Libby Davies

[Broadcasting Industry, February 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian television fund was not meant to be a hidden tax to consumers. We all remember last year's fiasco when Shaw and Vidéotron refused to live up to their obligations. In fact, they were forced to reverse themselves, despite the lack of leadership from the heritage minister.

Cable companies must live up to their obligations and they cannot do so by ripping off Canadians.

Why is the government letting cable companies pass the buck to consumers? Why is the government refusing to take action to protect Canadians from these cable company fee grabs? Why is the government not taking action?

[Broadcasting Industry, February 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to sticking up for consumers, the Conservatives cannot be trusted. We saw it on ATM fees, on cellphone charges and on credit card rates.

Now we learn that at CRTC hearings, for two years the government failed to take action to protect consumers from cable company overcharge. We are talking about more than $1.2 billion owed to Canadians.

Would the government tell us why ordinary Canadians are overpaying for cable services and why the government has done diddly-squat to stop it?

[HIV-AIDS among Aboriginal People, February 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this is probably the last comment I will make in the debate because I believe the parliamentary secretary is the last speaker. I would like to thank the members who participated in this very important debate tonight. I hope it brings some greater attention to and understanding of the terrible crisis in the downtown eastside around poverty, HIV-AIDS and the situation facing injection drug users in particular. There are many issues involved.

There is something that I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary. I guess I wonder what will have changed as a result of tonight. I want to be as positive as I can. I hope that as a result of tonight's debate the government has listened very carefully to what has been brought forward.

I want to ask the parliamentary secretary if he might say something about having a better understanding of the importance of harm reduction and whether the government will acknowledge that additional resources are needed for treatment, housing, poverty alleviation and community development. In my mind, that is not questionable, because otherwise we would not have a crisis.

Finally, would the parliamentary secretary acknowledge the incredible broad support that there is for Insite in the downtown eastside? No one tonight has said that the support is unanimous, by the way, but in that community and in Vancouver it is very high. There is about 73% support.

I want to ask the parliamentary secretary if the government will really consider that. Will it move off its political agenda, recognize the incredible importance of the work that Insite is doing and allow it to continue to operate beyond its temporary permit?

[HIV-AIDS among Aboriginal People, February 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the member for St. Paul's mentioned some of the truly remarkable people who have been involved in producing information about the HIV-AIDS crisis in the downtown eastside and elsewhere.

She mentioned Liz Evans for one, who did speak, on Tuesday I believe, here on Parliament Hill, from the Portland Hotel Society, who is very involved in the operation of Insite, a very remarkable organization. She also mentioned people like Dr. Montaner, Dr. Wood, who did the study that we referred to tonight, Dr. Thomas Kerr, who has done many of the studies around Insite, and Dr. Martin Schechter. There are remarkable individuals in the academic and scientific communities, as well as community leaders who have kept the faith in terms of pressing the issue, in terms of the need to abide by workable public policy to look at evidence based results.

At the close of this debate, it is really important to recognize that we should be focusing on sound public policy. If we did that, we could be addressing many of the issues in the downtown eastside.

[HIV-AIDS among Aboriginal People, February 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's comments. Obviously he is reading from a long list of projects that have had some funding or will get some funding. I do not think anyone is disputing the fact that funding exists. Part of the debate we have had tonight is the fact that there is completely inadequate funding. Over the years, cuts have been made to the HIV-AIDS programs. Our organizations are struggling, whether it is within the aboriginal community, and I named some in my riding of Vancouver East, or elsewhere across the country. It also includes national organizations.

The member tries to give us the illusion that his government is taking the right action and is providing the necessary supports and resources, and it is an illusion. If it were something that was having the right kind of impact, we would not be seeing the kinds of reports that have sparked this emergency debate. We would not see the four year study that Evan Wood did for the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in British Columbia. We would not see other studies come forward, showing an alarming increase in the rate of HIV-AIDS among injection drug users.

I ask the member to think about that and share with us whether the government has the commitment to realistically address those needs, whether it is through the health care system or through the provision of housing.

To come back to the question of Insite, the safe injection facility is a program that has worked. It has saved lives and helped people gain access to treatment . Yet it is operating with a great sense of insecurity about its future. It only has a temporary exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to operate until the end of June.

The very reason there is an emergency is because public policy has failed. It has failed on many different levels. Therefore, I find the member's comments tonight to be very far from where we are in terms of reality.

