House of Commons Hansard #368 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was treatment.

Topics

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:15 p.m.

Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Mr. Chair, I will not dignify that question with an answer. We have all shown respect and courtesy throughout this. The member well knows I was not a member of the previous government.

The bottom line is this. There is a crisis before us today. The provinces, from my province right across the country, have called on the government to act and it has failed to do so. That is shameful.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:15 p.m.

Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Chair, from the years of 2006 to 2014, I was the manager of a Twin Cities Minor Tackle Football Association team. My good friend Jody Brown was the head coach and his son Jody Jr. played on our team, while his other son Tyshawn watched from the sidelines and played with his friends and the siblings of other players on the team. In later years, he too would play.

Football, like any other sport, provides children an outlet. It also teaches values and life skills. It teaches them about community, dedication and teamwork. It provides them love and support, as truly one can never really have too much of either. It provides them structure. It gives them a sense of belonging. It sure did for me, and I was just holding the clipboard.

Tyshawn gets along with other kids and with adults fairly easily. However, there was one friend with whom Tyshawn played on the same football team and basketball team during grades five and six. Being part of these teams strengthened their friendship. Though I was not on the team, I was not the manager, I supported these teams often by going to watch and cheering from the sidelines. These kids are part of our community and they are part of my family.

Tyshawn's friend's name was Zion. In May 2017, at the age of 14, Zion died of an overdose. I share this because Zion is always on my mind. I share this because I know there are many people in this place, in my community and across Canada whose minds are with people, often in their own back yard, who have been lost to overdose.

With over 8,000 overdose deaths in Canada from January 2016 to March 2018, it is hard to imagine that anyone has not been touched by the overdose crisis in some way. Opioid-related deaths are now the highest cause of death in working-age Canadians. The overdose crisis has affected all our communities. It has certainly affected mine. In Waterloo region, we lost Zion and 84 other precious lives to overdose in 2017. All of those people were loved and valued, but we did not do enough to save their lives.

This is not a partisan issue. Across Canada, communities are trying to find ways to address the overdose crisis to save their community members. We know there are many effective strategies to reducing the number of overdose deaths, because we have consulted health professionals, policy experts and directly with people who use drugs. Consultation works.

We know that supervised consumption services and overdose prevention sites work. We know that greater access to housing and mental health support work. We know that increasing access to naloxone and naloxone training works. We know that working with police officers and paramedics to better serve people who use drugs, so people are not afraid to call for help when someone overdoses, that works. We know that lifting restrictions on options available to physicians to provide prescriptions for methadone, suboxone and opioid agonist therapy works. We know also that we need to be having serious conversations about decriminalizing people who use drugs. We have so many tools at our disposal. We have so many ways to support people who are at risk because of the toxic illicit drug supply.

However, one barrier I continue to see that has so saturated our society and that has caused communities to be paralyzed in their response to the overdose crisis is the stigma we continue to place on people who use drugs. This year, the Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington joined organizations across the country in observing National Addictions Awareness Week, from November 26 to December 2. Education and awareness are key components in dispelling stereotypes and reducing the stigma associated with addictions and recovery.

According to innovative thinker, physician and author, Dr. Gabor Maté, pain is complex. He writes:

We don’t explain how physical pain is often a result of a combination of both physical and emotional factors. We don’t learn how to speak to people with pain and how to listen to them. We don’t learn about the roots of chronic physical pain and chronic emotional pain that often lies in childhood experience.

Dr. Maté offers a view that counters the black and white notions of addiction being either a genetic disease or an individual moral failure. He says, “The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.” He takes a trauma-informed approach to addictions that views poverty, isolation and painful childhood traumatic experiences as a major risk factor for developing addictions.

I know these are tough conversations. I know these are needed tough, challenging conversations that we must have today. My colleagues from the Waterloo region, namely, the members of Parliament for Kitchener Centre, Kitchener South—Hespeler and Cambridge, know this hits home. This issue is in our backyards. The Record, a Waterloo region newspaper, reports that in 2017, Waterloo Regional Police seized over 4,000 grams of fentanyl and carfentanil. By September of this year, they had already seized more than 9,000 grams of these drugs.

