Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for applauding my riding and, I am sure, applauding the people in my riding. I certainly hope it was not for me. There are 90,000-plus electors in my riding who all deserve to be applauded, in part because they have to deal with this misguided government.
I would like to speak to this particular bill because it is a great example of how, when we add politics into the mix on something as fundamental as this issue, we get it wrong.
I would like to start my comments by saying something that is perhaps more philosophical than it is political. The bill is fundamentally about compassion. This is what it brings up. If there are people in this room who think one can get rid of addiction, let us talk about the 40,000 years of human history that prove them wrong. The reality is that the substances that exist today that cause addiction are not natural. They are not something that one can plant, that one can eat from the garden, or that can be cultivated. Even those things that are cultivated and can be created into a substance of addiction have been genetically modified. When we talk about heroin and these incredibly destructive drugs, we are talking about things that have been manipulated unnaturally.
No human being chooses on a whim to wake up one day and say, “I'm going to become an addict; I'm going to become a dropout; I'm going to become dependent; I'm going to lose who I am.” No young child wakes up in the morning thinking that the future is going to be like that. I am a parent, and I can only imagine having a child in that situation.
Let us start with the things that matter. The fundamental reality about humanity is that the thing that is the most difficult for us is human relationships. We can all figure out how to eat. We can all figure out how to have a house and how to warm ourselves. These things we can figure out. The hardest thing is to figure out how to have good human relationships. There is no one in this room who can tell me that the relationships that addicts have had in the past have not contributed to their situation, that none of this has to do with mental illness, that none of this has to do with abuse, that none of this has to do with hardship and suffering.
When we suffer, the answer is not suffering, it is not discipline, and it is not the heavy hand of government. The solution is love. The solution is compassion, not less of it, but more of it. That is what should motivate the creation of our legislation on something so fundamental as addiction.
The solution is not to make sick people sicker. The solution is to provide a comfortable, secure environment for them to deal with their problem. Addiction is like any other disease. It is not to be marginalized. It is not to be demonized. It is to be understood and dealt with rationally, using the correct solutions to the problem.
Sometimes I wonder if maybe as legislators we should all remind ourselves that we were once in love. When we are in love, and I am sure most of my colleagues have been, and not just puppy love but deeply in love, our entire view of the world changes, but we begin to forget it. We take things for granted. However, if we remind ourselves of those days, we realize that we view the world in a completely different way, in a better way, and we make the right decisions. I know I am getting psychological and maybe a bit idealistic. The point is that I believe that there are solutions to problems between people. I believe that if we use the history of humanity, all those incredible words written on honesty, compassion, and love, we can bring people back together, we can solve their problems, and we can heal any situation.
Let us get into the public security issue to get a bit more concrete. The reality is that injection sites are safe. That is the reality. They are not only safe for addicts, they are safe for the populations around them. They make neighbourhoods safer and cleaner and there is less crime in those neighbourhoods. Statistically, that is true. We know it. Unfortunately, the Conservatives ignore it. That does not surprise me, because they have put duct tape on the proverbial mouths of our scientists. They have refused to take evidence-based approaches to making legislation. We can only think about the recent legislation and the complete disregard for Supreme Court rulings, and that is the case for this bill as well.
However, the worst thing about this bill is the electoral aspect of it. It is completely irresponsible to demonize one sector of the population to fill the coffers of a political party, and that is what is going on with this bill. Fear is fear. Every human being has fear. What makes the sum of someone is how he or she responds to that fear. In my opinion, what makes the quality of a political party like ours is not to be governed by fear but to be governed by hope. The fear in this bad piece of legislation is fear of the addict. Instead of holding out their hand in help, instead of understanding the situation, they demonize them. By demonizing them, they think they are going to make electoral allies, people who will give them donations.
It is true. A lot of my fellow citizens do not want a safe injection site in their neighbourhoods. They are wrong. They do not understand the details and the statistics with regard to how injection sites make their neighbourhoods safer and how they reduce cases of AIDS and cases of communicable diseases. The responsibility of elected officials is to explain. It is pedagogy. It is not fear.
I have faith in the Canadian people and in their compassion. I know very well that there are people in my riding who, once it was explained to them how an injection site could improve the lives of their fellow Canadians, would say, “Okay, that is all right.”