Mr. Chair, my colleague made reference to decriminalization as a potential strategy here. We have talked about that a bit tonight, and I just want to emphasize some of the points that were made earlier.
First of all, decriminalization would not ensure a safe supply of drugs. It means if one is found with drugs, that person will not be criminalized but would not be given a safe supply. It would not move people to treatment. Some of the feedback from Portugal is that it was not a silver bullet.
I did want to mention that the government has moved forward with expanding access to opioid substitution therapies, which is an important part of moving people off opioid dependency. We have expanded access to methadone and to opioid replacement therapies like diacetylmorphine, which is a pharmaceutical grade of heroin.
Steps have been taken to make sure that these kinds of drugs are available for safe and effective treatment for people who are working on their opioid dependency.