In Montreal, 68% of injection drug users have hepatitis C. Opening these centres could do much to decrease the incidence of disease related to the use of syringes. Speaking of syringes, Hochelaga, the riding I represent, is the second-largest area in Montreal after the downtown area, which has the largest number of injection drug users. A supervised injection site could help get needles out of parks where our children play.

In the meantime, in Montreal alone, 70 people on average die every year as a result of drug overdoses. As I have already said, the crisis in western Canada will be coming to Quebec this year. Even without this crisis, and if only for the sake of harm reduction and public health, the services provided by supervised injection sites are vital.

We need to move forward quickly. Many groups, such as Anonyme and Dopamine in Montreal, have been waiting for too long to establish services that have been proven to save lives.

The organizations that are supposed to host the sites don’t even dare set opening dates anymore. We’re stuck in a grey area where, every year for the last three years, we’re told they’ll be open in the spring. But it doesn’t happen.”

Then, concerned organizations also tired of waiting. Jean-François Mary, executive director of the Association québécoise pour la promotion de la santé des personnes utilisatrices de drogues, had this to say to the Montreal Gazette .

“How do you go into the media and announce over a year ago that you're going to open these sites and back off and go radio silent?”

We are not the only ones calling for the government to move forward with implementing injection services. In summer 2015, the mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre, who wanted to get moving on this by the fall, said the following to The Montreal Gazette .

It is in the context of harm prevention that the City of Montreal and the public health authority officially submitted their application for legal exemption in May 2015 for three fixed services in three neighbourhoods and one mobile service. They are still awaiting. It is not surprising. Not a single supervised consumption site has opened in Canada since Bill was passed.

Faced with the growing crisis across the country and mounting pressure from stakeholders and the NDP, the finally gave in and, on December 12, 2016, introduced Bill , which we are debating here today. Specifically, the bills seeks to simplify the process for applying for a legal exemption so that communities dealing with the opioid crisis can actually open supervised injection sites.

The Liberals say they support supervised injection sites, and yet their government has not approved a single new facility since coming to power. In fact, the initially argued that legislative changes to Bill were not even necessary, even though the real problem was with the bill itself, with its 26 separate requirements acting as effective barriers to any new sites, as had been pointed out by stakeholders and the NDP.

We were also the first to request that a national public health emergency be declared in order to give the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada the authority to take extraordinary measures in order to coordinate a response to the opioid crisis, including the creation of injection sites on an emergency basis. Last December, after Bill was introduced, we also tried to have the bill fast-tracked in order to resolve the crisis as quickly as possible.

Last fall, the NDP got the Standing Committee on Health to study the opioid overdose crisis. In its report, the committee made 38 recommendations to the federal government.

In February 2016, when the crisis was emerging, the New Democratic Party called for the repeal of Bill to make it easier for organizations to get legal exemptions to open supervised consumption sites.

One of the main reasons the crisis is mounting is that fentanyl is cheap and easy to transport, and just a small amount can be used to make thousands of doses. Because this drug is so cheap, and because too few resources are invested in raising awareness and prevention, young and inexperienced users are overdosing. In many cases, they do not even know that there is fentanyl in the drug they are using.

Overdoses and drug-related deaths are on the rise in every part of the country, and the crisis is expected to hit Ontario and Quebec this year. The opioid crisis in Canada is now officially out of control.

Although we do not have statistics for the number of overdose-related deaths in Canada, it is estimated to have been over 2,000 across the country in 2015. It is easy to imagine the death toll in 2016 being much higher because of the rapid spread of extremely powerful opioids across the country.

In 2016, in British Columbia alone, opioid overdoses took the lives of 914 people, 80% more than in 2015. In April, the situation prompted B.C. public health authorities to declare a state of emergency for the first time in the province's history.

A serious opioid crisis is plaguing the country, particularly the west coast, as my colleague, the member for , our health critic, has repeatedly stated here in the House.

