Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill, but I think this is a sorry debate. This debate is clearly demonstrating that ideology conflicts with the facts.
Bill C-2 before us would amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which would prevent groups from setting up supervised injection sites and offering those services across the country.
I would like to talk about this issue in relation to what is currently going on in Quebec. I have here with me a report by the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal. Quebec began addressing this issue over 13 years ago. For more than 13 years, health and social services professionals have been working on this, studying the issue, conducting pilot projects and consulting agencies to see how Quebec may or may not want to integrate services such as supervised injection sites. Quebec has been working hard on this and I am sure other parts of the country have as well.
In 2000, at the request of the department of health and social services, Quebec formed a cocaine addicts intervention committee. The committee's mandate was to come up with strategies to improve the quality of life of cocaine addicts. One year later, the committee recommended setting up a pilot project. As you can see, these consultations started quite some time ago.
In 2003, the same department mandated the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal to conduct a feasibility study for setting up injection sites. The advisory committee made two proposals: first, a pilot project to create a drop-in centre and social integration services for injection drug users; and, second, consider adding a supervised injection site to existing services.
Experiments and consultations followed. It would be a shame if all this work of the past 13 years became increasingly difficult or was even tossed aside because of a bill that came out of nowhere and is based on Conservative ideology.
Institutions such as the Institut national de santé publique du Québec or the Coalition réduction des méfaits, which is made up of 32 community organizations, are involved in the process. The process takes into account expert opinions and what is happening in Quebec and the City of Montreal.
This is not a situation where you can barge in and do something on an impulse or because it is what a voter base is suggesting. This is serious. Here is how it works: there is a consultation and pilot projects are set up. That is a very important step. I think the Conservatives' approach should be modelled on this sort of process, which takes facts and expert opinions into account, shows compassion and reflects the differences in the communities affected.
This very important step could become obsolete, meaning that it could end up being pointless. The Conservatives' bill is undermining 13 years of consultations and meaningful work. It is unfortunate, and it is not something we should accept.
Le Devoir recently published an article about the reaction of stakeholders in Quebec to Bill C-2. I would like to share a quote from the article:
Cactus Montréal and public health director Dr. Richard Massé are concerned that their jobs will become more difficult. [Dr. Massé wondered] how much of a say minority groups will have in this bill. These services save lives. It is too early to say what will happen, but this appears to create some significant barriers, even though the Supreme Court clearly said that not providing these services was a violation of human rights.
Those involved in the process are concerned and are wondering whether this will make their jobs harder, and understandably so.
I am only naming those ones. However, all the experts who appeared before the committee spoke against this bill. There is no reason to believe that this bill would be beneficial for people's health. It is completely ironic that the Minister of Health would defend such a bill. Indeed, the Minister of Justice should be rising to defend his tough on crime agenda.
Frankly, the connection between Bill C-2 and health is not trivial; it is actually significant. For that reason we should vote against Bill C-2. If we really care about the health of Canadians, then, well, this bill is just plain wrong.
There is a supervised injection site in Vancouver and it is obviously effective. The evidence is there. There has been a 35% decrease in overdose deaths in Vancouver since this site opened. Furthermore, InSite has been shown to decrease crime, communicable disease infection rates and relapse rates for drug users.
This is what I am talking about. If we truly care about the health of Canadians, we must understand that this bill does not make any sense in terms of improving people's health. If the government really wants to help people stay healthy, it will make resources available to respond to their needs and to prevent crime, death and disease. It is high time we trusted the experts working on the ground when they speak in favour of or against such a bill.
I would like to draw the members' attention to a very concrete example involving another bill that I considered. This bill had a nice title and promised to fight elder abuse. In fact, it made only a small amendment to the Criminal Code, which might result in harsher sentences for crimes of elder abuse, although that is not a given. The NDP voted in favour of this bill and supported it.
However, we have to really look at the facts here. Temporary committees were created as part of the federal parliamentary process, and an all-party committee proposed some possible solutions, saying that intervention and prevention programs were needed to combat elder abuse. That is what we need to focus on if we really want to combat elder abuse. The bill was supposed to address elder abuse, and yet it made only one small amendment that would not really change anything in order to address this issue.
The same thing is happening here. An issue has been put on the table. However, if we really want to improve people's health, that is not the right direction to take.
I would like to talk about AJOI, an organization created on the West Island in Montreal to help at-risk street youth. First of all, people did not think that problem existed on the West Island. It took a long time for street youth at risk of becoming involved in crime to have access to this service. The project was created thanks to exceptional stakeholders, like Mr. Langevin, who believed in such projects. A number of stakeholders are now involved in the centre, which is well known in the community. This is the kind of project that really helps people.
Furthermore, the Centre Bienvenue provides supervised apartments for people with intellectual disabilities. That centre had to fight to exist. The neighbours did not want it in their community because they said it would increase crime and reduce property values. Ultimately, after speaking with and consulting their neighbours, the Centre Bienvenue officials convinced them and informed them of the reality of the situation. Thanks to that work in the community, people now have such a centre to turn to.
Here is what the Conservatives should do: instead of responding to people's fears and spreading false information, they should educate people about the benefits of supervised injection sites and forge ahead by reassuring Canadians. That would be the right thing to do for Canadians.
