Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for showing such passion on a critical issue that is costing the lives of Canadians.
We have heard from chief medical health officers, chief corners, chiefs of police, the First Nations Health Authority and Moms Stop the Harm. They have all been consistent in saying that we need to get politicians out of the way. We need to support evidence-based and expert-led policy, not ideology, and we need to move rapidly.
Does my colleague agree that it is time for politicians to get out of the way? In Portugal, that is the big success story. Politicians got out of the way, and they supported the experts in implementing a policy that supported treatment on demand, recovery, prevention and drug replacement therapy. This was led by experts, not politicians. They got out of the way, but they had a plan with a timeline and they put in the resources to take on the crisis. They went from over 1,000 people dying to 70 people dying each year, so we know we can do it—