By refusing to consider clear and compelling evidence that supervised injection sites save the lives of many very vulnerable people, the Conservatives and their ideological approach only continued to marginalize and criminalize people suffering from addiction. This unfortunately also resulted in overdoses and deaths that could have been prevented.

I sat on the committee and heard witnesses, with supporting evidence, describe the benefits of injection sites, including harm reduction and public health, and tell us that public safety would not be jeopardized.

As if that were not enough, the bill also gave discretionary power to the minister responsible to refuse to grant the legal exemption even if the 26 conditions were met. I always maintained that it would not be possible to obtain an exemption given the number of requirements already imposed by the law. However, this discretionary power proves that the Conservatives were not going to allow, under any circumstances, new centres to open.

In response to this decision by Canada's highest court, the then Conservative government finally tabled Bill in 2015. With the thinly veiled intent of not allowing new supervised injection sites to open, the government put in place 26 conditions for obtaining a legal exemption, making it virtually impossible to open new centres.

In 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the federal government must grant Vancouver's safe injection site, Insite, and other such sites section 56 exemptions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in order to uphold the fundamental right of all people to life and security. The Supreme Court added that safe injection sites will “decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no evidence that [they] will have a negative impact on public safety”.

I thank the House for allowing me to speak today on Bill , an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related amendments to other acts. Before I get into the substance of Bill , I would like to remind the House of some of the events that occurred before it was introduced.

[English]

It is time for us in Ottawa to continue to show strong leadership on this file. Where we can advance, let us move forward. Would the member agree?

What Canada needs most at this point is to recognize that we are in a national crisis. Would the member not agree that when we talk about the opioid crisis, one of the things we need to do is recognize that there are many players who need to get involved? If we are successful, we will minimize the harms and the tragic deaths that are occurring every day in Canada. That means working with our provincial counterparts, municipal counterparts, first responders, and the many other stakeholders that can make a difference.

As we have seen, different levels of government and many different stakeholders are coming together to advance the issue. That is really what it is about. It goes beyond the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to express my appreciation that the New Democrats have recognized the importance of getting this bill through. It is something that will make a profound, positive difference.

[Translation]

What is more, we have been calling on the minister for at least a year to finally introduce a bill that would allow for the creation of safe injection sites. We are anxious for that to happen. That is why we are asking that this bill be passed as quickly as possible.

Everyone agrees that safe injection sites are necessary. There is going to be one in my riding. We have known for a long time that everyone has to work on this, and everyone agrees.

Mr. Speaker, in my riding, we have been working for years with the authorities, including the mayor of Montreal, the chief public health officer, and the police.

[English]

Can the member tell us why New Democrats are now supporting the Liberals in their ongoing attempt to limit debate on bills in this House, including on Bill ?

For years and years we have heard them talking about time allocation and raging against it. Today we find the New Democrats in bed with the Liberals.

The New Democrats had the opportunity about a half-hour or an hour ago to start saving lives today. They chose to stand against that. We could have taken huge steps today, right now, to deal with this ongoing opioid crisis, and New Democrats have chosen not to support that.

Mr. Speaker, last night I was here and I listened to the NDP rage for hours against the Liberal government. Today we came into question period and we heard that their whole electoral reform position has been betrayed by the government.

[Translation]

I just gave a 10-minute speech about how important these safe injection sites are. I have no intention of getting them removed from the bill because this bill is about to be sent to committee. It will be fully debated there, and safe injection sites will remain part of this bill.

We have been saying for months that this bill needs to be passed as quickly as possible, and this is one way of achieving that goal.

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to say that the rules of Parliament are not what is important in my riding. What is important is the lives of people who are dying.

[English]

Mr. Speaker, how important does the member believe it is to ensure that not only those affected by this directly but their family and friends around them can benefit from greater intervention right now and from supports in the future?

