Health committee  So you publicly support supervised consumption sites today? Do you publicly support them? Are you willing to say that on the record?

Health committee  Yes or no, sir? Yes or no, sir?

Health committee  I'll be honest. I'm feeling pretty frustrated with the distractions that I've been hearing talked about today in the committee. I was checking on social media right now, and one of the committee members is already posting gotcha clips from this committee hearing in the process of the hearing happening.

Health committee  Thank you for the question. First of all, we've had public drug use in Canada prior to the now largely rescinded decriminalization pilot in B.C. and in other cities. As I travel throughout the country, I see the types of things you're talking about. It's not limited to B.C. or Vancouver.

Health committee  Yes. Here's one that I called out: This is from Conservative MP Glen Motz. Some of you will have seen this. It is a tweet he put out on X on April 30 of this year. He wrote, “Trudeau decriminalized public use of crack, heroin & other hard drugs, resulting in a 380% increase in BC deaths”.

Health committee  I'm sorry about that.

Health committee  The core problem remains the same. It has become worse. Particularly here in B.C., as you alluded to, if you look at the graphs in the B.C. coroner's reports, we see that not only do we continue to have these persistently high levels of illicit fentanyl in these post-mortem toxicology reports, but benzodiazepines have continued to steadily rise and increase.

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Greetings. My name is Benjamin Perrin. I'm a law professor at the University of British Columbia. A decade ago, I was the lead criminal justice and public safety adviser to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. I supported the tough on crime agenda and the war on drugs.