Stephen Ellis

[Business of Supply, May 18th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, while that member is up at night cruising around the dark web, we on this side of the House are understanding that there is a crisis in crime, that there is a crisis in the fact that the Liberal government supplied hydromorphone, which is being sold to buy illicit fentanyl, because that is what addicts are wanting right now.

We know that this is an untenable position and we know, on this side of the House, that we want Canadians to have a home: Our home, their home, bring it home.

[Business of Supply, May 18th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, there are not many things that can really get my ire up in the House, but right now I have to say that this is one of those things. The member of Bloc says we have a dogmatic approach. We are talking about creating consecutiveness and hope, giving people meaning in their lives, giving them identity and empowering them to have a better life. To say that it is a dogmatic and inappropriate approach, that it is somehow politicized, does not take into consideration the fact that the Liberal government has created an environment for social chaos and rampant violent crime. This is an approach that will actually give people a chance to recover, have new lives and rediscover their lives again. Shame on that member.

[Business of Supply, May 18th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, there were a few things in the member's question to talk about.

The first one is with respect to the 600 people who died in B.C. in the first three months of this year. They do not have an opportunity to get better.

The second one is that the member opposite, who is also a physician, quoted a study from London that talked about a study that lost people to follow up on, so we do not know how many of them died. They also gave those people social support, housing support and medical support. That is not what the Liberal government is doing. Those folks received a program. They received prescription medications.

The member opposite misled the House and carelessly used facts in that particular case to suggest that the program was the same as what safe supply is and what the vending machines, which the Liberal government spent $4.5 million in Vancouver and Victoria, are giving out on a daily basis. That is a different case and that is wrong.

[Business of Supply, May 18th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, in my mind, today represents a seminal moment in Canadian history. On one side, we have a Liberal government that wants to flood our country with drugs; on this side of the House, we have a compassionate program for treatment to reduce the hurt and turn it into hope.

How can we do that? What is “safe supply”, which we hear so often touted in this House of Commons? It is actually a term that was coined by Purdue Pharma. I am sure every Canadian out there knows what Purdue Pharma is. They would say, “Let us just put some safe opioids out there; it would be better for everybody. These are safe substances.” However, we all know what happened; everybody in this House knows what happened. That was the beginning of the opioid crisis. Even the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions knows that this happened.

We fast-forward to a program that was created as a policy in British Columbia in the early days of COVID-19, in 12 days, to create this “safe supply”. This means that now, the Liberal Canadian government is purchasing drugs for people to use. If we think about it, if I wanted to take illegal substances and someone was going to buy them for me, does it make sense that I would take less or that I would take more? I think the common sense of the common people out there would realize that this would compound the problem.

This program is beyond the comprehension of a common-sense person. The other important thing to understand is what the metrics are to measure whether it is working. Quite sadly, there are none. There are no outcome measures. There are no metrics. There is nothing to say that this is or is not working. This is a sad but grand social experiment, and it hurts me to say that.

I have personal experience in this; I worked in a chronic pain clinic as a physician adviser alongside a psychologist, an occupational therapist and a physiotherapist one day a week for 15 years, which is a long time. A lot of people there were using opioids. One of the things we know very clearly is that when people are suffering, if they do not have connectedness, hope, identity, meaning in their lives and empowerment, they do not do well. They suffer, and shame on the Liberal government for wanting this to continue.

One thing we know very clearly is that, in the program, somebody who wants to participate can access 24 eight-milligram tablets of hydromorphone. We look at that and say that 24 tablets are not that much. However, let us put that in perspective: One eight-milligram tablet of hydromorphone is the equivalent of 10 Tylenol #3 tablets. I use that as an example, because people often have their wisdom teeth out or they have a significant injury, and they might have received Tylenol #3 tablets. I would challenge them to take 10 of them. No, I would not. Let us not challenge them, because they could die from it. That is why we do not challenge them. I had my wisdom teeth out, and I took two of them. I slept half the day. This is inappropriate.

