Madam Speaker, first, I would like to thank the hon. member for Spadina—Fort York not only for his kind and generous words in here, but for approaching this issue in the spirit from which it ought to be approached, which is one of collegiality and working together on all sides of the House. Addiction knows no ideology. Our children, who are exposed to death, illness and overdose, are not interested in politics, so I really appreciate those kind words.
He asks an excellent question. Under the Emergencies Act, the declaration of what is called a public welfare emergency is open to the government, and it is clearly written in the spirit of some sort of natural disaster or outbreak of disease, if we read the legislation. There is a number of powers it gives the national chief public health officer in a case like that, and two of them in particular I would encourage my hon. colleague to consider.
One is that it would authorize the government to flow emergency funding in an expedited fashion, as opposed to having funding go through the normal processes of this place. Second, and more important, it sanctions the opening of hospitals and clinics on an emergency basis.
If there were a virus spreading around the country and we were losing 50 people a week, we would be opening pop-up clinics, almost like MASH, all over the place where people could go to get vaccinated, to get treatment. Those are the kinds of clinics I believe these supervised overdose prevention facilities could be designated as. Then they would not be operating illegally as they are now. Cities and towns could be opening these supervised consumption sites on an emergency basis and do so legally under the Emergencies Act.