I know this is an issue that is of deep concern to all of us on both sides of the House. I thank all of my colleagues for being here this evening to participate in this take-note debate and to express their passionate views. I thank those who have been affected by the crisis and yet bravely share their stories to help others. I thank people on the front lines who work with governments and organizations to find a better way forward. I thank the first responders who do their best to save lives and help families.

As we debate this issue and look forward to solutions, I invite everyone to dig deep, to challenge the deeply ingrained stereotypes that we hold about drugs and the people who use them. We cannot work our way out of this crisis until we take responsibility for the ways that our laws, policies and institutions traumatize people, and disproportionately those who are already marginalized because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, poverty and histories of colonization. We need to look at ways in which our own communities are perpetuating this traumatization, thus putting people in our communities at greater risk of overdose.

I do not want to hear any more this old refrain of “not in my backyard”. This problem is in our backyard, so the solution needs to be there too.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:20 p.m.

Conservative

Alex Nuttall Conservative Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON

Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for helping to bring this debate to pass. I really do hope tonight is not just a debate, but a spark to bring all parties in the House and all governments in this country at all levels onside in a single movement forward, because that certainly needs to happen.

It was really difficult to hear of the member's experience with a young person in her life. As we go through these debates, we hear more and more personal stories, which reflect how rampant this issue is, whether it is opioids at large or specifically fentanyl. This issue is expanding heavily in Ontario, which I am seeing as a member of Parliament from Ontario, and I know the member is as well.

Will the government support and fund further treatment and rehabilitation beds in the province of Ontario, and if so, when can we expect to see them open and communicate that to the public?

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:25 p.m.

Liberal

Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON

Mr. Chair, I recall the member for Winnipeg Centre first asking for an emergency debate on this, and it was not granted. Then the member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte asked for an emergency debate on this issue and it was not granted. That triggered me and others on the government benches to encourage the government to request a take-note debate so that we could share the stories of very real people in our communities who are affected by this crisis.

The government takes this very seriously. We have committed over $230 million toward this crisis, and it will take more than the federal government to fix it. In Ontario, we need partners in the provincial and municipal governments. In the province of British Columbia, where the crisis really started and has affected so many people, they have taken a leadership role and continued to work hard, to the point where they are not only challenging the crisis and saying that it will result in a solution, but are also ensuring that people know that the government is there for them. Just like the B.C. government, our government is here for them, and I really hope that the Ontario provincial government will also take a leadership role, knowing that people are counting on it, so that we can deliver results for them, because it is the right thing to do. The federal government, under this Prime Minister, is there for them.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:25 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for her comments and for sharing the story of the loved one in her own universe who died of an overdose.

In the government House leader's comments, she stated that overdose prevention sites work. They do work. In my own community of Vancouver East, where they started, they have not lost one life at the overdose prevention sites. If the government House leader acknowledges that they work, why does she not call on her own government to declare a national health emergency and use subsection 8(1) of the Emergencies Act to allow them to become sanctioned sites, not only in Vancouver East but throughout Canada, to save lives.

Every month, the overdose prevention sites in my own community see at least 500 people come through, and they have not lost one life. They have no federal funding. They have zero support. Health care professionals are worried about working or being involved with these sites because they could lose their licences because they are unsanctioned. Will she call on her own government to declare a national health emergency and sanction all these sites?

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:25 p.m.

Liberal

Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON

Mr. Chair, that member, having served in a provincial parliament, should very well know that when it comes to the administration of health care services, they are within provincial jurisdiction.

I can tell her that the federal government is here to provide billions of dollars in transfers, and we will always be a partner in that. I can tell her also that this House was able to quickly advance Bill C-37, which not only passed in the House of Commons but in the Senate, because we recognize that this is a crisis.

The member may choose to get into semantics. The member might want to have this determined a health emergency. What this government and I are about is lives. I personally have an individual who is impacted in my life. This issue is in my backyard. This issue is not only in my backyard, it is in every person's backyard. For me, it is not about semantics. It is about results. The government is advancing dollars. It is willing to work with provincial governments. That is what it will take. We are also working with municipalities.

