Mr. Chair, the minister repeatedly uses the phrase “public health crisis”, but she studiously avoids calling the opioid epidemic what we in the New Democratic Party call it, which is a public health emergency. On this side of the House, we have repeatedly called, for two years, for the government to declare a public health emergency under the Emergencies Act.
The government and the minister repeatedly say that there are no powers under the Emergencies Act that they are not exercising now. I am going to quote from the Emergencies Act, section 8(1). It says that this gives clear authority to make “orders or regulations” that it believes “are necessary for dealing with an emergency”, including “the establishment of emergency shelters and hospitals”.
In this country, including in Vancouver, we have overdose prevention sites that are operating right now illegally that are saving lives. Eleven Canadians are dying every single day to the opioid overdose crisis, yet if the government declared a public health emergency under the Emergencies Act, it could designate overdose prevention sites as emergency shelters or hospitals under the act, thereby rendering them legal and subject to federal funding. They are operating illegally, with not a nickel of federal funding.
Why is the minister continuing to insist that the Emergencies Act would give her no power to do anything she is not doing? Obviously, the act would allow her to save lives immediately by declaring overdose prevention sites legal and giving them federal funding to save lives.