Mr. Chair, I want to very strongly agree with the aspect of the member's speech where he talked about affirming the immutable human dignity of everyone in our society, recognizing that those who suffer from substance abuse disorders need to be greeted with love, care and empathy.
Many members of the government, as did this member, spoke about advocating for the further liberalization of drug laws, such as decriminalization, and some members support full legalization. I think one of the problems with these arguments is that they do not take into consideration the fact that, in certain contexts in Canada, we already have, practically, very liberalized drug law realities at the local level. The reality, for instance, in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver is not formal legal decriminalization but effective legalization as well as the concentration of services. However, it just is not working. If we look at the regional context where there is a practical liberalization of drug laws, we continue to see very high levels of overdose deaths.
I do not agree with the member, but I would ask him to explain further why he assumes that further liberalization is going to solve a problem that it has not solved up until now.