Debates of May 29th, 2024

Department of Health—Main Estimates, 2024-25

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, we know that stigma will put people back into the dark shadows, using alone and dying alone, which is why we need to do everything we can to break stigma, open doors and bring them into the light.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, we know that Health Canada is introducing major regulatory changes under an outdated and broken self-care framework. This has an impact on 54,000 jobs in a $5.5-billion industry. The Canadian Health Food Association has asked for a simple meeting with the Minister of Health, and he refuses to meet with them. Can he explain to them why?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Madam Chair, I meet with all kinds of organizations. In terms of natural health products, it is exceptionally important to make sure that we protect Canadians and that we protect the integrity of the Canadian brand, which is exactly what we are doing with natural health products.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, no one is disputing that, but it is important that the minister sit down and meet with these leaders. It has a huge impact on these employees, their customers and these business owners.

Has the Minister of Health considered that people with disabilities need to undergo two rigorous application processes to access disability benefits from both the provincial government and the federal government? Why can the federal government not accept the provincial government's applicants for disability benefits?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Chair, I hope to talk to the hon. member on the first order, about natural health products, because the bill that was voted on today would remove our ability to recall contaminated products, such as products contaminated with fibreglass or E. coli or feces. That is extremely concerning, and hopefully the member will be reconsidering that position as the bill moves to committee.

In terms of the other item, I would be happy to follow up with the member.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, we can follow up right now.

For many applicants for the disability tax credit, the application process takes a significant mental and physical load. They often require visits to doctors and government offices, which are rejected after all that work. This is having a huge impact on physicians at a time when we are having a doctor shortage.

Does the minister believe that the government has a responsibility to make the application process as easy as possible, and could this mean sharing information with provincial governments to avoid this overlap?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Chair, again, I will come back to this, because it is not my ministry that is responsible for that application process; it resides elsewhere. Having said that, yes, writ large across government, we want to make processes easier and more streamlined and reduce administrative burden.

I would be happy to work with the member, not just on this issue, which is not within my purview, but on all issues as it relates to administrative burden.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions has said that the government is “meeting the moment” when it comes to the toxic drug crisis. However, over 42,000 Canadians have died. I cannot see that as meeting the moment. Honestly, I see that the government still does not have a plan and does not have a timeline on how it is going to tackle this issue. How many more people need to die before the Liberals declare a public health emergency?

I will say this right now: The stigma starts right here. In responding to the toxic drug crisis, the government has spent less than 1% of what it spent in responding to COVID-19. Why?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health]

Madam Chair, I want to thank the member for his compassionate, consistent and relentless advocacy on what is a public health crisis.

We have put over a billion dollars into addressing the overdose crisis in this country. We continue to invest through SUAP, through the emergency treatment fund in budget 2024, and also through $200 billion in bilateral agreements, of which over 30%, on average, across provinces and territories is going to mental health and substance use. We need to work with the health systems in the jurisdictions, because this is not a quick fix; it is a long game.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, that is not “meeting the moment”. That is not responding to a health emergency. We look to Portugal on how it responded to a health emergency, and it treated it as that.

The federal government controls to whom and how supervised consumption services are provided. These services remain unavailable in most locations across the country, especially in more rural and remote locations. When will this government get rid of the red tape and ensure these services are available and funded nationally?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, can we do more? Yes, we can always do more, which is why we are making the investments we are making at this time. However, let me be clear that the appropriate mechanism to address the ongoing overdose crisis is not the Emergencies Act. We cannot address it that way. It is pervasive. It requires longer-term sustained supports. That is not the right mechanism for saving lives.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, the member does not need to declare an emergency, then; she needs to act like it is an emergency. That is what we are looking for. That is what the moms and families who have lost loved ones are looking for, or those who are struggling and the families that are impacted.

We know that across the country, indigenous peoples, first nations, Inuit and Métis communities feel like they are being left out of the government's response to the toxic drug crisis. They are seeing their communities suffer from loss and increased crime. In fact, last week, Alberta announced that first nations and Métis people represent 20% of all apparent unintended opioid deaths despite representing only 3.4% of the population.

Can the minister tell this House how Health Canada is working with Indigenous Services Canada and indigenous leadership across the country to take a health care-focused approach to the toxic drug crisis? Is the minister willing to intervene if Conservative premiers like Danielle Smith and Scott Moe let preventable deaths from toxic drug poisoning continue at this rate?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, I am going to push back a bit here, because the renewed CDSS is our plan for addressing the crisis. In it, we talk about a holistic and interdepartmental approach, which means I will be working with my colleagues the Minister of Indigenous Services and the housing minister. We know that we need to pull all the threads together to address this crisis.

