Madam Speaker, when the health committee conducted our emergency study into the opioid crisis last fall, the very first recommendation we made, with all-party support, was to declare the opioid overdose crisis a national public health emergency. This would give the public health officer of Canada extraordinary powers to act immediately, primarily by flowing emergency funds where they needed it and by declaring overdose prevention units as health units to legalize them so cities could actually get supervised consumption sites operating immediately instead of waiting for the application process under the bill, which the hon. member knows will take months before it is passed.
This call was echoed by Dr. David Juurlink, the keynote speaker at the health minister's opioid summit, by B.C. health minister, Terry Lake, and mayors across the country.
In the face of the mounting death toll and his acknowledgement that supervised consumption sites save lives, why will the government not declare a national public health emergency so we can actually get these temporary emergency sites operating today and start saving lives today?