Mr. Speaker, one of the things my colleague, the member for Vancouver East, was just saying is that this particular piece of legislation far oversteps what the Supreme Court of Canada ruled.
The Supreme Court of Canada gave five very clear factors that the government must look at if it is ever to approve another safe consumption site in any particular place that applies for one. It is not imposing it on anyone. It is any place that applies for a safe consumption site. That is the first thing.
What we feel, and what many witnesses have said, is that this so oversteps that directive that it intrudes into provincial jurisdiction, into municipal jurisdiction, into the jurisdiction of the local police forces, into the work of that region's public health officer, and into whatever the public health officer is doing based on criteria set by the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
What we see is that when the government is asked a question about health, it continues to say that we should not talk about it because delivery of services is a provincial jurisdiction. Then all of a sudden the government posts 26 very specific pieces on its legislation, factors that are going to intrude so much on the jurisdictions of other levels of government and on other police forces and on physicians that it is unbelievable.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the right to life, liberty, and security of the person under section 7 of the charter overshadows any decision based on the Food and Drugs Act. That was noted.
I was there. I was in fact the designated minister to look after this issue when we were in government. What we found was that when the Downtown Eastside, during the Vancouver agreement, asked for the safe consumption site to be put in place, it was put forward by the province and by the mayor of the city. The police agreed to have a bubble zone whereby people could use an illicit substance only in that particular area. Everything was taken into consideration.
Let me give some facts.
Prior to the safe injection site being put up in Vancouver, there were about 234 overdose deaths per year in the prior two years. There were 234. After the safe injection site was set up in 2010, there were 2,395 overdoses, and not a single one of them resulted in death. That is why the Supreme Court of Canada said that this safe injection site actually saves lives.
When I listen to what is said around here, I realize that this particular government seems to think that somebody who is using substances and who is going to die is probably disposable, but obviously these people are human beings. They are Canadians. Their lives are worthwhile.
As a physician, I can say that every single life is worthwhile when we look after our patients. People stand here in this House and talk about the fact that this is not wanted in their particular region, but as the member for Vancouver East has said, nobody is inflicting or imposing anything on anybody's town or village or city.
There was a situation in which 234 people were dying from overdose deaths. The rates of HIV and hepatitis C in that little place called Vancouver East were up to extraordinary levels. There were 2,100 new cases of HIV prior to the setting up of this safe injection site in Vancouver. Today there are 30. That change from 2,100 to 30 means this form of harm reduction works.
However, the idea of the 26 pieces in the legislation that the government brought forward is so intrusive that it is going to make it absolutely impossible for any city to ask for a safe injection site, for any police to okay it, for any public health officer to give the details and the data for why it is needed, and for any province that wishes one to be able to say so.
We brought in amendments. Between the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, there were 60 amendments brought to this particular bill, Bill C-2, but not one comma was changed. Not one. This is what happens in most parliamentary committees right now under that particular government: no one listens.
We pay extraordinary amounts of money for people to come as witnesses, and they are expert witnesses. They come to present to Parliament, but so much for consultation. We listen to what they suggest, and when the majority suggest particular amendments, the government just says no.
The government runs a parliamentary committee, which is made up of parliamentarians from all parties. It is not an arm of the government but an institution of Parliament, and therefore should be completely non-partisan in what it delivers. It should listen to experts and factor in what they say. That is what consultation is about. It is not about listening to a whole bunch of people and then telling them, “Thank you very much, but I do not think I care about what you said. I do not like it and I am not going to do it.”
The government's ideology opposes harm reduction. Harm reduction is a term that has been expunged from every single piece of language the government brings about. It does not like the idea of harm reduction.
As a physician, I will tell the House what harm reduction means. When someone is suffering from a disease that can threaten their lives, harm reduction is an intervention that brings down the harm so that the person does not die as a result of that particular illness and is able to continue on until a cure or some other way to help them live properly is found. We have seen exactly that in the safe consumption site in Vancouver.
In Australia, Spain, and Portugal there are safe consumption sites. It is as a result of what was done in Europe that we decided to do this particular pilot project in Vancouver. “Evidence-based” is a term that is thrown around by the government. “Evidence-based” means that when one does something, one looks at the outcomes to see what the evidence shows. What is the rate of mortality? What is the rate of morbidity? What is the harm done? How is that harm alleviated? That is the meaning of “evidence-based”, and it is very clear that the safe injection site in Vancouver showed that evidence of success.
The fact that the government has put up all these barriers means there is never going to be another safe injection site in this country. The one in Vancouver has been extended for a year; I see that as a really obvious ploy to wait until this bill passes so that the government can stop the safe injection site in Vancouver from even existing.
These are people's lives. For me as a physician, it is untenable that a government would stand in the way of saving lives. It is also untenable that within an hour of the time this bill was tabled in the House by the Minister of Health, a letter went from the Conservative Party of Canada to all its members and donors that said the Conservatives had just put forward a bill that was going to stop junkies from shooting up in their neighbourhoods.
When that comes from a government, it is extraordinary. As far as I am concerned, it is absolutely disgusting that people's lives should be so meaningless to the government that it would send out such an absolutely callous letter asking for money.
All I have to say is simply this: the word “consultation” is a joke. Parliamentary committees are a joke, currently, under this government. People can come to say whatever they like; the government never listens.
When we hear people say that this bill has been brought back exactly as it went to committee, with not even a comma changed, I think that tells us the state of Parliament at the moment in this country: it is no longer a democracy.