Irene Mathyssen

[Petitions, December 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from a group of London constituents who call on the government to enact Bill C-498, which is my bill, that would protect the Thames River, the North Thames, and the Middle Thames, by placing them back under the Navigable Waters Protection Act. This is a heritage river, and we need to protect it.

[Petitions, December 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions. The first is a petition in response to a bill introduced by my colleague, the member for Hamilton Mountain. Her bill would amend the Income Tax Act so that travel and accommodation for tradespersons would be allowed which would therefore enable many of those tradespersons to find work. As members know, unemployment is a serious problem in our region.

[National Defence, December 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians who serve our country expect their government to be there for them in their time of need. Instead, the Conservatives are closing Veterans Affairs offices and failing our service men and women. Almost two dozen of our brave heroes took their own lives in 2011, and there were four more apparent suicides this past week.

Instead of hollow words, will the minister acknowledge that more must be done and tell us what action he will take to ensure our armed forces have the support they need?

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for a very thorough investigation of the bill.

She pointed out something particularly troublesome and particularly relevant; that is, once the images go out on the Internet they can be very damaging. Far too many young people do not have a real sense of just how serious it is when they send these pictures and how it can destroy a life, how it can impact a young person's life for many years in very upsetting and dangerous circumstances.

In addition to the key part of the bill, the provision whereby it is not permitted to send out explicit images, might it not have been better for the government to include funding for anti-bullying programming so that we could make that effort to warn young people, to give them some tools with regard to protecting themselves?

Instead, we have all this extraneous and rather troublesome government add-on. It is far better to have a prevention program.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for his ideas in regard to this important legislation.

I would like to know what concerns or fears he has in regard to the add-ons that the government has placed in the bill. These add-ons perhaps give too much power or opportunity for persons in authority to undermine the privacy of Canadians.

[Offshore Health and Safety Act, November 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore for his work and his passion in regard to the people who live in the Atlantic provinces, not just in his riding but all along the coast. He truly is an advocate, whether it is for veterans or workers. I am very proud that he is indeed my colleague.

The member made mention of safety issues. We know that the North Atlantic is absolutely unforgiving when it comes to weather and we know the dangers, whether for fishers or for those working on the oil rigs. Some time ago I read a novel called February. It was about the sinking of the Ocean Ranger. That novel talked about the devastation for families and what happened to the kids of the dads who never came home and to the wives and lovers. It truly underscored how absolutely critical it is that we take into account the safety of the workers in this country. This bill does, and so it should.

My colleague made mention of the impact on families and communities. If we want to be absolutely pragmatic, perhaps the economy is at the root of the work that goes on. If we do not have proper safety rules and regulations, the things that protect families, how on earth can we grow our economy?

Would people be willing, by any stretch, to put themselves and their families at risk if there were no safety regulations? If we do not have workers, then we do not have an economy.

[Respect for Communities Act, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I guess we touched a nerve.

I am very happy to reply. It is very important for a community to have safe injection sites like InSite. Given all of the promises of all of the Liberal governments, if it came through once, that is not such a bad thing.

However, I also remember no child care. I also remember their promises to help first nations. I also remember that when it came to the most vulnerable of Canadians, those who had lost their jobs, it was the Liberal government and then the subsequent Conservative government that took—and I use the word “took”—$57 billion out of the employment insurance account and then said it was so sad that they could not support the families and people who were unemployed.

I do think there is perhaps hypocrisy in the air, but I will not name it.

[Respect for Communities Act, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting. As members may tell from my vintage, I am a veteran of Liberal campaigns. I remember all the red books. There was a red book in 1993, and then again in 1997 and 2000. There was one red book after another. In each and every one of those red books, there were promises for child care, pharmacare, and improving the lives of Canadians. I ran in a couple of those elections when the Liberals won, and strangely enough none of those promises were kept. They talk a good game and are very persuasive. They have the name recognition and the coiffure to influence. However, when it comes to substance and to standing up and effecting change when they have power, it is not there.

I thank my colleague for the question. I can only say that we should judge them by what they do, because they do not do much.

[Respect for Communities Act, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by making it clear that the NDP and I oppose Bill C-2. The bill is a thinly veiled attempt to arbitrarily shut down InSite. Beyond Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Bill C-2 would make it next to impossible to open a safe injection site anywhere, no matter how desperately a community may need one, no matter how much suffering exists.

It is not pleasant to think about intravenous drug use. However, it exists, and it is happening on a scale that makes it a public problem in need of a public solution. Bill C-2 is a move in the wrong direction and will only exacerbate the problem further.

There are approximately 100,000 Canadians who say they have injected themselves with drugs like cocaine, heroin, OxyContin, and crystal meth. Bill C-2 does nothing to help Canadian drug addicts. It does nothing to address this as a public health issue.

Though the short title of the bill is “respect for communities act”, we must make no mistake that this legislation will hurt our communities. The title is the usual Conservative Orwellian newspeak, meant to pretend that the government is acting positively. If Bill C-2 is passed and communities that need supervised injection sites cannot build them, where does the government want drug users to go? There certainly has not been any real answer articulated on that question.

Let me tell members about the impact that Bill C-2 will have. It will push drug users into our communities, into the alleyways, on to our town streets, and into our neighbourhood parks. There will be nowhere else for addicts to go but to the public spaces in our communities.

