Madam Speaker, I think everyone in the House agrees this is urgent. When we look at addiction as a health problem, it is clear we would treat no other health condition like this. Even if we were to define the harm in the term “harm reduction” as an addict putting heroin into his or her arm, I think the approach would be to try to help that addict so he or she would not do that.
We have seen statistics. I remember talking to Vernon White. He said that the average addict committed four to eight illegal crimes every day to get his or her fix. Therefore, by allowing addicts to go into one of these injection sites to inject an illicit substance, which as far as we know could be filled with kerosene, and then giving them a little shake and letting them go back out again saying that we have saved their life, we are enabling them to go out in that community and commit four to eight crimes again. Whether it is break and enter or prostitution, let us imagine that happening four to eight times per day and all we are saying is, “Come back in again. We'll see what we can do to help you.”
My colleague from Vancouver was adamant and passionate. This was a band-aid solution. We need to work on long-term detox programs. I find it uncomfortable that the minister just finished renegotiating the health accord and did not get a firm commitment from the provinces and territories to open up these detox centres. That is what really saves lives.