House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 43% of the vote.
National Defense December 2nd, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the only thing the Conservatives seem clear on is that it is illegal for CSEC to spy on Canadians. However, they continue to duck the question of whether they actually allowed the Americans to do the spying for them.
This agency, the Communications Security Establishment, costs taxpayers millions every year. Why are the Conservatives refusing to ensure that it answers to the public. Why are they afraid of greater public oversight over CSEC's operations?
Public Safety November 28th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, one wonders whether the minister has actually read the Correctional Investigator's report. He is ignoring the fact that our institutions have failed to keep pace with the huge increases in aboriginal and visible minority populations in custody. This is not tough on crime. It is a recipe for making our prisons more violent and putting Canadians at risk when our offenders come back into our communities.
When will the minister accept these recommendations and work with the Correctional Investigator instead of attacking him?
Respect for Communities Act November 28th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, I heard the same comment and I think it betrays a very fundamental ignorance about the nature of addiction and in particular injection drug use on the streets in our cities. There is no such thing as a happy addict, and no easy way out of this medical condition. That is why we have the responsibility, as a society, to do everything we can to restore people with serious addictions back to being productive members of society and loving members of their families.
Respect for Communities Act November 28th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to reality here. In my previous speech on the bill, I referred to the B.C. coroner's report from October 2012, which showed that on Vancouver Island, where I am from, there were 44 deaths from illicit drug use in 2011, with 16 of those occurring in my community in greater Victoria. There is a real human cost here, which means there is a need in my community to have something like a safe injection site, and for those harm reduction measures that both save money and save lives.
Respect for Communities Act November 28th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, obviously all of us in this chamber hold different beliefs. There are some on the other side who, I know, have publicly said they do not believe in evolution. I am not concerned about that because that does not really affect my life.
However, when they say they do not believe in safe injection sites, that affects other people's lives. That affects their safety, their ability to get help. It affects their ability, literally, to survive. Therefore, it is not really a question of beliefs, because we have evidence that we can go on of the very positive contribution that safe injection sites make toward safer communities and better health for Canadians.
Respect for Communities Act November 28th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak again on Bill C-2. I did speak previously on the amendment that was proposed to Bill C-2 and gave a broader speech on my opposition to the bill then. Today, I want to focus on HIV/AIDS and Bill C-2.
Today I am wearing an AIDS ribbon as a reminder of World AIDS Day this December 1. I want to restate the AIDS Society's message this year, which is, “If you think the fight against HIV/AIDS has been won... Think again. It's not over”.
I think that's a very important message for all of us in the House of Commons, particularly when we are debating a bill such as Bill C-2.
I am from a generation of men who lost many, in fact, most of my closest friends to HIV/AIDS. When this was being ignored as a gay disease, gay men had to organize and fight back against prejudice and ignorance. Society responded, in particular, the medical community responded quite strongly. We have made great progress, but we have not cured AIDS.
Now an HIV/AIDS diagnosis is no longer a death sentence, but it is still a very serious medical condition. It is one which has great costs, and the Conservatives are always worried about costs. In financial terms, it has been estimated at about $500,000 per new case of HIV/AIDS, but it also takes a great personal toll on our friends and families.
It is still a serious medical condition, but the success we have had has led to some unfortunate consequences.
One of those consequences is the rise of HIV/AIDS rates among young gay men, again. Some of the education we have been doing is obviously failing as a new generation of gay men are coming up and feeling invincible, as all young people do, but also feeling that somehow HIV/AIDS medical progress means it is something they do not have to worry about. We have to recommit ourselves to doing that education in the gay community so that people are aware of the seriousness that HIV/AIDS still represents.
However, another thing has happened, which is that the main population being affected by AIDS has shifted. While AIDS was highly prevalent in most cases in the 1980s and 1990s among gay men, we have had a change and now over half the new cases of HIV/AIDS are among injection drug users.
This is a population, again, for which there is a great deal of prejudice. I was very disturbed by the comments from the member for Prince George—Peace River when he talked about “happy addicts”. There is no such thing as a happy addict. It is indicative of the ignorance that some members have about addiction as a serious medical problem. We are talking about how we deal with this medical problem. Injection drug users are now, in most parts of the country, the largest number of HIV/AIDS infections, and this has been true for much of the past decade.
Therefore, both the idea that HIV/AIDS is a manageable medical condition and the moral opprobrium that we heap on injection drug users means that we are now tending to ignore this problem in an important part of our society. We treat HIV drug users as if they have some kind of moral failing, as if somehow they have not understood how they have to act, instead of thinking about the reality of the situation, which is that addiction is a medical problem.
What does this have to do directly with Bill C-2?
I want to speak about a policy paper from the Canadian AIDS Society on injection drug use and HIV/AIDS. It refers to what it calls a health crisis caused by an epidemic of injection drug use. I think the use of the term “epidemic” is quite apt. This is a medical condition. This is not a moral condition of our society.
According to the Canadian AIDS Society, starting in 1996, over half of the new HIV/AIDS infections in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver were as a result of injection drug use. Starting as early as 1996, we have seen the shift in the population most seriously affected by HIV/AIDS. Now, the AIDS Society reports, that trend has extended across the entire country to smaller cities and rural areas. The focus of new infections is the injection drug user community.
There are obvious reasons, and one of those is sharing needles and other drug paraphernalia and equipment. However, there is a secondary reason I do not think we like to face up to, which is that many injection drug users engage in unsafe sex while high on drugs, and this is a significant contributor to HIV/AIDS infections. In fact, in our major cities it is not uncommon among young male street youth to trade unprotected sex for injection drugs, again, putting themselves seriously at risk.
No one does this as a conscious choice of something fun to do. They do it out of circumstance and they do it out of an addiction condition, which is medical.
