Health committee  Absolutely. We need every tool and every strategy that is instrumental for ensuring life. Not one individual can live on this earth all by themselves. We live in relationship to others. We live in relationship to the land and the environment. We have to consider those elements and those four pillars.

Health committee  Many people who are experts in their field have expertise and know the science behind their expertise. They publish. They know their work very well. We rely on them often for evidence so that we make informed decisions. We don't typically understand or give credit to the experience of living life every day with the types of conditions we're talking about: living with a dependency on opioids, having to survive the processes of coming to the right dosage for them and how people feel about that.

Health committee  Absolutely not. Thank you for the question. The expert task force on substance use and mental health recommended safer supply and decriminalization, but they also said that it should be within a full spectrum of supports for people who use drugs or substances, or who wish to enter into a recovery journey.

Health committee  Thank you.

Health committee  I just want to emphasize the importance of safer supply. That's one tool that needs to be available to everybody. In addition to understanding the context of first nations people, as I said earlier, we do not have the community-based resources necessary to address the impacts of opioid toxicity or the toxic drug supply.

Health committee  We're talking about using evidence, and the question is about whose evidence is more credible. That's quite a common conversation when it comes to first nations people, whose world view and culture-based evidence are typically set aside. However, that does not mean, for example, that culture and safer supply are completely incompatible.

Health committee  There are communities, no matter how big or how small, remote or isolated, that have partnerships with local health authorities, physicians, prescribers and nurse practitioners, who deliver services by flying into the community from time to time or by monitoring their patients through video conferencing.

Health committee  We typically assume that the issue with resources and capacity to respond to the toxic drug supply is remoteness, that it's geographical. We are not asking for or expecting hospitals to be built in every one of our communities, but the Canada Health Act says there should be universal access to health, and its objective is accessible health care without barriers to our wellness.

Health committee  Human resources are needed in community. The existing resources of treatment centres can also play a role, but they need additional resources and capacity. Thank you.

Health committee  [Witness spoke in Lunaape] [English] I'm Carol Hopkins of the Lenape nation in southwestern Ontario. I'd like to acknowledge the lands that you are joining us from and that we're all coming together on today. In 2023, the number of first nations deaths due to drug poisoning was 36 times those in the general population in Ontario.