All levels of government need to take this issue seriously. I can tell members that there is a federal partner that is more than willing to do so. We need to ensure that not only do these lives matter but that we provide the resources for them. This government is willing to do so.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:30 p.m.

Bernadette Jordan Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions, Lib.

Mr. Chair, all the speeches tonight have been very enlightening. I have heard a lot about the opioid crisis in cities, in particular. However, this is also happening in our rural communities. This is happening in rural Nova Scotia. We have seen a number of deaths in my community and also in remote areas. I am wondering if the government House leader would like to comment on what we are doing to provide services in rural and remote communities as well.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:30 p.m.

Liberal

Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON

Mr. Chair, this is a crisis that affects every community. Waterloo, the riding I represent, is a small town turned city. It is amazing the number of people who come to visit the riding of Waterloo who are surprised to see horses and buggies.

Every community across the country has been impacted by this crisis. It is serious. It is impacting lives. I agree with the member that the federal government has a role to play. We need to work with the provinces and territories. We need to work with municipalities. I can assure her that the Minister of Health, the Minister of Public Safety, and all members of cabinet, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, take this very seriously.

We are pleased to see that so many members are here tonight to be part of this debate, because it is really about saving lives and how we move forward. It is really about innovative solutions. This is an issue that has been growing over time. This did not start when we took office, but it is definitely something this government is addressing. We know that we need to work with members from all sides of the House to ensure that we are able to deliver results.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:30 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Chair, one of the really important things is to make sure there is public education about the harms from these drugs and the fact that one can take them once and die. It is the government's duty to inform. There has been no education about the harms of the opioid crisis that I have seen. In the case of marijuana, the government sent a card to everyone's house telling young people to go to the government web page. That was totally inadequate. What is the government going to do to inform Canadians about the absolute deathly harm of trying these even once?

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:30 p.m.

Liberal

Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON

Mr. Chair, I can wholeheartedly say that I entirely disagree with the member. I appreciate the effort she puts forward. Within the over $230 million the government has put forward, there are millions of dollars when it comes to education to ensure that people know about the harm associated with these drugs.

I shared a personal story. I shared a story of a loved one. I know that the member is not trying to unjustly imply that this kid had used drugs multiple times. Unfortunately, that kid is no longer with us. We know that education is important. If she had listened to the words I shared, I said that education and awareness are important, but more important is the stigma associated with people who use drugs. More important is the fact that people seem to assume that people who use drugs are evil.

There is more to the story. People are in pain. People are associated with these drugs for more reasons than what educational awareness can do. As Dr. Mate, who I referred to in my speech, said, we need to take more time to ask these people, why the pain? Why are they considering using drugs? Why are they considering sacrificing their lives? Their lives matter.

When it comes to this government, every life matters, and we will fight to ensure that people have the resources they need.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:30 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Chair, this is perhaps one of the most important debates we can have in the House, certainly from my perspective, as the member for Vancouver East. People will know that the Downtown Eastside is what some people say is ground zero where the overdose crisis began. I saw people's lives lost. I heard the House leader's comments about the loss of people she knows. In my own community it is an everyday occurrence, and this has happened for years.

When we fought for the first safe injection site in Vancouver East, we had a demonstration in the community where we planted 1,000 crosses. Each cross had a name marked on it to remember and commemorate the lives that had been lost as a result of an overdose. That was in the 1990s.

We thought it was bad then, and we moved heaven and earth to bring the first supervised injection facility in North America to the Downtown Eastside. It was not an easy process. We had to work with the federal, provincial and municipal governments to finally get there. We established full collective action between the governments. We created the Vancouver agreement where there was a federal representative, the member from Vancouver Centre, myself as the minister then at the provincial level and the then-mayor, Mayor Philip Owen. We came together to do this and drive it through. Eventually, through much hard work, and community distrust as well, we finally got that safe site. It was the Conservatives, I might add, who levied the hate and fear against the community and actually stopped the supervised injection facility. They attempted to do that. It took the community to take the Harper government to court, and it won all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada to keep that facility, to continue to save lives.

