Mr. Speaker, as mayor of Surrey, the member did a lot to help build public health services in her community.
It is there in black and white in the budget. As I said, we can talk about all the values and good intentions we have, but it is money from the federal government that will make a real dent in this problem. I was shocked, as was my hon. colleague, to see there were zero emergency dollars devoted to the opioid overdose crisis in the budget.
My colleagues on the government side of the House may say they have put some money into established programming, but the fact is that we are in an emergency and that emergency may get worse. In fact, it has become worse.
I stood in the House when that budget was tabled and I asked how the government could fail to plan for a deepening emergency, when the opioid crisis was still very much raging across the country and likely would get worse. Unfortunately, my words were correct. It has become worse. The government did not see fit to set aside emergency funds to deal with this, and that is a shame.
I had my criticisms of the previous government on drug policy, but the former Conservative government dedicated more funds to treatment and prevention than the Liberal government has, and that is a shame.