Health committee  We don't put tracers in any other kind of medication. Why would we stigmatize people who use drugs? Why would we assume that people who use drugs have nefarious intention with their medications? We know that over 90%—

Health committee  No, I don't. I think it would cause people not to use harm reduction programming, because this is a group of people who have been criminalized for decades—actually, a hundred years. These are people who.... In our program, we have 30% indigenous folks, and we know that this is true of most safe supply programs.

Health committee  Is diversion illegal? For people to sell their medications, yes, that's illegal, just like they sell methadone.

Health committee  I did not receive that money. Certainly the Safer Supply Community of Practice received that money. I'm aware of the diversion document that you're referring to. It was written by expert clinicians, with evidence and advice from people who use drugs.

Health committee  Yes. When politicians spread disinformation, people die—and people die because of many reasons. It's delaying the emergency response that we so badly need in this crisis. We can't forget that over 42,000 people have died from overdoses, and disinformation that actually slows our response to saving the next 42,000 lives is really disappointing.

Health committee  I think we are all waiting on the edge of our seat to know if SUAP funding is going to be renewed or extended. We're scared, and our patients are scared alongside us. My patients are marginalized in a way that suggests that they're not part of the overall community—but they are and they read the news.

Health committee  Absolutely. The story I'm going to tell speaks directly to diversion. I was approached by a father in the community, and he told me he had lost his son to a fentanyl overdose in the year prior. He told me that his son died while he was on my waiting list to access safe supply—he died waiting to see me, so that I could maybe save his life.

Health committee  Thank you for that opportunity. I was listening carefully in my headpiece, but please stop me if I've misinterpreted the question. You're speaking about youth and the concern that safe supply is being diverted to youth. I think it's really tragic that Canadian youth are actually also being used in this polarizing rhetoric about the potential impacts of safe supply, because I do believe they're being used.

Health committee  That is a wonderful question. Thank you for giving me an opportunity there. My patients are the focus of my work. I'd like to tell a couple of stories, if I have time in the moment. I'm going to start with a story about a woman who was diagnosed with palliative AIDS. She lived on the street.

Health committee  Thank you very much for that opportunity. We intervened with this woman. We advocated and we put her on safe supply as well, which extinguished her fentanyl use. She was able to receive her two new valves. She was only 21 years old when she was told she was going to die from endocarditis.

Health committee  Thank you. It's also important to remember that safe supply is politicized, just the way the safe consumption sites that you mentioned have been politicized. Needle exchanges were illegal during the time of HIV. Safe supply is undergoing that same moral panic and disinformation.

Health committee  As safe supply clinicians, we rely on good research and published evidence and not on anecdotes and tweets on the social media platform Twitter or X, so—

Health committee  I first have a question for you as well, Mrs. Goodridge. What evidence has been released showing this?

Health committee  Mr. Zivo is a columnist for the National Post who has dipped his toes into this for the past eight or nine months. Certainly, early in his writing about safe supply, he expressed his desire to burn the whole system down. I'm not sure that he's a terribly credible source of information that we want to rely on in this committee.

Health committee  I'm not finished, Mrs. Goodridge—