We have come a long way since then, but the crisis has not averted itself. We now are in a situation that is way worse than it was back in the 1990s. We now have a fentanyl crisis, where people are dying so rapidly that it is absolutely breathtaking. In British Columbia, we now have over 1,400 deaths. We are looking at four people dying of an overdose every single day.

We are trying to exercise all of our resources to save lives. In that process, volunteers in our own community came forward and established the OPS, the overdose prevention sites, on their own, without resources, because they wanted to save lives. These unsanctioned sites have saved thousands and thousands of lives. Each day they see 500 people come through. Without any funding, they continue to do this work. The people working there are stressed to the limit. Every time they experience an overdose, it takes a toll on them, but there is no recognition from anyone. From the government side, there is no federal funding. We have heard from the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith and others. She talked about how this is happening throughout the communities. OPS could exist in every single community today to save lives.

Mr. Chair, before I go further, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton Strathcona.

If we truly want to do that, let us put aside partisan politics. All I heard from the government side was bragging about how great they were doing and how many millions of dollars they have put in. However, if we really want to save lives, let us just park that for a minute and say what can work. OPS works. Let us do that. We also know the Vancouver agreement worked. Let us bring forward an agreement like that in every single community where there are overdose deaths happening. Bring all levels of government together and they can sit at the table to resolve those issues in the name of saving lives. Remember, every single life that is saved is someone's daughter, someone's son, someone's family member.

I would ask the Conservative members to remember this. Dead people do not detox. We need to understand that and take this issue all the way to what needs to be done, which is to recognize that this is completely a health care issue and not a criminal justice issue. With that, we can save lives.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:35 p.m.

John Oliver Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, Lib.

Mr. Chair, I want to thank the hon. member for her very passionate intervention in this take-note debate. A number of the issues she raised she called bragging. This is the government's attempt to deal with and address the issues and concerns she is raising. We are responding to the crisis. We are restoring harm reduction as a core approach. We have opened two dozen supervised consumption sites. We have invested over $331 million into treatment and into fast-tracking regulatory action into education for those programs.

I believe the hon. member is in agreement with the direction the government is taking. I wanted to confirm that. Are there other steps she thinks the government could be taking in addition to those already in place?

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:40 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Chair, I have not heard one government member offer a suggestion outside of what the government has already been doing for this crisis. It is a national health emergency. Under what other circumstances can we say that people are dying everywhere across this country? The magnitude of the situation takes my breath away. How can it possibly be that we do not say that there is a national health emergency going on? When we say that we value lives, those lives matter. Let us call it what it is, a national health emergency.

New Democrats have proposed other suggestions tonight. My colleague, the health critic, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, called on the government to sue the pharmaceutical companies. I just met with a constituent of mine whose daughter became addicted to oxycontin after four surgeries when she was 14 years old. After each surgery, her dose increased. She became increasingly worried and went to see her doctor, who cut her off cold turkey. Guess what? Her daughter ended up in the Downtown Eastside buying street drugs, addicted and homeless today.

Why are we not making the people accountable? The pharmaceutical companies need to be held to account and provide answers to the family members. That is another suggestion government members can undertake. We should have O.P.S. everywhere in our communities. We should have no-sanction sites and make sure we can start to save lives. Those are some of the suggestions. Perhaps the government can take action.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:40 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Mr. Chair, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague from Vancouver East on a well-informed and passionate speech. Unlike many of us in the House, the hon. member has been working in the Downtown Eastside for several decades and was instrumental in establishing the first supervised injection site, so it would behoove us to listen carefully to her comments.

I want to pick up one of the threads she mentioned tonight, which is that we know addiction is a complex psychosocial physical illness. We know it is in the DSM-5 and is a recognized mental illness. By definition it is the compulsive and obsessive use of a substance regardless of the negative consequences. What that means is that the more negative consequences and experiences there are from it matters not. By the very nature of the disease, as well as what the medical literature tells us, criminalizing and jailing an addict is not inconsequential and is actually harmful to that person.