[Translation]

People with drug addictions have families who are suffering just as much as they are. These situations are very difficult to deal with. A bill that will help people overcome that problem is exactly what we want, and we have been waiting for this bill for a long time. It will help addicts and their families.

[English]

We need a comprehensive approach so that we can move forward once and for all and save lives.

We also need to look at the issues around the social determinants of health. We need safe, secure, affordable housing. We need to address poverty. We need to look at the issue of breaking that cycle. We need to address aboriginal child apprehension.

I want to say that we need to do much more. We need to move to a longer-term resolution. Real effort needs to be made to provide addiction treatment. For some, traditional treatment works; for others, not so much. We need to move forward with providing treatment that deals with the addiction, including opioid prescriptions and opioid substitutes. The goal of stabilizing people and getting them away from the illegal market saves lives.

While the said that the Liberals would take action and provide support to first responders, we are still waiting. Let us get on with it.

The BC Coalition of Nursing Associations hosted an emergency forum on the nursing response to the opioid crisis. Like so many, they are devastated by this medical health emergency, and they themselves are suffering from stress, trauma, and exhaustion. All first responders, nurses, health care workers at emergency rooms, and front-line workers with NGOs are overextended, and they deserve our support.

It is not limited to Fire Hall No. 2 in my riding. In fact, all the other fire halls in my community across East Van have had an increase in calls with respect to overdose challenges and issues. I heard from firefighters who told me that during their shifts, sometimes they would have two, three, four, or more calls to go out and try to save lives. That is what they are faced with. Imagine the stress.

I heard first-hand from firefighters about their experiences in this crisis, particularly from those men and women at Fire Hall No. 2, with the incredible overload of calls that came into that hall and the stresses firefighters had to face each and every day as they had to witness death. Imagine that as their work every single day.

In going forward, as we wait for Bill to become law, what action can be taken to save lives? Let me start with a shout-out to all the tireless first responders for their incredible efforts.

Let me take a moment to thank them and acknowledge the numerous volunteers and activists; the leadership shown by Ann Livingston and her peers at VANDU; Sarah Blyth, the former Vancouver Park Board chair; and many others for their incredible dedication and caring. Were it not for their efforts, I can say with confidence that many more people would have died.

Many concerned citizens and organizers are so frustrated by the glaring absence of substantive action on this that they have felt compelled to act unilaterally with pop-up supervised injection sites. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. This is a testament to those individuals' courage and dedication to saving lives in our community.

Bill has to get through the House, then it has to be sent to committee, then has to go to the Senate. It will be some time before the bill passes. I want to applaud my colleague, the member for , the NDP's critic for health. His proposal to try to get the bill through all stages as quickly as possible, sadly was rejected.

While I support Bill , to be clear, I would much rather that the bill was about repealing Bill . Nonetheless, this is a move in the right direction. It is a step forward, so I am here to support it.

After more than a year of foot-dragging, thousands of overdoses, and hundreds of needless deaths, the Liberal government today is finally bringing in measures to address the ideological relic of the years past.

The former government took every step possible to undermine the work of Insite. Even after the Supreme Court of Canada's 9-0 decision that ordered the government to exempt Insite from prosecution, stating clearly that the government cannot close Insite because of its ideology, the Harper government passed Bill , the ill-named Respect for Communities Act, which introduced near insurmountable barriers to opening new supervised injection sites in Canada. The roadblocks have been widely condemned and no doubt have contributed to preventable deaths.

It is sad to me that despite this irrefutable evidence-based outcome, there are still those who want to block this critical health measure.

I still recall vividly the imagery of 1,000 crosses planted at Oppenheimer Park in our community, what we call the killing fields. Each one of those crosses bears a name, the name of a person who somebody loved in our community, a daughter, a son, an aunt, an uncle, somebody's child. I still recall how family and friends came together and mourned those preventable deaths. It was a call to action, and we drove the issue and eventually Insite was established.