There is no one-stop fix for this. The Conservatives would like to think it is treatment and treatment only, and forced treatment at that. However, the truth is that we need many tools in the tool box to address this, and it will take time because the drug crisis is not new. We need sustained, long-term strategies, which is exactly what the CDSS is about. It is why we're investing $150 million in an emergency treatment fund right now and why the SUAP, which has funded over 380 projects in communities across this country, will continue to do this work.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, when COVID-19 arrived in this country, we put out a plan to get vaccines to people. We moved and mobilized quickly. We worked through jurisdictional overlap overnight to literally save lives. However, the government is not doing that when it comes to this crisis because of stigma. Is the minister aware that over 20 years of peer-reviewed research shows that safe consumption sites save lives and increase access to treatment?

We heard from the deputy commissioner of the RCMP that they want more safe consumption sites, not fewer. Is the minister aware that with the surge of overdose deaths in Lethbridge, Alberta, since the closure of its safe consumption site, they have tripled? It has triple the death rate of British Columbia per capita. In Regina, where we do not have a safe consumption site, it is double that of Saskatoon. Also, HIV rates are impacted when we do not have harm reduction. Saskatchewan has 19 HIV cases per 100,000. To compare that to the second-most, it is Alberta, at 4.2.

It is out of control. Will the minister intervene?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, I am the last person who has to be convinced that safe consumption sites are important.

Since 2017, with 41 safe consumption sites across this country, we have reversed 55 overdose deaths. We have seen over 4.6 million visits, and we have had over 417,000 referrals to treatment. We know they matter. That is why we work with communities to get them in place. However, health service delivery is in provincial jurisdiction. We can use a hammer and a nail, or we can work collaboratively to move all boats along and have the tide rise. We have to work with our provincial partners.

We are not all on the same page on this. I agree with him that the numbers in Alberta are tragic, but at the same time, we need to work together as much as we can because the bottom line is that we want to save lives. This is our goal. Our priority is a comprehensive strategy of prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, agreeing is not good enough. Safe consumption sites are frozen in Ontario. The government is not delivering them in those places in Alberta that I talked about.

Is the minister aware that in 2008, all nine judges of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the federal Conservative health minister's attempt to close Insite went against the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms by threatening the safety and lives of the people who needed to use it?

What has changed for the minister? I want to know. Do we need to do this again? Is this what needs to happen, given that the minister is saying that she cannot do anything as it is outside her jurisdiction?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, quite the contrary. It is not that we cannot do anything; we are a key part of the approval process to enable safe consumption sites to be established in communities, and we continue to do that work. We are fully committed to doing that work. We know harm reduction is health care. We know safe consumption sites are health care and we will continue to support the opening of safe consumption sites.

With respect to Ontario, I speak to my counterpart Minister Tibollo quite regularly about the report on safe consumption sites, but we need to work together. This is how we will combat this.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, does the minister think it is appropriate for Alberta to levy a $10,000-per-day fine against people for providing life-saving first aid by operating informal overdose protection sites?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, we are working to make it as easy as possible for communities to be able to access supports to be able to set up the sites that they need.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, does the minister see that this is really a province that is implementing a de facto criminalization of medical practices?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, as I just said, we will work with communities to streamline the process of opening safe consumption sites as much as we can.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, the federal government should be asserting its jurisdiction and not allowing provinces to threaten draconian penalties on people trying to save lives during a worsening overdose crisis.

My question for the minister is this: When will her government act to ensure that treatment services for substance use are subject to proper regulation and oversight, and are part of Canada's public health care system, rather than a for-profit Wild West of unregulated, unaccountable and possibly dangerous private companies?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, we are in complete agreement that treatment services are health care services and that there need to be standards in place. Each provincial jurisdiction does have, although it is not equal across the board, standards in place.

Can we do more to set national standards for this? This is why we have reintroduced the expert advisory panel, to be able to look at the crisis in a renewed way to see where we need to do more.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Chair, during Mental Health Week earlier this month, the Prime Minister stated, “We’re making sure that all Canadians have access to the mental health care they need, no matter where they live or what they do. That means making sure that mental health is a full and equal part of our health care system.”

In the absence of a dedicated and permanent Canada mental health transfer with accompanying legislation, provinces and territories are under no obligation to ensure that the delivery of mental health and substance use health services is on par with the delivery of physical health services.

How do the federal government and the minister intend to address the exclusion of mental health and substance use health services from the Canada Health Act? How do the minister and her government intend to ensure Canadians have access to the mental health and substance use health supports they need?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, the $200 billion in bilateral agreements that the Minister of Health and I signed with all 13 provinces and territories this past year had clear guidelines with respect to the integrators and targets they needed to set in the commitments they set out in their work plans.

As mentioned previously, on average, over 30% of funding went toward mental health and substance use services. We see the expansion of the integrated youth services, IYS, in jurisdictions across the country and the provinces taking them on and understanding their value when it comes to addressing prevention and mental health supports. We will continue—