New Democrats have mentioned at least four ideas for the government tonight. We have said to declare a public health emergency under the Emergencies Act, sue opioid manufacturers and investigate criminal behaviour, sanction and make legal overdose prevention sites and to put significant new money into treatment.

Has my hon. colleague heard a single new idea from the Liberal side of the House? It is the Liberals' take-note debate. Have we heard one creative new idea come forward to stem what is obviously a looming crisis? The death rate has gone up every single year of the Liberal government and looks like it will go up again in 2018.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:40 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Chair, in terms of moving forward with this crisis, the only suggestions came from the New Democrat side, and I am not just saying that because I am a New Democrat. Honestly, the government did not offer any suggestions.

I have another suggestion for the government. Why do we not actually make available drug replacement therapy? We should make it available not as a pilot project but throughout our communities so people can get the treatment they need. That too will save lives. If we take action on all of this, something can happen. There is no silver bullet, and I am not suggesting that. Rather, it is a whole host of these actions that can make the difference. To save one life means we have made a difference, and it will have made this debate worthwhile.

There is a host of suggestions for the government side. I look forward to it realizing any of the actions we have suggested.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:45 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Chair, I want to turn this discussion tonight in a slightly different direction. I will not call it a debate. Regretfully, it began as a debate, and it started to become hostile. I do not think that was the original intent of the evening. A number of members put forward very heartfelt, well-founded, evidence-based additional solutions. There is a lot of frustration. Those on this side of the House are getting frustrating that the government does not appear to be open, whatsoever, to any new ideas or any new investments.

I became involved in caring about this issue because of one of my constituents, a dear friend, Petra Schulz. I talked to Petra Schultz last evening, in preparing to come to this debate. I told her I probably would not have much chance to speak, but I wanted to share some of her experience. Many members have probably become familiar with Petra, because she has been covered very widely in the national media.

Petra lost her youngest child, Danny, at the age of 25 to an accidental fentanyl dose in 2014. It is important to recognize that Danny, like many of those with opioid addictions, had attended treatment. Many, or at least some, of addicted often revert to opioids again, because it is an addiction, as much as they do not want to.

It is also very important to understand that Petra is one of hundreds of mothers across this country who have come together to call on the government to take deeper action. The kinds of action they are calling for are exactly the recommendations that have been made tonight in this debate. Where do those recommendations for action come from? They come from the health and legal experts in our country.

These mothers are not just coming up with these ideas off the top of their head. They work very hard. They do not want any more children lost in this country. Petra, along with the other mothers, have participated in everything they can. They go out and talk at schools. They meet with government and so forth.

They have come forward, through www.momsstoptheharm.com/ to ask for specific actions. They have asked for the government to take a public health approach to drugs based on evidence and human rights. Harm reduction is a key component of a comprehensive response to drugs to prevent drug-related harm and death. They have called for the decriminalization of the possession of drugs for personal use as an essential to a public health approach.

Petra says that it is fundamental to remove the stigma. That is what removing the stigma means. Many do not seek the treatment because they are drug users, and our society does not look fondly on drug users.

I mentioned that these moms have taken action together. They all wrote to the Prime Minister and to the federal Minister of Health, and not a single one of those mothers has received a response. Not a single one of those mothers who has lost a child to addiction to opioids has received a response to their letter to the Prime Minister or to the Minister of Health. I would recommend tonight that doing so might be a start, if the government really cares about the trauma of suffering, of losing someone to opioid addiction.

I could quote, if I had more time, which I do not, Leslie McBain, who also lost her son. She is one of the co-founders of this organization. She is calling, in desperation, on the government to decriminalize the drug. As she says, “jail has never cured addiction. For every dollar spent in harm reduction, $7 is saved in medical care, enforcement and the criminal justice system.”

On behalf of all of these mothers who have lost their children to this addiction because they could not receive the support they deserved, I beg the government to consider acting expeditiously on the recommendations that have been made this evening by all members on all sides of this place.

We cannot wait any longer: 10,000 Canadians have been lost to opioid addictions, to fentanyl which kills, to carfentanil which kills. We took action on SARS.