Van East led the way, and I am so proud of the progressive forces and the movement in a community that cares so deeply that it took this issue and drove it until we had the first supervised injection facility in North America.

For those who want to put up roadblocks to harm reduction initiatives, including supervised injection facilities, I say this. It has been more than a decade since Insite, the first supervised injection facility in North America, was established. There has not been one single overdose death in that facility. Insite has saved countless lives. It has reduced the spread of diseases. The evidence is clear, and it is irrefutable.

Bill came on the heels of an announcement by the B.C. government, which was no longer willing to wait for federal approval and decided that it would take “the extraordinary measure” of signing a ministerial order making the provincial operation of temporary overdose prevention sites legal.

Today I am here once again urging the government to do what is right and what is necessary: declare a national public health emergency. Let us remember as we debate Bill that people in communities across the country are still dying.

From the beginning of 2016 to October 2016, 338 Albertans died from an apparent drug overdose related to opioids. Fentanyl was involved in 193 of them. Two Ontarians die from opioid overdoses a day. An average of 79 people die of drug overdoses every year in Montreal. If this is not a national health emergency, I do not know what is.

It was noted by Dr. David Juurlink, head of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, that the number of overdose deaths across Canada has vastly outpaced the toll during the 2003 SARS crisis that gripped this country and was declared an emergency by the Ontario government. He stated, “Forty-four people died of SARS. We lose 70 people a week to opioids in Canada”.

People are dying in our communities. Both the city of Vancouver's chief medical health officer, Dr. Patricia Daly, and the provincial health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, have declared this crisis a medical health emergency. In fact, this is the first time in the history of British Columbia that a health emergency has been declared.

I am very grateful for the Herculean efforts of first responders, front-line workers, medical practitioners, family members, advocates, and activists who have and are continuing to work tirelessly to save lives in the midst of this terrible crisis.

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the opioid crisis unfolding right now in our communities, big and small, right across Canada, is nothing short of a national emergency. The suffering and damage this crisis is causing, not just in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the epicentre of the crisis, but in Vancouver East and cities across British Columbia and Canada, is absolutely devastating.

I also want to ask a supplementary question with respect to her continuing call for a state of emergency from the and why that declaration would actually bring any additional powers to the chief public health officer.

I want to get her perspective on what the bill would mean for her riding and why it ultimately would be critical in saving lives. I am quite familiar with the substantive problem of drug abuse in that area.

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to live in Vancouver in the past and to work in the Chinatown legal clinic, which I believe is part of the hon. member's riding.

On the question of others in , particularly those in Chinatown, and their thoughts around harm reduction, there has been a number of different perspectives, and some of course are very concerned about it. We have to educate people not to use fear to trumpet division. First and foremost, we have to put this forward. If we cannot prevent the death of people, they will never detox, will they? This and harm reduction are all about that.

Right now in our communities these pop-up sites have occurred, and they have been proven to save lives. This needs to be multiplied across the country. We can model actual best practices on how we can save lives. If the federal government declared a public health emergency, it would actually allow for that to take place.

Mr. Speaker, to answer the last question first, a declaration from the federal government of a public health emergency would allow for federal funding and co-ordination to be made available across the country. As well, the creation of what we call pop-up sites, these temporary safe injection sites, on an emergency basis would be facilitated.

How can the member justify taking the vast majority of the bill, on which we all agree is very important, and delay it? To be quite frank, this will perhaps create a number of weeks of additional delay.

I know that communities can provide much wisdom. We thought having a methodical process around how communities engaged about a safe consumption was worthy of more debate.

We just had a motion that would actually facilitate the vast majority of the bill going right through the system and up to the Senate. We do have some legitimate debate that can happen around community consultations. Perhaps what was in Bill , the Respect for Communities Act, has now been completely gutted.

Mr. Speaker, everyone in the House wants to do the right thing and recognizes that we have a real issue, especially my colleagues from British Columbia who are really at the coal face of this issue.