Let us look at what these 24 eight-milligram tablets look like. That is 192 milligrams a day, which is 960 morphine milligram equivalents. That means the equivalent of 246 tablets of Tylenol #3 a day. Who needs that much? I realize that chronic pain, which is my expertise, and drug addiction are two very different things. I understand that clearly, but we are talking about an equivalency of 246 tablets of Tylenol #3.

Let us be clear. When the Liberal minister appeared in committee, we talked about fentanyl. The treatment dose in the emergency room, if someone perhaps dislocates their shoulder, is 100 micrograms or maybe 200 micrograms of fentanyl. When we were doing emergency room procedures, we always had a respiratory therapist there to ensure that, if the person stopped breathing, we could support their breathing.

What is this decriminalization experiment excited about? It is 2.5 grams of fentanyl. How many people could be killed with that? The minister went on to say that it is always cut with something. Let us say that 2.5 grams could kill 25,000 people. If we cut it in half again and again, there is enough on one's person to kill 1,000 people. It is beyond comprehension. There is no common sense here.

The market is being flooded with opioids. We heard the great Leader of the Opposition speak about the reduction in price. Prices of eight milligrams of hydromorphone have now gone down from historical averages to 25¢.

What do we see then? We see that those drugs are being bought for 25¢ from people who have gotten them for free, and they are being distributed around the rest of the country for five dollars a pill. They are also now being sold across the border into the United States. This is absolutely insane. It makes no sense. Then, those people are taking that money and trading up to fentanyl. It is illicit fentanyl, yes, but that is what they want. They want the high from fentanyl. That is what they are doing, and that is how they are getting it. Let us be clear. The Liberal government is giving them hydromorphone for free, and they are selling it to buy fentanyl. If they are not doing that, then they are taking that hydromorphone, crushing it and injecting it.

These are facts. We see this. We know that when people show up in emergency rooms with heart valves that are infected, it is because of the injections. There are spinal cord abscesses that a person gets almost only with intravenous drug use. This is what is happening with this “safe supply”. Let us be honest. It is not safe; there is nothing safe about this.

The other very sad thing that we understand clearly is that palliative care for these drug addicts is where the Liberal government is starting. It is not offering other treatment. The government is saying that they are beyond reach, and all they are going to get is medication, because the government wants to perpetuate their state of existence. We are not offering them housing. We are not offering them social supports. The government is not offering them anything except more drugs to perpetuate their zombie-like state. This is unacceptable in Canada. This approach is not working, and we know that very clearly. We know that this is not the standard of care anywhere else in the world. We know that people, Canadians, do not want to exist in this state.

If we want to talk about an outcome measure, we know that this is not reducing deaths; it is increasing them. Six hundred people died in British Columbia in the first three months of 2023. This is a 9% increase from last year. How can we say that we should continue this insane experiment?

As I said previously, this is a seminal moment. Most important, what we need to understand, and what Canadians need to understand, is whether this makes sense. Is there science behind it? Clearly, we know that the answer is no. People like to talk about the Portugal model. When the funding was reduced in Portugal for things like social supports, housing supports and medical supports, we know what happened. The rates went back up again, and the deaths went back up again. We cannot go down that same road.

We know very clearly that what we need to do is care for Canadians; we need to care for them deeply. We need to not treat them with a simplistic palliative care approach that says, “Take all the medications you want. They're safe.” From the Purdue Pharma experiment and the Canadian experiment in British Columbia, we know that they are not safe. Deaths are increasing, and we need to have this experiment stopped now; it is not working.

I have said this before: Canadians need to be connected; they need to have hope. They need to have an identity and meaning in their life, and they need to be empowered to get better. Our program will enable Canadians to do that.

[Criminal Code, May 16th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that great question. He is a great veteran. He served this country in combat and has incredible firearms experience. I thank him for that. I have great respect for that member. However, he is asking me to get into the heads of Liberals, and I have no idea how to do that, so I am going to refuse to answer that.

[Criminal Code, May 16th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his kind comments. The idea of maintaining decorum in this place is an important part of that.

