Gord Johns on Petitions

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to table a petition on behalf of residents from Cumberland and Courtney. They call on the government to declare the current opioid overdose and fentanyl poisoning crisis a national public health emergency under the Emergencies Act in order that the government can manage and resource this crisis with the aim of reducing and eliminating preventable deaths from poisoned fentanyl. We have lost over 147 residents in British Columbia in August alone. The government has not declared it a public health emergency despite the fact that over 15,000 Canadians have died since 2016. The petitioners want the government to reform current drug policy and decriminalize personal possession. Last, they want the government to create with urgency and immediacy a system to provide safe, unadulterated access to substances so that people who use substances experimentally, recreationally or chronically are not at imminent risk of overdose due to a contaminated source. These petitioners are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and cousins of people who have died and lost loved ones. The government needs to take action.