Madam Chair, I appreciate that. I hope that members in the House would understand the gravity of the situation and the reason we are having a take-note debate on this issue tonight.
As I was saying, I could not believe how difficult it was to get my friend treatment in our community. I am in a very rural riding, but we are not far from the city of Calgary. We have facilities in our communities, but for someone who was at death's door, I could not get her treatment that night, that day or even in the weeks afterward. We were put on a waiting list to get her into a treatment facility. As I am sitting here tonight, over the last few hours listening to members on either side of the floor, the NDP and Liberals, fight about decriminalizing these drugs or how many safe injections sites we should have, I cannot believe this is the discussion we are having.
I apologize, but I am being brutally honest tonight. The fact that the Liberal government has opened more safe injection sites than treatment beds in the three years of its mandate, I cannot believe what I am hearing. Again, I have to be honest with members.
I have a community in my riding that was called a state of emergency in 2015, because there were 347 opioid deaths in one year. This past November, it had 24 opioid overdoses in 48 hours. Having more safe injection sites or decriminalizing these drugs is not going to make this problem go away. I can guarantee that. What we have to do is put our priority in treating these people. When I hear about these being criminal issues and criminalizing this is not the right direction to go for these people who are addicted, decriminalizing that and ensuring that they have every opportunity to get a clean needle or reinject themselves another day is not the way to do it either.
I know I am going to hear questions when my time is up about what the Harper government did and why we took steps to make it more difficult for safe injection sites. In 2011, we were not facing the crisis we are facing now. I was not there in 2011, but I can tell members what I have experienced in my own life over the last couple of years, and I do not want to go home and go to another funeral for a friend who has passed away from a drug overdose.
Again, I just want to thank my friend for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for splitting his time and letting me jump in on this debate when I just could not sit on the sidelines.