House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 42% of the vote.
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Mr. Chair, specifically with respect to safe injection sites, the member mentioned that those sites could help, depending on where it was, etc. Does the member believe there should be as easy access to rehabilitation and treatment services as there is to a place to go and inject illegal drugs?
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the members for appealing to some real change in terms of dealing with the crisis itself, but also dealing with grieving parents and family members.
It was just brought up that in Portugal there was a move toward decriminalization. This is not actually true. Portugal created a sort of third tier called administrative offences. However, at the same time, Portugal put beds everywhere.
We heard the geographical difference between Portugal and Canada, and to say that we cannot compared the two is, I think, actually inaccurate. We need to compare ourselves with those who are doing better than we are and strive for some similar results.
To the member, do you believe that the government should be investing as much money in rehabilitation and recovery as it is investing in injection sites? In other words, do you believe that the government should be providing more than one recovery bed's worth of funding for every injection site opened by the government?
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
No, you didn't. That's not true.
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Madam Chair, I certainly want to thank the member for all the work she continues to do on this file to ensure that it is brought up day in and day out.
One of the things that was just asked was about the Portugal model. We need to go a little deeper. Could the member perhaps show a comparison between what the government did in Portugal in terms of the rehabilitation centres and what we are seeing happening here in Canada? If we can learn from Portugal, we should understand where we are and where we need to get to.
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Mr. Chair, certainly prevention and education was a major theme in Portugal. In our report, “Care and Compassion: Fighting the Opioid Crisis”, we found that it was a major theme. It prevented people from going down this road. They met with people, specifically those who were at risk, where they lived, where they resided and encouraged positive behaviours. They did not use an anti-drug campaign. Rather, they used campaigns like “pedal with your own energy” to signify and symbolize a positive, healthy lifestyle. Therefore, the government needs to follow that example and do something with respect to it.
There is no question about the rehabilitation beds. If we spend $33 million of taxpayer money and we only create 25 beds, we are failing. We need to do better.
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Mr. Chair, it does not matter what we call them. We can call them safe injection, we can call them safe consumption, it does not matter what language we use. There is nothing safe about injecting illegal heroin. That is why I call them illegal drug injection sites, because that is what they are.
With respect to moving forward, members have to realize that we can create all of these injection sites across the country and they are one of maybe 10 ways that individuals may access help. They may go through an injection site and get into a relationship with somebody and end up in rehabilitation and recovery. It may be a family member who helps them get there. They may just wake up one day, or it may be through an emergency situation, at hospital, or through the justice system. However, if we do not have bandwidth up top to answer the call for the amount of people who need rehabilitation and recovery, then we are failing. It is a six to eight week wait, and sometimes it is a six month wait, to get into recovery and rehabilitation. That is what the government should be funding.
It is an important first step for the House to be having this discussion. I want to thank the House leader from the government side, as well as the House leaders from all of the parties, for letting this happen and making this happen in the House tonight.
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Mr. Chair, I just want to clarify. The member said “my premier”. I will leave that alone.
As we look at the opioid crisis in Ontario, we need to realize that it is spreading very quickly. I understand what the member is saying, that it is not two murders, it is 38. I completely get that. However, the reality is that a government cannot stop most murders. We do not know what people are thinking. We do not know those circumstances.
We do know the circumstances here. We know the weapon. The weapon is fentanyl. The weapon is an opioid. We are failing to act in so many ways, from border security to prevention education to wrapping our arms around individuals who are hurting from trauma and other things and ensuring they have a way out. That is how we need to deal with these going forward. Unfortunately, there has been no strategy.
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Mr. Chair, my office did a lot of research from around the world on harm reduction. The reality is that a wide spectrum of things are involved in harm reduction, from education right through to clean needle supply, to ensuring that whatever is being used can be put in a proper place and not left on the street. That is the goal of harm reduction.
We actually talk about it in this report. We say that these things need to happen. They are part of the solution. We need to work through all of these things and ensure the proper funding is in place for them.
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Mr. Chair, we have an opportunity to talk about a strategy going forward and the member wants to know what my opinion is of the government seven to eight years ago. I do not think the Liberals are getting the point. Eleven Canadians are dying daily. The answer is not to look back to 2011 or 2012. It is to come up with solutions so we can help Canadians who are at risk. It is to invest in prevention and education. Quite frankly, the commercials the government has put on TV, saying there is an opioid crisis, misses the opportunity to tell people to check in their own cupboards.
This is not why we are here tonight. We are here to discuss solutions and opportunities to do better for Canadians who have been left behind, not to discuss a government that is seven or eight years old and not in power anymore. If the member wants to ask a question about something we can do better, I will certainly answer it. If not, I would ask him to please let someone else ask a question.
Opioid Crisis in Canada December 10th, 2018
Mr. Chair, a week ago, I had the opportunity to stand in the House and request an emergency debate on the opioid crisis, because it is not just affecting one province anymore. It has been spreading across this country from large urban municipalities to medium and smaller municipalities, and even rural municipalities, as we have seen with the issues in Simcoe Muskoka. However, that request for a debate was turned down. I was told that we did not need an emergency debate, that it was not something the House needed to spend time on at that point. Well, I am very glad that the House leaders have come together and provided this opportunity here tonight.
I do not believe this to be a partisan issue. I think that no matter what happens, no matter where people are coming from, everyone agrees that Canadians want to see movement on this issue, and movement means fewer Canadians dying each and every year.