The federal government has the spending power. It transfers money for mental health. Surely to heavens, if we accept that opioid addiction is a mental health problem, why can it not transfer additional funds? We are not telling the government to set up these centres. We are simply saying provinces, municipalities, towns and first nations are begging the federal government to step in and give more assistance.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:50 p.m.

NDP

Tracey Ramsey NDP Essex, ON

Mr. Chair, I too have met with mothers in my office and with some children who they have been able to bring back from the brink but constantly have a watchful eye on. These are mothers who are looking for a way to be part of the solution and are desperately asking for urgent help from the government. Ten thousand people have died of opioid addiction in our country.

I do appreciate the member bringing up the issue of SARS.

I want to raise another emergency situation that we acted on and that was the H1N1 flu virus. In 2009, we had 428 deaths and we called a national public health emergency in our country that triggered mobilized centres working 24 hours a day, seven days a week for weeks. That stopped the deaths and put us back on a pathway to health.

New Democrats are not alone in calling for a national public health emergency in this country and we are doing so because the government is not doing enough. We in the House cannot pat ourselves on the back and say we are doing everything within our power. The government has the ability to call for a national public health emergency today and start to turn this conversation into one where we are saving people.

Could the member speak to what that would look like in her riding of Edmonton Strathcona and to the mothers that she has met with? What would it mean to hear the government respond in that urgent way?

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:50 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Chair, I would like to thank my colleague from Essex. I would like to thank all of my colleagues in this place who have spoken tonight.

As a lawyer, I want to reiterate what my colleague said earlier. The law defines a national emergency as “an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that (a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province....”

We have not heard any rational response from the government this evening as to why it does not see this crisis of 10,000 Canadians who have been killed by an opioid overdose, or why it does not think that this is a situation where we should be calling for a national health emergency and triggering every conceivable mechanism available at all levels of government.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:50 p.m.

Liberal

John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON

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.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:50 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

I am not sure there was a question there, Mr. Chair.

We have been very clear. We have called for decriminalization for personal use with regulation. We have been very clear, with regulation, and that would mean there would be a regulated supply in safe regulated places for access to this drug. It would be a perfect solution.

I am not sure what the rational is for refusing to take that additional small step forward on behalf of Canadians whose lives we could save.

Opioid Crisis in CanadaGovernment Orders

10:55 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Chair, I have been sitting here listening to everyone speak to this issue. I have no doubt that the intent of everyone in this place is one of concern, as some have had personal tragedies, and that we really want to see something done about this.

I am pleased to speak after my colleague from Vancouver East, because I feel like we began with this so many years ago. In 1998, I was the minister responsible for the Downtown Eastside overdose problem; that member was a provincial minister; and the mayor, as she said, was Philip Owen. We were responding at the time to what we in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver felt was a crisis. There were 417 overdose deaths in one year, which is nothing compared with what we are talking about now. However, in response to that, the three governments came together and signed an agreement called the Vancouver agreement. In that agreement, we committed to working in a non-partisan way to deal with the problem, because we felt that the lives being lost were greater than the partisanship and political spats we always had, for and against.

When we started this, out of the Vancouver agreement came the four-pillar approach to drug use: prevention, treatment, harm reduction and decriminalization. The point was that we agreed and worked hand in hand. Our bureaucrats from all three levels of government sat down regularly every week around a table and talked about what was falling through the cracks, what was being duplicated and how we could move forward. It was a very successful way of dealing with the problem. Here today, we have some provinces and municipalities that do not want to work on this issue. However, working together could move the agenda forward and get things done.

I will relate some facts about this particular problem.

In September 2018, there was a 38% increase in overdose deaths in British Columbia. I am using British Columbia as the national ground zero. Vancouver east was the provincial ground zero, and the national ground zero is now British Columbia, where we have seen a 38% increase in September 2018, representing an 8% increase from August. Ninety percent of those deaths were of people between the ages of 19 to 59, with 72% between the ages of 30 to 59. Therefore, we know the demographic that is at greatest risk.