[HIV-AIDS among Aboriginal People, February 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will speak very quickly.

The member commented on the impact of drug prohibition itself. One of the serious issues here is that the criminalization of drug users is actually accelerating the HIV infection rate as people are basically operating outside of the mainstream of society.

I just wonder if he would comment on that as a contributing factor to the crisis we face.

[HIV-AIDS among Aboriginal People, February 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the comments from the parliamentary secretary and would certainly agree that economic opportunity needs to be there for all people, particularly people who have been disadvantaged by socio-economic status.

However, what drives me crazy is this lack of understanding or willingness to accept that before economic opportunity can exist people need to have basic necessities covered, whether it is shelter and housing, income security, food, or safety. If they do not have those, and if they think they will get kicked out at the end of the week or they do not have a roof over their heads, it is pretty hard to go to school or to take advantage of whatever economic opportunity there might be. If a person is living way below the poverty line, that economic opportunity does not exist.

I would like to ask the member if he acknowledges that. What does he mean by economic opportunity? Does he include in that the recognition of meeting these very basic human needs that in my community are being completely unmet by his government? We have not seen any housing dollars from the federal government coming into our community to build the housing that is desperately needed. Will he acknowledge that this needs to be addressed?

[HIV-AIDS among Aboriginal People, February 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg South Centre for her comments tonight. She is very knowledgeable on aboriginal issues and she recently visited the downtown eastside, as she mentioned.

The member used the words “despair” and “notorious”. I have to say that sometimes I feel that the media spotlight on the downtown eastside portrays a stereotypical negative view of this community of about 10,000 people.

I know the member visited the Aboriginal Mother Centre Society, the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre and maybe other places. There are amazing organizations in this neighbourhood, such as the Knowledge Aboriginal Youth Alliance, KAYA, the Urban Native Youth Association, the Carnegie Centre, Downtown Eastside Residents Association, the First United Church, Vancouver Native Health Society, and Healing Our Spirit. There are incredible organizations that have a tremendous resiliency to what is going on.

There are groups like VANDU, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, or WAHRS that I mentioned earlier. These are people who are fighting back. I am always very concerned about the characterization of the community. There is despair over how governments treat the community but the sense of community spirit, pulling together and uniting is unbelievable. I do not see it anywhere else to that extent.

I wanted to put that into the debate because we are left with these negative views about the community.

[HIV-AIDS among Aboriginal People, February 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate the parliamentary secretary is being so partisan in his comments tonight. I would certainly like to thank both the member for Laval and her colleague from the Bloc who are participating in this debate tonight and bringing forward genuine information, sentiment, feeling and passion about this important issue.

I certainly want to thank the member for Laval for bringing us back to the point that this is about human rights. It is about people's dignity. It is about providing the basic essentials, so that people can meet their own potential whether or not they have HIV or AIDS.

I would like to ask the member if she could maybe talk a bit about harm reduction programs in Quebec? We often look to Quebec as a place where progressive things are done in many areas, whether it is child care or housing. I would like her to maybe say a little bit about what harm reduction programs do exist in Quebec--

[HIV-AIDS among Aboriginal People, February 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Vancouver Centre for participating in this important debate tonight and also for her very good understanding of this issue. In fact, the member and I were both part of the special parliamentary committee on the non-medical use of drugs. It included all parties. Randy White, a former member of Parliament, was on the committee as well. We had some interesting times.

One of the things we learned was that so much of the policy in Canada has been driven by the U.S. agenda. Certainly when she speaks about Insite, it was very much modelled on what we learned and understood to be working in the European context, where a safe injection facility is just part of a comprehensive strategy. I think at some points we almost had the Conservative member convinced, but then he had to keep moving back to his party's position.

There is a new bill before the House, Bill C-26, regarding minimum mandatory sentences for drug crimes. One of the things I am very concerned about is that we are moving in the direction of increased enforcement, of criminalization of drug users. That is very alarming. It is very much the U.S. style of the war on drugs. It is what George Bush has adopted. Certainly the Prime Minister and the Conservative government seem to be moving in this direction very rapidly.

I am very concerned about Insite being shut down and what that would mean in terms of more overdoses in our community. I am very concerned about this so-called anti-drug strategy, which really is a U.S.-style approach .

I just wonder if the member would comment on that.