Mr. Speaker, the bill has been debated for 20 hours over 12 days. It went to committee. The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and I as health minister were there to answer questions. We are trying to pass this bill.
It is interesting that the member said that this measure is important to her, and that she wants to see it passed and thinks that we are delaying it, yet we continue to experience delays by the opposition.
It is important that this bill pass, because otherwise we have no framework with which to provide public consultations for any municipality or group that wants to apply to have a supervised injection site. The Supreme Court of Canada was clear that public consultations need to happen before any of these supervised injection sites can move forward. However, we have been unable to reach a consensus because the opposition members think that we should not have to consult the public. They think that any municipality or group should have the right to impose a supervised injection site without public consultation.
We do not believe that is the case. We agree with the Supreme Court of Canada and we will proceed with this bill to make sure that the public and neighbourhood groups, whether they be local politicians or the police, have their say.