Mr. Speaker, communities across this country are grappling with proposals for supervised consumption sites in an effort to reduce the negative impacts of drug addiction and abuse. We all recognize the important public health benefit of keeping people safe and minimizing death, disease and injury, but there has to be room for different harm reduction strategies.
I recently visited Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and saw what was really happening first-hand. I talked to addicts, heard their stories and listened to what they said. This is a failed social experiment. It is a crisis that is not getting any better. While there, I met with members of the Odd Squad, a charity run by serving and retired police officers who volunteer their time to educate youth and the community about substance abuse, and more importantly, about approaches to avoid addiction in the first place.
Governments must ensure that appropriate funding is directed toward detox and treatment-on-demand facilities, plus organizations like the Odd Squad, to give hope to the hopeless. The human cost is far too high to refuse to consider altering the current course.