Canada....

Where, as here, a supervised injection site will decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, the Minister should generally grant an exemption.

Where are we with Bill C-2? How did the government respond to the Supreme Court of Canada's unanimous decision? I say it responded either in bad faith without reading the decision or by ignoring what no doubt was the advice given by lawyers on the constitutionality of this initiative. I say that because of three or four things.

First, the preamble to Bill C-2 says that an exemption “should only be granted in exceptional circumstances and after the applicant has addressed rigorous criteria”. What are the criteria? Section 56.1, a new section this legislation would introduce, has some 26 conditions that must be met. Actually, there are 30, because of some subsections; they go from (a) to (z). These are conditions the minister must consider when approving an exemption for medical purposes.

I am not saying that these are illegitimate conditions, but the number of hurdles in the way of a community ever getting a safe injection site are so enormous that it is hard to believe that this is a good faith effort to apply the Supreme Court of Canada's decision. The minister then sent it to the Public Safety Commission rather than to the health committee, again an indication that the public health aspects may not have been taken as seriously as one would have expected.

All of this information would have to be provided in prescribed form. There is requirement after requirement, and it has to be done in the prescribed form. There is no time limit as to when the application would have to be considered by the relevant minister. It goes on and on. One wonders again whether there really was an effort to allow a safe injection site as per the spirit of this legislation.

In the time available, I want to contrast the record in Vancouver, with Insite, and what is going on in my community of Victoria. I am finding the following quote from the coroner a shocking one. Last year, the B.C. coroner reported that there were 44 deaths from illicit drug use on Vancouver Island in 2011. Sixteen of those deaths occurred in the greater Victoria area. He noted that Vancouver Island is the region with the highest rate of deaths related to illicit drug use in the entire province of British Columbia.

The Centre for Addictions Research at the University of Victoria concluded that Victoria's per capita death rate is almost 30% higher than in the Lower Mainland. Just a few kilometres away, a ferry ride away from Victoria, in the community where InSite exists, 30% fewer people die from overdoses per capita than on Vancouver Island, which does not have a safe injection site. All Bill C-2 would do is make it virtually impossible for us to realize the public health benefits that have been achieved on the mainland.

By way of conclusion, this legislation does not address the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in a meaningful and good faith fashion. It will simply provide obstacle after obstacle to achieving the public health benefits that the Supreme Court of Canada found, on the facts, to exist in InSite.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to first commend my neighbour and friend from Victoria for an excellent speech.

This is what has been bothering me about Bill C-2 from the beginning. It is that it is, by stealth, an effort to pretend and feign respect for the Supreme Court decision while, through every aspect of the bill, making it impossible to live up to what the Supreme Court has told Parliament we must do, which is respect charter rights and the evidence that says that InSite facilities are working.

I have been here for the debate all day. Every comment from a Conservative member of Parliament has not been for defending Bill C-2 for what it pretends to be, a protection of communities act, a consultation with communities, but for what it really is: an effort to defeat the purposes of InSite. Every question from Conservatives has gone to the question of how we can possibly have a facility like InSite without encouraging and participating in the illegal drug trade.

The questions from Conservatives throughout the day have been honest. They have been from people who really do not want to see InSite facilities operate. They go to the real purpose of and motivation for Bill C-2, which is to defeat the existence of valuable facilities for harm reduction.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her comments. I could not agree more with her comments, which I thought were really appropriate, about government by stealth.

The most remarkable aspect of the Supreme Court's decision is its findings of fact, the evidence-based nature of its conclusions. Contrast that with the patently ideological position of the Conservatives.

The Conservatives obviously do not want to do what the Supreme Court unanimously told them to do, so they are saying, “Let us just find a bunch of ways to defeat it through the back door”. That is what is going on, and I think it is patently obvious.

Who is going to be able to meet the 30 conditions? No one will, and that is exactly what the Conservatives wanted, going to the point of my colleague's comments. The Conservatives are obviously not interested in going ahead.

They are using this for partisan purposes to attract their base, whereas people are dying in my community for lack of a facility like this. I am ashamed.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have the knowledge that the hon. member for Victoria does. I am not a lawyer, but I still have questions. Why would a government insist on systematically provoking the courts, scoffing at the Supreme Court and all the other courts that have been consulted in this matter? It makes no sense. Perhaps my explanation is a little cynical, but it is the Conservatives' strategy to undermine the credibility of the justice system because they will be facing other similar cases this year. They will have to follow up on other rulings. Boldly challenging the Supreme Court with a bill that does not work and will again be challenged undermines the credibility of the courts. It creates a sort of permanent crisis in which they can always pass any law arbitrarily, with the minister making the decision at the end of the day.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Laurentides—Labelle for his observation. I think it is very, if the expression can be excused, insightful.

I think the reason it is insightful is that the government seems to want to pick a fight with the Supreme Court of Canada. Imagine dropping something into an omnibus budget bill to deal with the appointment of a Supreme Court judge. Why? I do not understand that.

I was on the finance committee when I had to deal with this position. From watching on CPAC the arguments in the Supreme Court of Canada, it certainly looks like the government deliberately provoked a fight with the court. Of course, as my colleague rightly noted, we are going to see more of that in the future.

If Bill C-2 is enacted, we will be right back where we started. It is going to cost us millions of dollars in lawyers, and more people are going to die. That is what is going to happen as a consequence of this. The lawyers are all predicting it.