One year after InSite opened, there was a significant drop in the number of people injecting on the streets and much less injection-related litter, such as discarded syringes. If for no other reason than to keep intravenous drug users off the streets of our communities, we need supervised injection sites like InSite. The element of protection that these sites provide is not just for the drug users but for the community at large.

We must also remember that supervised injection sites facilitate contact between drug users and those specialists who can help them to get off drugs or become sober. InSite has proven that its frequent patrons are one and a half times more likely to eventually enrol in detox programs.

Standing in the way of supervised drug injection sites means standing in the way of helping people to get sober and kick dangerous habits. Therefore, I wonder why the government is so hostile to supervised drug injection sites. Does it want an increase of unsupervised drug users? Perversely, could it be that the government wants to fill its prisons with drug addicts? For those who mindlessly support the prospect of more prisons, the prospect of more full prisons must be quite satisfying.

Bill C-2 does nothing to stop drug use or encourage sobriety. It does not deter Canadians from injecting themselves with drugs. Denying Canadian drug addicts access to supervised injection sites unfortunately denies the people who use drugs a safe and clean way of doing so. We do not have to condone drug use to see the benefit of supervised injection sites. We must face reality. Drug addicts use drugs. The least we can do is to reduce the harm around this activity and try to steer addicts toward help. They deserve this offer of help. There is no such thing as a throwaway human being.

It is not an exaggeration to say that access to facilities such as InSite is a matter of health and safety, life and death. Let me remind members that in 2011 the Supreme Court ruled in support of InSite. The Supreme Court told the federal government that it could not inhibit safe injection sites from operating. The ruling was based on section 7 of the charter. Therefore, according to the Supreme Court of Canada, legislation such as Bill C-2 is against the fundamental right to life, liberty, and security. The people in this chamber demand those rights for themselves. Why on earth would they deny these rights to others?

Elsewhere in the world, safe injection sites operate in 70 cities in six different European countries and Australia. Safe injection sites reduce harm. They improve a community's public health, reduce disease and have absolutely no negative impact on public safety. In fact, they enhance public safety, all the while preserving human lives. These are the lives of people who are someone's brother or sister. They are people who were once beloved children, cherished family members. They were not always drug addicts. These are the lives of people who deserve to be saved and respected and who deserve to be healthy and safe.

Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has been described as home to as many as 5,000 injection drug users. Despite being drug users, these 5,000 people remain Canadians, much to the chagrin of the current government. Even if we do not agree with their life choices and drug use, the government must not abandon them. They are Canadians. They are human lives, and they are vulnerable. If their government is able to help, it is morally obligated to do so. However, Bill C-2 does not help; in fact, it hinders.

In Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, InSite has made a positive difference. Human lives have been saved since InSite first opened. The number of accidental drug overdose deaths has been reduced by 35. Those who use InSite once a week have been shown to be 1.7 times more likely to enrol in detox programs than those who visit infrequently. Injection drug users who use InSite are 70% less likely to share needles. Reduced needle sharing is an internationally recognized best practice to reduce the rate of HIV-AIDS and various other diseases. Finally, InSite patrons are more likely to seek medical care through the program, which results in fewer emergency room visits and improved health outcomes. It might also be of interest to the Conservative government that fewer emergency room visits equal cost savings to our health care system.

This is just a smattering of InSite's positive impact. This impact has been proven in over 30 peer-reviewed studies, published in journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and the British Medical Journal. Further, the experts at the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association are also against Bill C-2.

I implore the government to listen to the science, to Canadian doctors and nurses, and abandon Bill C-2.

InSite does good work. It must be allowed to continue to operate. More than 80% of people surveyed in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside want it to continue to operate. Will the Conservative government listen to the only community in Canada that currently has a supervised injection site? Will it listen to the people of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and respect what they want because they support InSite?

We can only ask why the government refuses to respect the scientific and medical communities that support safe injection sites. Why does the government want to abandon those who have been so vulnerable and unfortunate as to become drug addicts? Why does the government not understand that safe injections sites are part of a community harm reduction strategy? Such sites improve the community for everyone who lives alongside drug users.

Bill C-2 goes against all scientific evidence and experts who show that supervised injection sites reduce harm. The bill goes against the charter and the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Conservative government goes against the moral obligation to reduce harm to drug users.

We must not give up on people, even if they seem to have given up on themselves. Without solutions to address substance abuse, we must at least try to implement harm reduction strategies.

We must not abandon people, particularly when they are in despair. Without a solution to drug addiction, we must, at the very least, try to implement harm reduction.

For these reasons, the New Democratic Party and I oppose Bill C-2.

As a sideline, the Heinz company just announced the closure of its plant in Leamington. U.S. Steel is shutting down in Hamilton. In my town of London, Ontario, we have lost far too many good-paying jobs. Despite all that, the Conservative government chooses to assault the vulnerable instead of focusing on the economy and the good jobs that we need to support families and communities.

I rest my case.

[Petitions, November 18th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition regarding my private member's bill, Bill C-498. The petitioners are asking that the Thames River be reincluded in the Navigable Waters Protection Act, granting heritage protection to the North Thames, Middle Thames, and Thames Rivers. This would ensure that any development that would impact its navigation would undergo a strict environmental assessment.

The petitioners want the government to realize the detrimental impact that reckless changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act have on these treasured waterways across all of southern Ontario and, indeed, across this country.