The solutions are to be found, obviously, in harm reduction and in particular in safe injection sites.
I want to refer to a backgrounder that was produced by the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition on supervised consumption sites. What it has done is it has tried to summarize the research. We hear the Conservatives asking, “Where are the facts? Where is the evidence?” I am actually going to take a moment to go, point by point, through the findings that are summarized in the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition backgrounder on what research, peer-tested research studies, have shown.
What the research has found is that safe injection sites are used by people who inject drugs, including those who are at the highest risk. Therefore, when I talked about young male street workers, these people who are at the highest risk will often end up at the safe injection site.
The second finding is that they reduce overdose deaths. No deaths have occurred at the InSite safe injection site since its inception.
Third, they reduce behaviour such as the use of shared needles, which can lead not only to HIV infections but also to hep C infections.
Fourth, they reduce other unsafe injection practices and encourage the use of sterile materials. Therefore, users of these services are more likely to report changes to their injection practices and more likely to consult health professionals for assistance in crises resulting from injection drug use.
Fifth, they also increase the use of detox and other treatment services. The other side likes to point to providing a safe and warm place to inject drugs. That is not really what it is about. It is about providing a safe place, yes, but a place where there are other services on site. Therefore, when vulnerable populations build a relationship at InSite, the research shows 30% are much more likely to use detoxification and counselling services. Thirty per cent are more likely to actually try to get help as a result of being at the safe injection site.
Sixth, they are cost-effective. Research shows InSite prevents 35 new cases of HIV and three deaths a year, providing a societal benefit, in monetary terms, of $6 million per year. Of course, I do not wish, at any time, to try to quantify the personal savings in saving three lives, because those are people's kids, people's brothers, people's sisters, people's parents.
Seventh, they reduce public drug use. I think the most disturbing thing that happened when the bill was being talked about by the government was that it sent out a fundraiser saying, “Keep heroin out of our backyards”. That is exactly what safe injection sites do. They reduce the public use of injection drugs. They reduce the incidents of finding needles on public streets. They reduce the amount of publicly discarded injection equipment.
Finally, they do not cause an increase in crime around safe injection sites. In fact, crime rates have gone down around safe injection sites.
Those are the facts. There is the research about safe injection sites.
I think it is very important, when Conservatives call for the facts, that we actually look at the facts about safe injection sites. We will find that they save lives, they prevent new HIV/AIDS infections, they save money, they reduce crime, they make our neighbourhoods safer, and finally, the most important one to me, they create community support for treating injection drug use as an addiction and public support for harm reduction measures.
When people in the Downtown Eastside were surveyed, it was found that over 80% of those who live and work in the Downtown Eastside support a safe injection site. Bill C-2 is called “respecting communities”. I would like to call it just ironic, but I think it is a cruel irony that when people are saying they need safe injection sites in their communities, the Conservatives introduce a bill that would frustrate that in every way possible and call it “respecting communities”. It is directly the opposite.
The bill aims to shut down the supervised injection site in east Vancouver and to prevent any other supervised injection sites from operating. Why else do we have 26 conditions, literally, (a) to (z), set out in the bill? Even if every one of those conditions were met, it would not require the minister to issue a licence. It only says the minister “may” issue a licence.
Once again, I believe the bill is actually a fraud on the House of Commons, a fraud on the public. It is designed to frustrate a very important public health measure. I will be doing everything I can to ensure the Conservatives see the harm they would be doing, rather than the harm they could be reducing.
Public Safety November 26th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General found that, for all their posturing, the Conservatives are failing to prevent people from entering the country illegally. Systems are not working as intended. Agencies are not receiving key information about high-risk travellers and the CBSA budget has been cut.
The Auditor General said, “Failure to prevent illegal entry compromises Canada’s border, the immigration program, and the safety and security of Canadians”.
When will the Conservatives stop grandstanding and start properly managing our borders?
Drug-Free Prisons Act November 25th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member for St. John's East sees the same pattern that I see when we talk about drugs and the Conservative policy on drugs.
In 2007, the Conservative government removed harm reduction from the goals of our national drug policy. Bill C-2 is on safe injection sites, and the government is treating it as a public security matter rather than a health matter. In talking about drug-free prisons, it is a failure to acknowledge that addiction is a medical problem rather than a moral problem.
Drug-Free Prisons Act November 25th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech and welcome him to the public safety committee, where I know he is going to make some very important contributions.
I want to go back to something the member for Prince Edward—Hastings raised a few moments ago when he talked about some magic realism connection between the Conservatives tough-on-crime policies and the falling crime rate. I would point out, of course, that the crime rate has been falling for 40 years without the benefit of the Conservative measures.
Then the Conservatives always leap to unreported crime and say the rate is falling because unreported crime is going up. In fact Statistics Canada conducts the general social survey every five years, when it asks Canadians about victimization, and gives us a picture of unreported crime. There is absolutely no evidence that unreported crime is rising.
What we have here is a case of the Conservatives trying to take credit for a social trend with their policies, which have had absolutely no impact in lowering the crime rate. What we do know is that the number of people in prison has been going up despite that declining crime rate, and that the budget for corrections is being cut.
I would like to ask the member how he thinks the Conservatives can square this circle. How can we provide more addiction treatment in prisons when the Conservatives are cutting the budget? Right now the total budget for programming is only 2.7% of the expenditures of the corrections department.
Drug-Free Prisons Act November 25th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, the member for Malpeque is proving to be a great addition to the public safety committee and I respect his expertise on this.
Has he any comment on the fact that the government spent more than $100 million over two years trying to improve interdiction programs and that the head of Correctional Service of Canada, at the end of that two-year period, said there was no effect on the rate of drug use in prisons after spending more than is spent on drug treatment programs on interdiction?