As I said earlier, colleagues who do constitutional law tell me that they just do not understand how this passed muster with the Department of Justice.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the second time I have risen in this chamber to debate Bill C-2, which was introduced as Bill C-65 at the end of the parliamentary session.

I am still very disappointed with Bill C-2, which I think once again represents what the Conservative government is all about. It governs the country according to its own ideology and not for the benefit of Canadians.

This Conservative government is ignoring the scientific evidence around the ruling of the highest court in our country. It is absurd. This bill is another thinly veiled attempt to put an end to supervised injection sites, as the government has already tried to do with InSite in Vancouver.

This government is not hesitating to use taxpayers' money to appeal rulings that do not tally with its ideologies, as it did in 2008. I have a lot of questions. The Supreme Court of Canada recognized the positive impact that a supervised injection site has had in Vancouver East, and its ruling was unequivocal:

InSite has saved lives and improved health. And it did those things without increasing the incidence of drug use and crime in the surrounding area.

I would like to repeat that last sentence again: “And it did those things without increasing the incidence of drug use and crime in the surrounding area.”

The Canadian Nurses Association holds a similar view:

In Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where the Insite safe injection site is located, business owners, service providers and residents in the neighbourhood agree that the clinic has had a positive impact on the health of the people who use it and on the health of the community.

That is a fundamental issue in this debate. The Supreme Court ruling was based on section 7 of the charter and on the constraints imposed by the law, aiming to strike a balance between public health and public safety.

As a health care professional, I find this bill mind-boggling. I want to add my voice to those of people in the field who have criticized Bill C-2, including the Canadian Medical Association, which fully endorses the existence of harm reduction tools, including supervised injection sites, and believes they should be included in a comprehensive national drug strategy.

The CMA's position is founded upon clinical evidence and not upon ideology, unlike Bill C-2. The CMA, which represents all of the doctors in the country, is very critical of Bill C-2:

The unanimous decision was grounded in evidence, not ideology. The overwhelming clinical evidence is that centres like Insite save lives when it comes to some of our most vulnerable patient populations. In its ruling, the Supreme Court stated that “…the evidence indicates that a supervised injection site will decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, the Minister should generally grant an exemption.” What we have seen today seems to contradict the essence of the ruling.

Harm reduction works. This method has proven to be effective. In Australia, a report on supervised injection sites found that one site had reduced the number of overdoses, reduced the spread of HIV and hepatitis C and alleviated safety concerns related to users shooting up in public places and needle disposal. The report even indicated that the site served as a gateway to addiction treatment.

If that is not improving safety in the community, I do not know what is.

Many countries now have supervised injection sites: Australia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Spain and Switzerland, just to name a few. These sites work.

It is no wonder Montreal's director of public health recommended, in December 2011, that the city establish such a site in the greater Montreal area. He gave a number of reasons similar to the ones I just quoted concerning Australia's experience. Why? Because they are based on conclusive data that the Conservatives and the Minister of Health have patently decided to ignore.

I would like to quote Montreal's director of public health:

The reasons that justify implementing SIS in Montréal are very succinct: the epidemic of infections caused by HIV and HCV, and the excess mortality among IDU. Cocaine use, the drug most often injected in Montréal, is a major determinant of HIV transmission, as is sharing used needles. HCV infection is also having devastating effects: 7 in 10 IDU have been exposed to the virus and its transmission does not appear to be slowing. As for excess mortality among IDU, the data on hand indicate that the problem in Montréal is alarming.

I urge the government to do its job for once in the health field. Since the Conservatives took power, we have seen the federal government disengage from files where Canadians expect it to play a role. This includes the government's refusal to negotiate a new health accord with the provinces, the shortage of prescription drugs, and diluted chemotherapy treatments.

It is unbelievable and completely unacceptable for a bill such as this, which flies in the face of the Supreme Court ruling, to be introduced.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech. She spoke from the heart.

I would like to ask her, both as a member of Parliament and as a health care professional, if she really believes that the Conservative strategy to prohibit supervised injection sites in Canada will make those who, unfortunately, are addicted to hard drugs more vulnerable. Will closing this kind of supervised injection sites improve or damage these people's health? I am asking her as a health care professional as well.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is also a health care professional, for his relevant question.

It is obvious—and there is irrefutable scientific evidence to this effect—that these supervised injection sites are gateways to health care professionals, whether for primary health care or addiction treatment.

There is absolutely no doubt about that. What is regrettable is that this government has the audacity to put an end to everything that works or bury its head in the sand. That is the problem. It is better to move forward and try to address the issue, instead of imposing coercive measures.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for this opportunity to put another question that I am dying to know the answer to. My question is rather simple. Since the beginning of her term, my colleague has been doing a lot of work on health issues and, over the years, she has had many dealings with the various Conservative health ministers. Unfortunately—and I am asking the hon. member to confirm my point—we notice that the Minister of Health leaves the public to fend for itself, sometimes by punishing certain groups that do not fit into the Conservative ideology. Pleas are made and the government is asked to protect our health care system and everything related to it, but unfortunately, this is like a dialogue of the deaf, because the government does not really listen to the concerns Canadians have about health, which is a priority every year. Supervised injection sites, which, in my opinion, go a long way to helping people who are going through a difficult time, are part of the health file. If my colleague takes a step back and looks at the whole issue of health management, does she think the government lacks leadership in the health sector?