We know that this is not an urban problem. We are seeing the highest rates now in Thompson Caribou, the northern interior, Okanagan and south Vancouver Island. It is not an urban phenomenon, and we cannot dismiss it as not being in our backyard.

We also cannot limit this problem to the stereotypical addict lying on street, homeless and shooting up drugs. It is now 30-year-olds and family members with young children who are using these substances for whatever reason. Perhaps alcohol is no longer doing it for them, or whatever, but we are seeing young families who should know better, who are educated, utilizing these drugs. We find young people in universities, single young people who have so much potential, overdosing.

I want members to know the truth that this is not a street phenomenon, as 58% of all overdoses have occurred in private residences, 28% in other private places, and only 13% of overdoses have occurred on the streets. Therefore, we are not looking at a phenomenon that some people treat as a moral issue, that we should not care about addicts because, of course, they are throw-away people. I have actually heard that said in the House about addicts. It is a stigma that we parliamentarians have heaped upon addicts, not recognizing this as a health issue. It is something I have fought, and many of my colleagues here have fought that kind of language and stigma.

I note as well that the data indicate that no deaths occurred at supervised injection sites or at drug overdose prevention sites.

What we know is that there are some things that have helped. At those sites, drugs can be analyzed to see if they are tainted with anything or mixed with something. That is a safe thing, because then people know when they bring their drugs to be injected. We also know that at safe injection sites, Naloxone is distributed widely so that people can have access to Naloxone wherever they are.

We can say that no one has done enough. We can say that our government has done so much and that we have spent so much money. The bottom line is that it is not working. In September 2018, we saw a 38% increase. I do not think it is not working because no one has decided what the silver bullet is. There is no silver bullet. This is a very complex issue.

I have to say that there is a lot of good will involved here. People of good will are trying to come up with whatever they think can be done to save lives. However, when the government is giving $230 million for treatment measures, and only $50 million of that has been taken up by the provinces, we have a problem. Provinces that say when, how and who will deliver services are not picking up this money.

I have heard people talk about treatment. When we set up a safe injection site, which was the very first one in Canada, we did a lot of the work on that, and we found that the people who came into the safe injection site who knew that they were not going to die were ready to go to a treatment centre. We created a 25-bed unit above Insite called Onsite. People were able to go straight there.

Treatment is important, but if we do not get take-up by the provinces of the money we are putting into treatment, we have to do something that will make this happen, because we can no longer allow partisanship, whether it is federal, provincial, or political, to be involved in this issue, as we did in the Vancouver Agreement. We cannot allow this to continue to occur because no one gets along and no one talks to each other.

We need to look at some of the information, some of the best practices, some of the things we have seen. We had 417 overdose deaths in 1998. Those deaths went right down to almost zero after we put in the Vancouver Agreement and harm reduction.

In this House I have fought and fought over the years when people have said that harm reduction is a dirty word. Harm reduction saves lives and decreases morbidity while people are waiting for a resolution or treatment. It is keeping people alive, and that is what we are talking about here. Harm reduction is really important. When members pooh-pooh clean needles or safe injection sites, they are pooh-poohing the thing that will keep people alive.

In 10 years, this has gone up to the crisis we see today, because a government decided that it would do nothing about it. It fought safe injection sites even to the Supreme Court. The Province of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver took the federal Harper government to court to fight this issue, because it was about life, liberty and security of the person. The issue was fought for 10 years, and over those 10 years, we saw the number of overdose deaths creeping upward. We can say that happened in the past. Let us do something about it now.

Let us not use ideology as an excuse for saying that treatment is better than something else. There is no one thing that is better than the other. Let us move forward to do all of those things we can do together. Morality is not an issue here. Let us not stigmatize addicts and say that they are not important, that they are throwaway people, that they get HIV and get AIDS. That is not the issue. We shall not talk about people like that in the House of Commons, because we are representing people, and this is happening across the country.

Vancouver and British Columbia have been ground zero. A lot of people have said that if this were happening elsewhere, we would have done something about it, and I am here to say that I agree with those people. This was allowed to occur in British Columbia for a long time before a government did anything about it. When this government came in, we decided to act as soon as we could to move forward in doing the things we could do to fix this problem.