We need to move forward with it. To suggest that somehow we can move this forward without including a supervised injection facility is simply not acceptable. We know it has proven to save lives. If we truly want to do that, then let us get on with it.

The evidence of Insite is overwhelming. It saves lives. It prevents the spread of diseases. It actually reduces chaos in our community. What more do we need to demonstrate that it is an effective health measure?

Mr. Speaker, the people who created delays in ensuring that harm reduction initiatives were happening in our community and the supervised injection facilities were available as a provision of health measures in communities across the country were from the previous government. Even though the Supreme Court of Canada said “no” to the former government's approach, we still are fighting that fight.

[Translation]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for , Transportation; the hon. member for , Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship; and the hon. member for , Indigenous Affairs.

[English]

I hope all members of the House will support this important legislation so we can better support communities in their effort to address this serious public health issue.

These proposed changes will introduce flexibility into the application process so it can be adapted and updated over time to reflect new science and allow communities to respond more quickly to emerging health issues.

I can assure the House that the review process would continue to be comprehensive, but it would no longer present unnecessary barriers.

Our government is committed to making objective, transparent, and evidence-based decisions on any future application to establish supervised consumption sites, and we are committed to making those decisions within a reasonable time frame.

Bill proposes to remove these principles so that decisions on applications can be based on evidence. It will also increase transparency around the decision made on applications for supervised consumption sites.

Beyond the criteria, the Respect for Communities Act also includes specific principles that the minister must consider when evaluating an application.

Further, with respect to renewals, existing supervised consumption sites would no longer require an application. Instead, a renewal would simply be requested by informing Health Canada of any changes to the information that was submitted as part of a site's last application. This proposal will ensure that the existing sites can focus on serving the needs of their community rather than filling out onerous application forms.

The proposed amendments will also simply the information required to support an application. For example, applicants will no longer be required to submit evidence that supervised consumption sites are effective and have public health benefits. The evidence in this regard is clear. Instead, applicants will need to demonstrate the need for the site and the public health benefits of the proposed site for their local community.

With respect to other stakeholders, such as the municipal government and local police, their views would continue to be considered through the requirement for broad community consultation, thus removing the need to obtain formal letters from these stakeholders.

To help applicants through the supervised consumption site application process, our government would post an application form and simplified guidance document online. The application would indicate the type of information that would support the five Supreme Court criteria and would reduce unnecessary burden on applicants.

Reducing the number of criteria applicants would have to address would relieve the administrative burden on communities seeking to establish a supervised consumption site, but it would do so without compromising the health and safety of those operating the site, its clients, or the surrounding community.

Bill respects the decision rendered by the highest court in Canada by proposing to replace the 26-point criteria currently in legislation with these five factors.

To guide the making of future decisions, the Supreme Court set out five factors that must be considered. These include: evidence, if any, on the impact of such a facility on crime rates; the local conditions indicating a need for such a site; the regulatory structure in place the support the facility; the resources available to support its maintenance; and expression of community support or opposition.

In 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada considered this same evidence and concluded that where a "site will decrease the risk of death and disease, and there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, the Minister should generally grant an exemption."

Bill would support the establishment of supervised consumption sites by assuring communities that their voices would be heard and that each application would be subject to a comprehensive review, while, at the same time, starting from a position that would recognize and acknowledge the compelling evidence that supervised consumption sites work.

This legislation is widely viewed by public health experts as a barrier to establishing new supervised consumption sites in communities where they are wanted and needed to help prevent the spread of disease and countless overdose deaths. It is time for these barriers to be removed and I am proud that Bill proposes to do just that.

Surrey and, more broadly, British Columbia face a health crisis. I take solace in how neighbourhoods, communities, cities, the province, and now the federal government have stepped up to respond. I often hear stories in my riding of how this drug has devastated lives and families, but for every one story I hear, I hear three more about how folks have stepped up and responded, whether it is local soup kitchens or the newly created Surrey RCMP Outreach Team, which, in the last two weeks, responded to over 55 overdoses. It is heartening to see how Canadians have come together to respond to this crisis, and this new drug strategy is the next step.

