Madam Chair, I wanted to thank the hon. member for her thoughtful remarks and for her hard work on the health committee as vice-chair and for the great representation she provides at that committee.
There were a number of very thoughtful recommendations brought forward in her address. I want to touch on a few of them. She mentioned border security. I thought she might want to know that more than 42 grams of fentanyl and its analogs, nine million lethal doses, were stopped and seized at the border between April 2016 and September 2016.
In terms of education, we are requiring mandatory labels on all prescription opioids so that people are aware of what they are buying and the risks of what they are buying. We are moving to severely restrict the marketing of opioids to medical professionals and are creating a dedicated team to crack down on offenders.
It has been three years. This has been a problem for about 12 years. The failure to act, in fact the suppression of harm reduction strategies during the Harper government's time, is what we are really dealing with now. We are trying to play catch-up. We have made amazing investments in three years, and we are starting to make a difference. There have been 1,100 overdoses already treated at our safe consumption sites.
Could the member reflect on those lost years and what could be done to try to avoid that happening again?