Governments have a problem with putting measurables in place to ensure that their plans and strategies are working. If we are going to put measurables in place for the opioid crisis, we need to show that we are reducing the number of Canadians dying each and every year from this crisis, to the point where we are able to say that we have made headway.
This has obviously come on the backs of some devastating news back in Barrie. We have seen 36 deaths in 2017 related to this crisis. We have seen over and over again the different socio-economic problems that contribute to what is now an out-of-control crisis that started with simple opioids and has now extended to include fentanyl, carfentanil and other drugs on the streets in Barrie.
Different national newspapers have been coming to our region and writing about it. They say that the Simcoe Muskoka area of Ontario has been devastated by powerful opioids, like illicit fentanyl and carfentanil, with a significantly higher overdose rate there than the provincial average. They talk about how individuals are getting incarcerated for moving these substances. For example, a 21-year-old Barrie man is serving a seven-year sentence after pleading guilty to importing fentanyl in 2016. They say, to put it bluntly, that people are dying. Until his arrest, he was an unabashed importer and peddler of a variety of drugs, including, and most significantly, fentanyl.
The Globe and Mail said that the opioid crisis hit Barrie, Ontario with a painful shock. It says that the city has struggled for years with pockets of poverty, with its soup kitchens, methadone clinic and men's shelters. The downtown is a gathering place for the homeless, the mentally ill and those who were recently incarcerated, who tend to be vulnerable to drug addiction.
I can tell members that whatever the strategy is that the government has been putting forward, it is not working. I am not saying that to be a judge of past performance, but I am requesting that the government actually step up and put a strategy in place.
When the Minister of Health was asked about the Portuguese model, which seems to have worked, the response was, “Well, look, it's going to be essentially not my job to get everybody else in order on this”. However, it is, because this is not a provincial crisis. This is a national crisis that is spreading from province to province.
If the federal government did not believe it had responsibility for dealing with this, it would not have created safe consumption sites, which it is funding. Therefore, it cannot have it both ways. The federal government cannot say that this is not its problem, that it will just hand some money to the provinces, and then say that, actually, it is our problem and it is going to fund this over here. The government needs to have a strategy. It needs to work with health ministers across the country and deliver what it decides in unison, in uniformity. However, this has just not happened.
We have seen safe consumption sites, safe injection sites, what I call “illegal drug injection sites”, going up across the country. This has been happening now for years. However, over those same years, there has been a severe increase in the number of deaths, including a 40% increase between 2016 and 2017. In Simcoe Muskoka, there were 81 deaths. In Barrie, there were 36 deaths, and that is out of a population of 150,000 people. One newspaper described Barrie as a city where it would be unusual to have two homicides in one year, yet there have been 36 deaths there from opioid-related addictions or consumption.
It is absolutely devastating. What is more devastating is the government is not meeting the call. I do not pretend to stand here and say that the New Democrats, the Conservatives and the Liberals will agree on every piece of this. However, I do not think there is anyone in the chamber who could honestly stand and say that the strategy being used right now is working. It is not.
We need to ensure there is a comprehensive strategy that can help these people every step of the way. Sometimes a one-time use results in death. Sometimes it is an addiction. Sometimes it is laced in marijuana or crack. Fentanyl is being added, because it is so cheap, to “improve” the high that has resulted in so many deaths in so many circumstances.
We have not had a clear strategy, whether it is border security or to help those who are fighting an addiction. I have had the opportunity to visit The Works, the Moss Park, Insite and the area around Insite in downtown Vancouver. What I have seen is something that I do not want to see in Canada. People have been left behind by the system. Some of it is socio-economic, some of it homelessness and some of it is trauma. People are being left behind and they are being left behind by the government.
The reality is that we can do more. If $50 million can be tweeted out on a Saturday night to somebody in another country because he is a celebrity, then dammit we an help people who are Canadians, who have been living in the country forever and who have contributed to the tax system. We could put the funding in place to ensure the help is there. We will not save everybody, but we will do a heck of a lot better than we are doing right now. It has not been good enough.
I am a fiscal Conservative. I fight for low taxes. I fight for an efficient use of our tax dollars. I have not met a Canadian who has said that providing more rehabilitation, more recovery services, more support and more help for individuals who are fighting these addictions is a bad thing. We know it is a good thing. It helps the individual, it helps society and it is the right thing to do.
One might ask how I know these individuals are being left behind. The federal government is claiming it does not have a responsibility here, that is the responsibility of the provinces, but is doing everything at the same time, which is a very strange approach to what is being communicated by the health minister.
When the health minister says that the government has created 25 new injection sites and only 25 beds in British Columbia, which has seen over half of the deaths related to the opioid crisis, we are failing. People are being left behind.
When the government puts $1 million into a vending machine to provide opiates and only 25 beds are created, we are failing.
When we have failed to work with pharmacists who could be gatekeepers on this issue, who could ensure, when they see a prescription that is either too great in terms of the quantity of the opiate or too great in terms of the quantity of the number of pills being prescribed, when we fail to work with pharmacists who have to see, each and every time, the individual who has received the prescription, we are leaving people behind and we are leaving the gate open for more people to become addicted.
When the health minister says that the federal government is but one actor in the response, that is pretty much saying we are failing.
When we look at what we are doing and we fail to take responsibility, we are failing.
I know we will not answer or create all the solutions here tonight, but I hope, through this debate, the government will actually take note, change its path and put the funding where it needs to go. I guarantee that we can make headway on this issue. I hope everyone in the House will work together, moving forward, to ensure we leave no more Canadians behind.