Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Courtenay—Alberni for his powerful statement, but moreover his powerful actions. I thank the member for tabling this critically important piece of legislation, Bill C-216. This bill has the framework to finally address the drug poisoning crisis like the crisis it is: a public health care crisis.
This crisis is killing Canadians, 20,000 of them in the last five years. This is truly an emergency, and it is one the government can no longer ignore. This crisis affects all Canadians, but in particular young people, indigenous people, Black people and people of colour. This crisis is affecting Canadians unequally, and it is not by coincidence or chance. It is because of the historic and ongoing violence and systemic racism that has existed and continues to exist in Canada today, violence like the residential schools that existed until 1996; violence like the sixties scoop that tore apart thousands of indigenous families, including my own; violence like the government's ongoing apprehension of indigenous children; and violence like the underfunding of critical services, such as providing clean water.
Many of my fellow indigenous people now live in urban centres; more than 50%. My constituency of Edmonton Griesbach is home to some of the largest urban indigenous populations in Canada, and this reality could not be more visible. What many of my neighbours and I see in the community is the large number of folks living without homes, being continually harassed and criminalized and ultimately incarcerated. They are then thrown right back out on the streets with a criminal record, struggling to find housing and employment and left feeling hopeless.
Just this weekend, I was out in my community with a group called Boots on the Ground handing out care packages of naloxone kits, coffee and other much-needed items. Within about an hour, we had given out over 200 packages. I can tell members first-hand the need to address this public health care crisis in my constituency is great and urgent. This crisis falls directly at the feet of governments, both Conservative and Liberal, that have time after time ignored the calls to action by health professionals, indigenous leaders and harm reduction groups like Moms Stop the Harm and Bear Clan Patrol.
We cannot treat a public health care crisis with arrests and incarceration. Health care workers know this, substance users know this and my constituents know this. Groups like the Alberta Medical Association have said this. City councils in Alberta are calling for this.
Decades of history and evidence from around the world show us that the current approach of criminalization simply does not work; it only leads to more harm and deaths. Health Canada's own experts know this. Last year, its expert task force on substance use published a groundbreaking report about alternatives to criminal penalties for simple possession of controlled substances.
The task force, which is made up of some of Canada's leading experts, described the federal government's current policies as follows:
Current public policies on substance use, and criminalization chief among them, are part of a vicious cycle that is fed by and continues to feed inaccurate, stigmatizing perceptions of people who use drugs. Canada’s current policies are based on an outdated and deeply problematic position, which the Task Force members reject, that devalues and dehumanizes people who use drugs by labelling them as immoral, “addicts”, or weak.
Health Canada's experts do not hold back about the racist realities of Canada's drug policies. The report goes on to say:
The legislation criminalizing drug possession is part of historical and ongoing structural racism and continues to have disproportionate effects on Indigenous and Black populations, which are more often targeted for prosecution for simple drug offenses.
These are only two of the reasons the task force unanimously recommended that Health Canada scrap all criminal penalties for simple possession.
I want to conclude by thanking those on the front lines of this crisis every day, groups like Boots on the Ground Edmonton, Water Warriors YEG, the Bear Clan Patrol and Moms Stop the Harm. They are shouldering the burden of this public health care crisis because governments refuse to do what is right.
This is our chance to rectify it, to undo some of that harm and to set a better path forward. Governing is about choices. With Bill C-216, we are giving the House and the government a choice, an opportunity to listen to the experts, and a chance to do what is right and save lives.
We can choose to end the war on drugs, and I urge all members of this House, whether government or opposition, to make the right choice and pass Bill C-216 into law.