The evidence available on the effectiveness of properly establishing and maintaining supervised consumption sites is indisputable. These sites save lives without having a negative impact on the surrounding community. Let me be clear. This commitment will save lives, including in my community.

On December 12, the announced the new Canadian drugs and substances strategy, which restores harm reduction as a key pillar alongside prevention, treatment, and enforcement. Officially including harm reduction in Canada's new drug strategy was the first step. Putting that commitment into action to save lives is the next step.

Addiction is a complex issue. I also want to be clear with my fellow members in the House that addiction is a health issue and not a criminal one. Not every individual will respond positively to the same treatment and not every individual is even willing or able to enter treatment on any given day. Evidence demonstrates that individuals who are outside of treatment are at increased risk of major health and social harms, including overdose and death. This is why we must be pragmatic in our response and must let evidence guide us to effective solutions. Now, more than ever, as our country grapples with an ever-increasing opioid crisis, it is essential that evidence-based harm reduction measures be part of the government's comprehensive drug policy.

Our government, since the beginning of its mandate, has been very clear in its support for harm reduction measures. These measures have been proven to reduce the negative health and social impacts associated with problematic substance abuse.

One of the many important amendments proposed in the bill is to streamline the application process for communities seeking to establish supervised consumption sites. Supervised consumption sites are controlled hygienic settings where people can bring previously obtained drugs to use under the supervision of health care professionals and gain access to or information regarding other health and social services, including treatment. In other words, supervised consumption sites are a harm reduction measure and have been proven to be effective for communities where they are needed.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in support of Bill , an act that would better equip both health and law enforcement officials to reduce the harms associated with problematic substance use in Canada.

If we did this, we would be able to expedite the entire procedure of moving this forward. Now that my colleagues have had time to reconsider, I think we can get unanimous consent for this.

I therefore ask for the unanimous consent of the House for the following motion: That Bill C-37, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related amendments to other acts be divided into two bills: Bill C-37(A), an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related amendments to other acts (supervised consumption sites) and Bill C-37(B), an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related amendments to other acts; that Bill C-37(A) be composed of clause 26(6), new section 31(1.1); clause 26(7), revised section 31(8); clause 40(6), revised section 55(1)n; clause 40(14); clause 40(15); clause 41, and clause 42; that Bill C-37(B) be composed of all the remaining parts of Bill C-37; that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary; that the House order the printing of bills C-37(A) and C-37(B); and that Bill C-37(A) be placed on the Order Paper for consideration of the House at second reading and referral to the Standing Committee on Health; and Bill C-37(B) be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred at report stage, and deemed read a third time and passed.

Therefore, I will repeat my earlier proposal and seek consent to adopt a motion that separates out the supervised injection site section of the bill. This proposal would also adopt, at all stages, the remaining parts of the bill. We are also willing to allow the supervised injection section of the bill to go to committee today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Before we have a vote on shutting down debate on this very important bill, which I know will save lives, I want to give my parliamentary colleagues in the Liberal government, the NDP, and all members in this place another opportunity to reconsider their refusal to pass critical portions of the bill that can start saving lives today. I know my colleagues and all parties want to save lives. I know the , who is a physician, wants to do the right thing.

Therefore, if he really wants to start saving lives right away, this is the best way to do it. We are willing. We are very sincere. I do not understand why my colleagues on the Liberal side do not want to move this forward immediately. Could he explain to the House why he voted against this?

Mr. Speaker, to contribute to this debate, I want to ask my colleague this. What I have just proposed in my amendment would mean exactly what he talked about in his speech. What the government is proposing is that we shut down debate and this whole bill will go to committee, and that will take time. What I am proposing is that we can work immediately on passing the parts of the bill that there is no conflict on and immediately send the supervised injection part of it to committees.