I would go on to suggest that the difficulty with Bill C-21 is that it is an exact replica of what was presented before Canadians spoke out against that original form of the bill. As legislators, I think it is exceedingly important that, when we have an opportunity to hear from Canadians, we need to listen when Canadians voice their opinions to us. That is actually what we are here to do.

I realize I have only been here for 20 months, but I think it is very important we hear from the Canadians we represent. When people have an issue and speak out in numbers, not just loud people but numerous people, they actually have a point, and we need to understand very clearly what their point is because that, in essence, is our job. We are here to represent those folks across this great nation. I am proud to do that.

[Criminal Code, May 16th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for that comment. I think the big thing is related to the rights of hunters. That is really the moral of the story that I wanted to portray here in the House this evening, which is the understanding that hunting is something that can be a family event. We know that is one of the things that Women That Hunt promote very eloquently.

It is about taking someone who has never handled a firearm before, who has not been out in nature, and move them through that process to become a safe user of a firearm and understand how it works. They can understand the benefits of nature.

As I mentioned, people also need to go through the incredibly rigorous process that we already have here in Canada to obtain a firearms licence and be able to purchase a firearm, and people need to better understand that. There has been lots of talk in the House about illegal firearms. However, when Canadians come to understand the process that already exists for vetting people who want to become legal firearms owners and hunters in this country, it becomes very clear that the processes we have now are generally satisfactory and quite rigorous in their application.

[Criminal Code, May 16th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I thank everyone who is here this evening and all those folks out there in TV land watching this debate.

Certainly, there are many folks in Canada now who have lost that historical connection to hunting, and as my eloquent colleagues from la belle province said, it is still something many people love to do. Growing up in rural New Brunswick, as I did, it was something my family and I did as well. I have to echo the comments of my colleagues in the sense that, the joy we derived from being out in nature, being with one another, observing nature and using skills that have been passed down for generations, such as tracking animals and being able to understand how that process works, is really part of the heritage I experienced as a proud rural Canadian.

As I grew, I had the ability to join the military, and that created two things. The number one thing, as we know, is that some of the restrictions around firearms in this country made it very difficult to transport firearms, get them licenced and all that stuff. As that happened, both my brother and I were in the military, and we decided at that point to get rid of the firearms our family had, many of them for many years. As I reflect upon that, it creates a bit of sadness now because that is a tradition that I was not able to pass on to the rest of my family.

That being said, the military created a different relationship with firearms. It was different only in the sense of what their intended purpose was, what they looked like, how they shot bullets and how many, etc. That being said, respect for firearms is what continued to be pervasive in my approach to them. I think that one of the things people around here who have not had much experience with firearms either do not want to understand or refuse to understand is the respect we had for firearms.

I remember being a child at that time when there were not many restrictions. The firearms were on the wall. They did not have trigger locks, and they were never loaded. Also, let us be clear that it was not something people took off the wall, pointed at other people and did foolish things with. They were designed for a purpose. We knew that purpose, and we respected that purpose. Sadly, some of those things have changed.

As I said, I got into the military. I was a physician there, of course. The firearms training for doctors was somewhat different. Maybe it was just my skill level that was somewhat different, but nonetheless we did go ahead and have our days on the ranges. Again, they were all very enjoyable. It certainly is a skill that one can learn, and if practised well, one can become very adept. There are many stories around that.

Indeed, in my own riding of Cumberland—Colchester, in Springhill, there is an incredible history of sport shooting. One family in Springhill has won the Queen's Medal for Champion Shot 10 times. When we look at the incredible experience that family has shared from generation to generation, it is also with one of the most storied units in Canadian military history, the Nova Scotia Highlanders, of which I had the opportunity to be the honorary colonel at one point. Understanding this incredible and rich military history and the impact that the changes Bill C-21 would bring to the ability to undertake things such as sport shooting is incredibly sad.

I think from my own riding there are a couple of other things that are important to note. One is the incredible shooting group called the Oxford Marksmen Association. I had an opportunity last year to partake in a day at the range with those folks. Again, the word “respect” is what I really think I need to underline. There is the respect that group has for the firearms and for the sport shooting we undertook that day. Once again, sadly I was absolutely terrible, and they took no short time of making sure I knew that, but I am okay with that. If I could practise more, I would be much better, I am sure.

