Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply  Mr. Speaker, I must say I was disturbed by the remarks from the member for Saskatoon West. I just want to cite some figures from yesterday. The total number of confirmed cases of COVID in British Columbia is 324,615, with 4,075 new cases yesterday, 2,616 total deaths, 1,048 hospitalized cases, and 138 in intensive care.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply  Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his focus on health in his comments on the Speech from the Throne. It is obviously not just the pandemic but other aspects of health that are really of concern to most Canadians. In my province of British Columbia, we have certainly seen 2021 become the year with the most deaths from overdose in history.

Questions Passed as Orders for Return  With regard to the government's existing commitment to the eradication of HIV/AIDS: (a) what actions are being taken to accelerate the eradication of the virus; (b) how much federal funding has been allocated and spent so far, broken down by year and government department; (c) how many HIV self-test kits have been purchased by the government and how are they being distributed, broken down by province and territory; (d) what is the amount of federal funding being spent on funding anti-retroviral medications and delivery programs, broken down by province and territory; and (e) what specific programs are in place to ensure there is access to HIV testing and treatment for rural, remote, Indigenous, racialized, and marginalized Canadians?

Questions Passed as Orders for Return  With regard to the recommendation from the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights report entitled “The Criminalization of HIV Non-Disclosure in Canada”, which calls on the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to immediately establish a federal-provincial working group to develop a common prosecutorial directive for dealing with the criminalization of HIV: (a) has the Minister of Justice convened the working group; (b) if not, when will the Minister of Justice convene the working group and who will be invited to participate in the working group; and (c) will the mandate of such a working group include (i) a deadline for reporting back, (ii) clear instructions to consider the impacts of prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure on Indigenous, racialized, and marginalized Canadians?

Questions on the Order Paper  With regard to federal investment in affordable housing: (a) what number of investments have been made in the riding of Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke since the 2019 election; (b) what is the total amount of this investment; (c) has any funding been in invested in co-op housing programs; and (d) has any funding been allocated to assist in the revitalization of existing co-ops in order to meet the need for additional units and more units that reflect changing family structures in co-ops?

Government Appointments  Mr. Speaker, in addition to falling short on funding capacity building for 2SLGBTQI organizations in Canada, the Liberals are also failing to do their part to defend our rights abroad, this in an increasingly dangerous world where in countries like Afghanistan being queer is now literally a death sentence.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act  Mr. Speaker, I listened with great care to the speech by the member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia because I am trying to understand the Bloc's position on this bill. She very eloquently laid out the arguments against mandatory minimums and talked about how they in fact do not accomplish what people think they do.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act  Madam Speaker, there is very little I can disagree with in the minister's speech, but when this bill was introduced in the previous Parliament as Bill C-22, we raised concerns. Given the scale of the opioid crisis and the scale of the over-incarceration of Black and indigenous Canadians, is there really enough in this bill or are we missing an opportunity?

Health  Mr. Speaker, despite years of work by my community and years of promises from the Liberal government, gay men and trans women are still banned from donating blood in Canada. This unscientific ban serves only to promote homophobia and transphobia, and only contributes to blood shortages.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act  Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his kind remarks and compliments. I think we have shown in this Parliament that when we put our minds to it, we can get things done. When I said we were rushing into the debate, I meant yes, we need to rush on this because of the urgency of the issues, but we should not rush into the debate before we have had a chance to have discussions about our common purpose here and what we can accomplish by working together.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act  Madam Speaker, I am going to speak very carefully here. In no way did the member hear me say “removing all mandatory minimums.” I said, very clearly, except for “the most serious violent offences.” I always take offence in the chamber when members rise and accuse me, an adult survivor of child abuse, of being weak when it comes to offences against children.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act  Madam Speaker, I spent 20 years teaching criminal justice before I came to the House. The literature, professionally, was already clear that mandatory minimums did nothing to deter crime. No one who is about to commit a crime gets out his or her Criminal Code, looks up what the penalty will be and makes a decision on whether to commit that crime based on whether there is a mandatory minimum.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act  Madam Speaker, that is an important question, and I did raise the issue in my speech. Given the history of systemic racism in policing, I am a bit concerned about who will actually benefit from the warnings and referrals section and whether only more mainstream and less marginalized Canadians will benefit from it.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act  Madam Speaker, the hon. member re-emphasized a point I was trying to make in my speech. We have known for a long time that the main impact of mandatory minimums falls very heavily on indigenous women. When we look at the figures, with more than 40% of the women incarcerated in this country being indigenous, we see there is something seriously wrong with our system, and not just with our justice system, but with our social system as a whole.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act  Madam Speaker, as I said in my speech, the creation of the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions at the federal level is encouraging. Now the minister has to actually take actions. Since March, the government has had a proposal from the City of Vancouver for a temporary exemption to the criminalization of personal possession of small amounts of drugs.