Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise this evening to speak to this rather sensitive bill. I happen to be very familiar with it as I have heard a great deal about it and have spoken about it with members from all parties. The issue is near and dear to me. I am referring to Bill C-2, also known as Bill C-65 before prorogation. No one will be surprised to hear that we will oppose the bill at second reading.
We already debated the issue back in January. Since then, nothing has happened. For reasons unknown to me, the government did not introduce the bill earlier. It certainly seems to be an urgent matter today, however. We are now in June, faced with a time allocation motion to ensure its speedy passage. It seems to have taken six months for the government to realize the urgency of the situation; after five hours of debate, it has decided to set things in motion.
The bill has been gathering dust on the desk of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for months now; he did not seem the least bit interested in putting the bill on the agenda. I am nevertheless happy that the government has finally decided to get moving. Of course, the fact that it had to do so on Bill C-2 is a real shame. The government could have been made to see the light and amend the bill in order to change its content.
That is not the case, and the bill we are debating today is yet another direct affront to the Supreme Court, as a number of experts have said. We are all aware of the strained relationship the government has with the Supreme Court these days. Once again, the government has no problem defying the Supreme Court, which ruled on this issue in September 2011.
Bill C-2 could very likely violate the Supreme Court's ruling. The government itself asked the Supreme Court to rule on the case in British Columbia.
The government had asked the Supreme Court to review the B.C. court's ruling, since the government was hot happy with it. It was not happy with the Supreme Court's ruling either, but that is the highest court. The government therefore decided to introduce a bill that would directly challenge the Supreme Court of Canada's 2011 ruling. That is pretty brazen for the government to move forward like this. As I said, we oppose this bill.
I want to thank the member for Vancouver East, who has been working on this issue for many years. This situation has been dragging on for years. If memory serves me right, it was in 2008 or even earlier that the federal government's health minister at the time refused to grant an exemption to InSite, the supervised injection site in east Vancouver. The reasons the federal government refused to grant an exemption were probably ideological. It seemed to be against the idea of a supervised injection site.
Today, the Conservatives have asked questions, but they have unfortunately not made any speeches. We have only gotten bits and pieces of information from the other side about their position on the issue. Based on what I have heard in the debate today, they seem to be ideologically opposed to the idea of safe injection sites. There is only one in Canada right now, but steps are underway to open others. In fact, some groups in Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto are working to open such sites.
Many groups have noted the benefits of this type of site. Many studies done in Vancouver have shown the same results. More than 30 peer-reviewed studies— it is important to note this—published in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and the British Medical Journal have described the benefits of InSite. Organizations that work on solving the problem of drug use in our communities have noted the beneficial impact of InSite, in east Vancouver. They are trying to replicate Vancouver's positive experience.