Mr. Speaker, the opioid crisis is causing havoc and heartbreak.
Back in 2009, my office helped establish the first OxyContin task force in Timmins. Those front-line groups were doing incredible work, and then we got hit with a new generation of nightmare drugs such as fentanyl, carfentanil and purple heroin. There is now an unprecedented medical emergency across North America.
In Timmins, I would like to thank the work of the situation table, the front-line workers in police and in medical and mental health, and the Living Space. In Kirkland Lake, my office is working with the opioid task force. In James Bay, we have states of emergency that have been declared, but we need the federal government at the table.
We need more services for harm reduction. We need a commitment to start going after the illicit trade in fentanyl on the dark net. We need to have a gut readiness of the government to go after big pharma to make them pay for the damage that they have done. We need to declare a national medical emergency because this crisis is affecting us all.