What can Justin Trudeau learn from the Harper and Martin minority governments? – Libby Davies

What can Justin Trudeau learn from the Harper and Martin minority governments?

To save his government, Martin struck a deal with the NDP, under former leader Jack Layton, which included $4.6 billion in additional spending on social programs. “Certainly Martin was under enormous pressure and Jack was very good at seizing opportunity,” said Libby Davies, NDP House leader from 2003 to 2011. The episode ended with a dramatic tied vote in the House of Commons, with the Speaker casting the deciding vote that saved the government.

Podcast: How the NDP can effect change in a minority government – Libby Davies

Podcast: How the NDP can effect change in a minority government

Ed Broadbent and Libby Davies spoke to The Sunday Edition’s Michael Enright following the 2019 federal election.

Conservative’s Drug Strategy for Canada – Libby Davies

Conservative’s Drug Strategy for Canada

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): – Mr. Speaker, health and addictions professionals across Canada are bracing themselves for the worst when the Conservative government reveals its so-called new drug strategy that will sacrifice the successes of harm reduction and a balanced approach to drug use, for a heavy handed US style enforcement regime.

Time and again, empirical evidence has proven that harm reduction works. Programs like needle exchanges and Vancouver’s safe injection site, InSite, are reducing the transmission of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, and increasing the number of people accessing treatment.

I am alarmed that despite this evidence, the government is accelerating the criminalization of drug users. The 2007 budget quietly removed harm reduction from Canada’s new drug strategy. It now reads like a carbon copy of George Bush’s war on drugs- which has seen drug use rise, along with skyrocketing social and economic costs of incarceration.

In 2006, the Conservatives refused to renew the exemption that allows InSite to keep its doors open until pressure from the community forced them to grant a temporary extension. We know the Health Minister and the RCMP are now resorting to propaganda tactics to try and close InSite.

Attacking InSite and adopting US drug policies will fail as dramatically here as it has in the US.

From the Grassroots to the Commons – Libby Davies

From the Grassroots to the Commons

Pick up a copy of Horizons magazine to read Cindy Filipenko’s review and feature story on Outside In. “Libby Davies, Canada’s first out-lesbian MP, was, for six terms, a passionate advocate for the underprivileged, including those she served as MP for Vancouver East, a constituency that includes Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Her new memoir, Outside In, is a fascinating telling of her time in office.”

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