Mr. Speaker, I voted against this because the member is dissecting a bill and having only one part of it sent to committee. We are asking for the whole part to be sent to committee.

Mr. Speaker, the whole part is essential, and that is the best way to deal with this bill.

Before I go to the next round of questions and comments, I want to remind hon. members that the way it works is a member asks a question and waits for an answer, not screaming or shouting across the floor while the answer is coming because one cannot really hear what the other is answering to the question. That just seems logical to me. I thought I would bring that up.

The NDP has recognized the importance of the legislation. The Government of Canada has done its homework in presenting this entire bill. Would the member not agree with me that if the Conservatives recognize this as a crisis situation, as the NDP has, they would see the value in keeping the bill intact and passing it in a timely fashion?

Mr. Speaker, I was one of the individuals who said no because a great deal of effort and consultations has taken place with many different stakeholders, including provinces, municipalities, first responders, and many others, who recognized the value of this entire legislation. The member tried a second time to divide the bill. If he really wants to contribute to resolving this problem, he needs to recognize and recommend to his caucus that we pass the bill in its entirety. There will no doubt be an opportunity to vote on it. I hope the Conservative Party, collectively, will support the bill going to committee and somehow even allowing it to pass through committee and third reading.

Therefore, if the intent of those members is to actually work with the Supreme Court decision, work with first responders, and work with those who are affected by the devastating affects of this illicit drug, then they would not have done that, and they would expedite the smooth and safe passage of this bill through committee and on to second reading.

Perhaps we would have been on the front line today in dealing with substance abuse. We would have had more of these centres opened up. We would have had first responders with better resources. Instead, we are, in 2017, working on something that should have been done in 2011. It should have been easier back then, so that we could have dealt with this last year in a much more effective manner.

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague, the member for . Had members of the opposite side been very sincere in their approach to have safe injection sites or substance sites, they would not have made it so onerous in the past.

Mr. Speaker, the bill says that the minister has the final say on the injection site location and approval. If there is a conflict between the local municipality and the minister,whose authority will be followed?

If there is a conflict, that is where the minister would have to use her judicial authority to make such a decision. However, it should be entirely based on evidence, and the evidence will be based on the Supreme Court decision of 2011.

Mr. Speaker, the onus is going to be on evidence, and the evidence will speak volumes. This decision should not be political. No Nimbyism should exist here, which is why an evidence-based decision shall be made.

: Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying a few words about how this affects the people of Victoria who sent me here to speak on their behalf. Where I come from this is not an academic debate; it is a crisis across our community. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying a few words about how this affects the people of Victoria who sent me here to speak on their behalf. Where I come from this is not an academic debate; it is a crisis across our community.

In the first 11 months of last year, my community lost 60 people to overdoses. I personally know families who have lost loved ones. None of us remain unaffected. We have been robbed of far too many people who might still be our friends, our neighbours, and coworkers today if we had the services to prevent overdoses and provide the treatment that is so desperately needed in our community. Still, people in Victoria and across British Columbia have taken what action they can in the absence of leadership from their federal government.

Last April, British Columbia declared the first public health emergency in our history. In December, the provincial health minister authorized temporary overdose prevention sites. There are now three such sites in my city of Victoria.

On January 4, thanks to the hard work of so many in our community, the Vancouver Island Health Authority submitted an application for the first full service safe consumption site in Victoria, and there will be more. That application is now before the , and I hope that she will do everything in her power as I will do everything in mine to see that this life-saving community initiative is approved without further delay.

The hard work of those who are fighting to save lives on the streets of Victoria has not been in vain. Because of their efforts, we have three small overdose prevention sites in place. In its first month, one such site reported an overdose nearly every day. But because the right services were available, not a single life was lost. That is the difference these services make in the real world. That is why we called for this legislation a year ago. That is why we will not allow it to be delayed any further.