The other thing that is important is a group, also in my riding, called Women That Hunt. It is a great group of women who realize, again, that important family and nature connection they are able to have and create.

In particular, we often see women who have never had the opportunity to handle a firearm go through that entire process and understand the process of learning about the firearm, learning about munitions, understanding how to be in nature and then, also, understanding the very strict process that many of my colleagues have talked about here in the House with the licensing procedure that we have here in Canada.

In essence, when we look at all of those things, I would suggest that the rural riding of Cumberland—Colchester has a significant history of firearm usage and understanding the necessity of that from a hunting perspective.

Just next door is Kings—Hants, and one of my colleagues, the member for Kings—Hants, participated in the debate on Bill C-21 and spoke out with much shenanigans, I will say, in committee, on Bill C-21. He was perhaps almost supporting an amendment to protect sports shooting. However, sadly, when the vote came, that member abstained. Clearly, part of the demise of sports shooting in the country is related to that individual.

At some point, we have to stand up to be counted. When we are elected to come to this place, that is what we are asked to do, which is to represent those folks in our riding. Of course, with Kings—Hants being mainly a rural riding, I would suggest there would be many people who would be exceedingly disappointed, not only with the fact that the member did not take a position but also that it was an abstention. When we look at those things, that is something for which, I think, as I said previously, we need to stand up to be counted.

I think it has become very clear that there is some protection in Bill C-21 around Olympic shooters. It becomes very clear, though. How can one become, say, for instance, an Olympic kayaker, if one did not have the opportunity to get into a kayak? That would be very difficult, and perhaps there are people around here who might find that to be a very difficult thing.

I had a great friend. He was in the Olympics in 1980, 1984 and 1988 as a kayaker, a very excellent kayaker. If, in 1988, the use of the kayak were banned in Canada, there could have been many individuals who would have been affected without the ability to go to the Olympics and participate in kayak. We will see that with Olympic shooting now, that there will be people, of course, who will not be able to participate in that.

That being said, I think there are two things I need to round off on. As we have heard here repeatedly, gun crimes, gangs and violence associated with that are not being undertaken by hunters, of course. That is a nonsensical notion. I think a common-sense approach to that would be something that would be exceedingly important.

One final, very sad note is that my Liberal colleagues across the way have often brought the Portapique mass shooting into this debate, which I think is deplorable. It is despicable. It is really something that should never have been done. We know very clearly that the madman, that maniac, who committed those crimes, those murders, that shooting, was not a legal firearms owner, and certainly, that was not done with legal firearms.

To bring that into this was unacceptable. Of course, there was the disrespectful and unacceptable interference we saw with the head of the RCMP, the commissioner of the RCMP at that time, and the use of that incident to talk about this order in council. It was, once again, unacceptable. I just want to highlight that point because, of course, Portapique is in my riding of Cumberland—Colchester.

On that note, hopefully those brief personal experiences, which have great meaning for me, will help Canadians understand what our position on this side of the House is, which is to protect those rights of legal gun owners in Canada.

[Health, May 16th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the careless attitude the Liberal government has taken toward the overdose and addiction crisis in Canada is unacceptable. In British Columbia alone, as I mentioned previously, seven people a day were dying in January. We have heard the Liberal addictions minister refer to the reckless distribution of hard drugs without mandatory treatment as a necessary step.

When will the Liberal government listen to science, realize that its decriminalization experiment is a failure, give addicts rehab, not free drugs, and bring our loved ones home?

[Health, May 16th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, it is utterly shocking that the Liberal government believes the only treatment for addicts in this country is palliative care. No other treatment required, just move straight to palliative care.

Since this reckless plan, using taxpayer dollars for high-potency drugs, was introduced, seven people a day, in January alone, in British Columbia, have died. The overdose crisis cannot be fixed by giving people more drugs. It is only making it worse.

When will the Liberal government realize that the Conservative common-sense plan to give addicts rehabilitation and not free drugs is the way to end the overdose crisis?