We know we have not fixed it, and we know that there is no silver bullet. I am saying that if we remove ideology from our argument, if we remove morality from the argument, all of us in this place can decide that we will come together, as we did with three different governments. The member for Vancouver East was a minister with the NDP. I was a minister with the federal Liberal government. The mayor of Vancouver was considered to be a Conservative.

If those three levels of government can put aside their partisanship, their morality and their ideology for the sake of the lives of the people who are in their city, then this government and the opposition parties could put aside all of their grievances. The provincial governments can begin to start talking about the lives of the people whom they serve and who elected them and the lives of Canadians and start to come together.

There is an answer. Let us talk about it. We heard good arguments here. We heard people saying that there were things we could do. Let us listen to each other. People's lives are at stake.

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11:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Chair, I fully agree that more needs to be done and we need to listen to one another. Would the member comment on the government's priority when it has offered $600 million to buy the media in an election and $230 million to address the opioid crisis?

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11:05 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Chair, again, we can use money. Money is not the solution to everything; political will is. When we have $230 million put toward treatment and only $50 million of that has been taken up by provinces, then we have a problem here. Why would we put more money in when only $50 million is taken up by the provinces? We need to find a way to get the provinces to agree to do something about their own people who are dying. That is the issue here. It is not about how much money is being thrown at it and how much more we need. When that money is picked up, then we can start looking at spending more money if it is necessary, but it has to be spent.

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11:05 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Mr. Chair, I am very surprised to hear that any province or territory in the country would leave federal dollars on the table for treatment.

However, I know my hon. colleague is a physician and is committed to an evidence-based and scientific approach to this. I sit on the health committee and I moved the motion at committee to study the opioid crisis. We have heard from stakeholders across the board. Police, firefighters, nurses, physicians, addiction specialists and psychologists have all come to the same conclusion, and that is the same conclusion the member came to, which is we must put ideology aside and base our position on evidence. Their conclusion is that decriminalization and regulation of drugs is the answer to at least stopping the tainted street supply.

The member commented upon the very successful approach to supervised injection sites when we had the tainted heroin supply 20 or 25 years ago. We see patterns and waves of tainted drugs, but what is foundational is the fact that as long as we have a criminalized drug culture in the country, we drive people underground, drug addicts get their drugs on the street and we have deaths.

Does the member not agree with the president of the Canadian Medical Association, the chiefs of police and every medical professional whom I have heard at the health committee, that it is time for the government to put ideology aside and look seriously at decriminalization and regulation of drugs? Does she agree with that?

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11:05 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Chair, the bottom line is that when we talk about decriminalization and we talk about all those other best practices that are happening around the world like in Portugal and in other places, no one has talked about Switzerland or about Scandinavia where HAT is going on, the heroin-assisted treatment in which people are being given substitution therapy. The answer lies in finding a way to deal with substitution therapy.

British Columbia did the SALOME trials and the NAOMI trials, which told us that substitution therapy worked for many people. Because methadone is not working and suboxone is not working, we need to find other ways. We found that dihydromorphone and dihydromorphine were substitution therapies that could work and did work. However, we only have one site available to get those drugs, because they are difficult to get internationally. Therefore, we have to look at other ways to get a clean, clear, legal supply of drugs that can be there, and not just for addicts. We are not just talking about traditional addicts; we are talking about all these young people who are using drugs. By doing that, they can know that we are taking it out of the hands of organized crime.

Switzerland has some very interesting legislation and best practices that have succeeded in taking it out of the hands of organized crime, which is the bottom line, and getting a clean, safe supply of substitution therapy to people. Scandinavia is doing this. Portugal has another model, but it is not the answer. There are a lot of holes in the Portuguese model.

All I am saying is whether they want to talk about decriminalization, about legalization or about any of the solutions, the idea is to stop the criminal element from putting these drugs out on the street and getting clean drugs. However we do it, we need to talk about that. We need to talk about a politically feasible way of getting Canadians to understand that. We cannot just go ahead and do something like this willy-nilly. Therefore, we need to discuss these issues.