Madam Speaker, I would love to take up the parliamentary secretary on his offer for constructive dialogue.
The government, to its credit, re-funded the substance use and addictions program in budget 2023 with $144 million. It is a really critical program for harm reduction and for support for folks who use drugs. In communities like mine, though, hot spots across the country, there were zero dollars in this year's allocations.
Is the parliamentary secretary advocating to increase the funding for the substance use and addictions program to ensure that hot spots like Waterloo region are not overlooked?