Madam Chair, the government is calling overdose prevention sites illegal and is refusing to give any federal money or take an obvious step like declaring a public health emergency and then using that power to declare overdose prevention sites as emergency hospitals, which would allow them to proliferate across this country and save lives tomorrow. The Liberals refuse to do that.
In terms of money, New Democrats are calling for substantial new federal money for treatment. The Liberals paid $4.5 billion for a pipeline. There should be $1 billion available for treatment in this country for Canadian families that need to get their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers into addiction treatment, which they cannot do now.
The Liberals gave $250 million a year, which works out to about $20 million, when it is divided among the provinces and territories. That is not enough to open a 50-bed treatment facility in each province. We need significantly more than that. The Liberal government is not putting its money where its mouth is. The Liberals are not treating this as the serious urgent health crisis that it is and that New Democrats know it is.