Mr. Speaker, I admit to a certain amount of soul-searching before writing my speech on the bill. It caused me to meditate quite a bit about what the role of a parliamentarian really is and the role of lawmakers in general. I am going to start there before going on to the bill itself.
What is our role here? The bill brings up this fundamental question. What are we called to be as parliamentarians? The answer is many things. First and foremost is the voice of our constituents, but we are also asked to use our conscience as any other citizen must do in his or her daily life. It is truly a great privilege to be an elected official, but there are pitfalls to this privilege. It can bring much arrogance, egotism and hubris, and we must keep at the forefront of our minds what we have no right to claim as our own power. No, this privilege does not bring with it any right to judge our fellow human beings. We are in no way morally superior because we have attained high office. We are as everyone, ecce homo, only human; dignified, yes, fundamentally good, filled with light and hope but not perfect. Yes, we are not perfect, but perfectible.
We must evacuate all sense of moral superiority and arrogance from our role as legislators. Most of all, we must be careful not to usurp the powers that belong not to us but to the one who made us. We must be careful when we choose to look upon our fellow human beings and judge them and see them as something other than us, something to be reviled or to be stigmatized. This is not the way of compassion as I have come to understand it.
Addiction is a terrible affliction. As a non-addict, I cannot imagine the struggle it represents every day to need a substance so much to be happy and to alleviate my suffering that I will do almost anything to get it. There is a malaise to our modernity. Our industrial society and its competitive ethos weighs heavily on the human spirit. Many people are unhappy and materialism has kept a lot of us from what is most noble and great in human beings. In this disjointed, mechanized, crass and sometimes violent and abusive culture we live in, how can we blame those most alienated and marginalized from it for suffering?
I believe that a response to this malaise and its many sicknesses must be compassion. We must offer to addicts, like any other human being, a way to be healed from what afflicts them. The question of supporting the bill does not lie in the personal views of the morality of injection sites, but in the evidence of their efficacy as a cure. Do they protect a fellow human being from the ravages of his or her disease? Do they increase his or her chances to be cured? These, in my opinion, are the fundamental and compassionate questions we should be asking.
The facts are clear. For example, people who made use of services at InSite—a supervised injection site in Vancouver—at least once a week were 1.7 times more likely to enrol in a permanent detox program. Evidence also shows that supervised injection sites effectively reduce the risk of contracting and spreading blood-borne diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis C. Evidence has also shown that these sites do not negatively affect public safety and that, in certain cases, they even promote it by reducing the injection of drugs in public, the violence associated with such behaviour, and drug-related waste. Furthermore, safe injection sites make it possible to strike the appropriate balance between public health and public safety. They also connect people in urgent need of health care with the services they need, such as primary health care and drug treatment services.
My colleagues do not have to take my word for it. These facts have been confirmed by health care professionals across the country. For example, the Canadian Medical Association said:
Supervised injection programs are an important harm reduction strategy. Harm reduction is a central pillar in a comprehensive public health approach to disease prevention and health promotion.
The Canadian Nurses Association stated:
Evidence demonstrates that supervised injection sites and other harm reduction programs bring critical health and social services to vulnerable populations—especially those experiencing poverty, mental illness and homelessness. A government truly committed to public health and safety would work to enhance access to prevention and treatment services—instead of building more barriers.
The facts are clear: these centres have a positive impact on addicts and on our society. For example, the rate of overdose deaths in Vancouver East has fallen by 35% since InSite was opened. A study conducted over a one-year period shows that there were 273 overdoses at InSite but none of them were fatal. In one year, 2,171 users of InSite were referred to addiction counselling or other support services.
Injection drug users who are clients of InSite are 70% less likely to share needles. Reduction of needle sharing has been cited as a best practice at the international level for reducing rates of HIV and AIDS. Users of InSite are more likely to seek medical care through the site.
However, the Conservatives are remaining obstinate: they intend to be the judges of these people who are suffering enormously because of their addiction. Essentially, Bill C-2 is part and parcel of a broader Conservative initiative to bring all government policies and programs in line with their anti-drug and anti-addiction ideals. They are slowly eliminating every means whereby Canadians can access injection sites. The effect of the Conservatives’ agenda is to reverse the progress made in public health and the community benefits attributable to harm reduction programs over the last 20 years.
There is no denying that the Conservatives have been trying for years to close supervised injection sites. They have spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on court proceedings to get them shut down. They are even prepared to defy the Supreme Court ruling, undermine the court’s decision and find some other way to close down supervised injection sites, which do not square with Conservative ideology. Why are they so bent on refusing to heal people who are sick? Why not choose compassion instead of judgment?
If this remedy did not work and had no benefits, I might understand the position of the Conservative government, but that is not the case. It seems to me that it is our duty to rid ourselves of our prejudices, show compassion to addicts and create conditions that will help them overcome their difficult situation.
