Madam Speaker, it is interesting that more people have died of overdose in British Columbia in the first three months of 2024 than in all of 2015. More than six people die in British Columbia every day due to an overdose. It is absolutely incumbent on each and every one of us legislators to adopt a recovery-oriented system of care, providing hope for people who are struggling with addiction, and offer them off-ramps so they can pursue recovery.
British Columbia did not just tweak the program; it effectively gutted it, admitting it was an abject failure and demanding the federal government rescue the province from this failure. Unfortunately, I am not going to take any lessons from the Government of B.C. on how to handle the addiction crisis.