To understand the scale and urgency of this crisis, we need to look beyond our own communities. My home province, British Columbia, lost 914 citizens to illicit drug overdoses just last year. That is not only the deadliest year on record for us, it is on par with the highest overdose rates among the American states. Last year, Ontario lost two citizens a day. That many lives are now lost each and every day in the city of Vancouver alone.

Some 2,000 Canadians died of this in 2015. We know that many more died in 2016 as powerful opioids like fentanyl spread across the country. I know it can be hard to give meaning to numbers like that unless we know some of the victims by name.

Consider what my colleague from , our NDP health critic, reminded us of yesterday. In 2003, we lost 44 Canadians during the SARS crisis. During the opioid crisis, we are now losing that many fellow citizens every week. If 40 or 50 Canadians were dying of an infectious disease every week, this House surely would not stand idly by. So let me address something head-on.

There are some in this place who think there is nothing we can do to stop the crisis, who think that addiction represents a moral failure, that it has always existed on the margins of society, and all that has changed is that the drugs just get stronger.

For too long, that outdated view guided government policy, and refused to bend to evidence from doctors, courts, and front-line workers. So let us be clear. What we are facing today is unlike anything Canada has ever experienced before.

This is not just about Downtown Eastside Vancouver. It is about suburban kids experimenting with recreational drugs that turn out to be laced with opiates 100 times stronger than heroin, and then they die. It is about athletes and office workers becoming dependent on prescription painkillers, folks who have never struggled before with addiction, but now have nowhere to turn but the street.

It is about firefighters and paramedics who have to wear masks to stop inhaling drugs so powerful that a dose no bigger than a grain of salt can be deadly. Opioid use disorder is a disease and it should be treated as such. One of those firefighters is Chris Coleman. He came from Vancouver to testify before the House health committee. He said this:

It takes a toll...to work extremely hard but to feel that you are having little or no impact on a problem that is growing exponentially, like a tidal wave, on the streets of your city.

...our brothers and sisters who work in the Downtown Eastside are in trouble. They feel abandoned and they feel hopeless.

It has taken the government far too long to act, but now we have a bill before us that can begin to help. By passing this bill we can lift the barriers, some of them at least, that prevent communities from establishing life-saving safe consumption sites. We can send a signal to provinces, like British Columbia, that the federal government will step up and do its part. We can show people like Chris Coleman, and the thousands of firefighters and paramedics, police officers, and front-line workers like him, that they are not abandoned, that their work does matter, that we do care, and that their community has their back.

We have to be realistic. This bill alone will not solve the opioid crisis. We are here because government after government has failed to invest in detox, treatment, education, and prevention. The government has failed to put in place that foundation of services that would save lives and connect drug users to the support they need to stabilize and begin the long journey out of addiction.

Hundreds of Canadians are now dying in the gaps that governments have let grow year after year. For more than a year, we have been calling for a bill to repeal the Conservatives' Bill and lift the barriers that the previous government erected to make it harder for communities to open life-saving safe consumption sites. When I spoke to that bill, I called it the “24 ways to say 'no' act”.

It has taken far too long to get here. I regret that the government took so long to come around to our point of view and accept that legislative action repealing Bill , or replacing it, was necessary. Thankfully, here we are.

Bill would save lives. We must pass it as soon as possible. For that reason, the NDP moved in December to fast-track the bill right to the Senate. It was blocked. I want to make sure that does not happen again and that we get this done.

I will continue to urge the minister to declare a public health emergency and allow emergency overdose prevention sites to operate legally across the country. I will continue to call on the government to use the powers it already has and expedite applications from cities like Montreal, Victoria, and Toronto, that have been gathering dust as Health Canada sits around and looks at them for months at a time. I will continue to ask why the government continues to ignore the recommendations from major cities, medical authorities, and even Parliament's own health committee, on other steps to turn the tide on this crisis.