Blog – Libby Davies yeehaw

Vancouver trek raises awarness for Libby’s national housing strategy bill

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Vancouver trek raises awarness for Libby’s national housing strategy bill

In the middle of June, a delegation of eight people from Vancouver travelled to Toronto and Ottawa to kick-start a national campaign to push Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to re-establish a national housing program in Canada. We met with several housing groups in Toronto and others in Ottawa, where we left a few dozen red tents from Pivot Legal Society’s campaign. We also ended a 76-week rolling hunger strike that was aimed at putting pressure on the federal government to act on housing.

The original article, Stephen Harper must act on housing or face political price was published on June 30, 2010 in The Gerogia Straight. Author(s): Am Johal

Libby speaks in support of supervised injection sites

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Posted on 2013.10.22

Libby speaks in support of supervised injection sites

House of Commons

HANSARD

October 18, 2013

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting to listen to the parliamentary secretary present this bill today and it is very important that we look back at the history of this case and begin with the Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2011, because it has been referenced a lot. If we can just remember, Insite, as I mentioned earlier, did go through a rigorous process to establish itself in the city of Vancouver and has been a very successful operation in saving people’s lives, preventing overdoses and improving public safety in the neighbourhood. But of course, it was challenged all the way by the Conservative government and it did end up at the Supreme Court of Canada which ruled that Insite was a very important health facility. I want to quote a very key part of its ruling because it is based on this ruling that supposedly this legislation is now before us. The Supreme Court of Canada ruling said:

On future applications, the minister must exercise discretion within the constraints imposed by law and the charter, aiming to strike an appropriate balance between achieving public health and public safety. In accordance with the charter, the minister must consider whether denying an exemption would cause deprivations of life and security of the person that are not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. Whereas here a supervised injection site will decrease the risk of death and disease and where there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety, the minister should generally grant the exemption.

That is what the Supreme Court of Canada said. What was the government’s response to that? Reading from the press release that the Minister of Health issued June 6 when the bill was first introduced, she began by saying:

Our government believes that creating a location for sanctioned use of drugs obtained from illicit sources has the potential for great harm in a community.

There was nothing in this press release and in fact when one reads the bill, there is nothing in it that strikes the balance that was referenced by the Supreme Court of Canada for public health and public safety. From the very beginning, from the get-go, it has been very clear that the bill is a stacked deck, that it is designed to frustrate and to make it virtually impossible for any safe injection site to be established in this country.

One has to ask the question, why is the government so biased on this issue? Why have Conservatives refused to consider all of the evidence that has been put before them? We just had the recent situation, a very similar case where the Minister of Health overruled her own experts on an application that was approved to provide heroin maintenance in Vancouver’s downtown east side in the inner city.

It was quite astounding to see that the minister ignored all of the evidence, overruled her experts, stepped in, intervened and made it clear that this special application that had been approved by her officials would not go ahead.

What was most disturbing was to see that in both of these cases, the safe injection site bill and also the application for heroin maintenance, within 24 hours this became a fundraising letter for the Conservative Party of Canada. Imagine that government legislation and an intervention and interference by the minister is catapulted and turned into a fundraiser for the Conservatives’ base.

I find that really alarming and it illuminates for us what this debate is really about. It is about creating an environment of fear. It’s about creating an environment of division. It is about creating an environment based on them and us. It is about an environment that the Conservatives want to escalate that demonizes people who use drugs and people who are facing serious addiction issues.

The parliamentary secretary made some references to the bill and when we actually read through the bill to see what is required, it is quite incredible. First of all, the parliamentary secretary said that the minister must consider criteria that are laid out as part of a submission for an application to set up a safe injection site in any particular community. But clearly what the bill says is that “the minister may consider an application” once the application has been submitted and the criteria met. It is not even that she must then look at it, she may. Even the discretion takes place at that level.

When we look at the criteria, in the bill it literally goes from (a) to (z), there are 26 different criteria considerations that are so onerous and so stacked that it would make it virtually impossible to even meet the criteria laid out in the bill.

For example, it requires a letter from the provincial ministers responsible for health. It requires a letter from the local municipal government. It requires a letter from the head of the police force, outlining any issues that they have. It requires a letter from the leading health professional organization. It requires a letter from the provincial minister responsible for public safety. It requires a statistical analysis. It requires police checks for people. It requires extensive public consultation.

All of this has to be gathered in addition to a 90-day public notification period that the minister herself can also conduct. There are two streams of information coming in, and even then, as we can see from the bill, the minister actually does not have to consider the application.

Once this information has been gathered, there is further consideration in the bill, section 5, that lays out that the minister may only grant an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act after having considered the following principles. I think these principles clearly lay out the government’s intent.

The principles are: illicit substances may have serious health effects; adulterated controlled substances may pose health risks; the risks of overdose are inherent in the use of certain illicit substances; strict controls are required; organized crime profits from the use of illicit substances; and criminal activity often results from the use of illicit substances.

What I find really curious about these principles that this bill is based on is that there is absolutely no mention of public health. There is no mention of preventing overdoses. There is no mention of preventing serious infections, like HIV-AIDS or hepatitis C. There is no mention, no principle of ensuring basic public health or protecting public safety.

What are the principles about? Clearly, they are about frustrating any application and giving the minister so much room that she can easily turn down any application, if she even decides to consider it in the first place. We attended the briefing that the government gave on the bill, and in that brief it was made very clear that if the criteria are met, the application may be considered but it will not necessarily be approved.

We find this bill offensive, and we will be opposing it. Clearly the bill does not live up to the spirit and the intent of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling. It is designed to frustrate that ruling, and in fact I would suggest that there will probably be ongoing legal challenges about this legislation. This bill is designed to create a situation where everything will run in the government’s favour to not even consider applications or, if it does, to simply turn it down based on the principles that it has outlined.

Let us just take a couple of minutes to talk about the one case that we do have in Canada, which is called Insite in Vancouver’s downtown east side. Setting up Insite was probably the most important health measure that has ever been taken in this country. It took years for it to be up and running. It went under incredible local scrutiny. There was opposition.

In Vancouver today, not only do the police support the safe injection site, as well as local businesses, the board of trade, and municipal politicians. In fact, I think members would be hard pressed to find anyone in Vancouver who would actually dispute the value and the importance of this particular facility that is located on East Hastings Street.

The facility has been scrutinized and has been the subject of 30 scientific studies and reports. It has gone through enormous evaluation.

However, what I think is most important is that if we actually visit the place, we can see for ourselves what work is being done and how important it is to provide a safe, medically-supervised environment for people with serious addiction issues to get off the street, to be in an environment where they are safe, where they are taken care of, and where they can make contact with health care professionals.

I have seen that because most of the people who use this facility are my constituents. I know many of them personally.

What I find really just incredibly disappointing is that no minister of health has had the courage, or even just the reasonable wherewithal, to actually visit Insite to find out for themselves what is going on.

So, all of this rhetoric, all of this bias that the Conservatives show is based upon an ideology that they are perpetuating. It is not based upon either experience of first-hand knowledge. It is not based upon consideration of the incredible body of evidence that now exists. It is simply based upon a political position that they have staked out because they think it caters to a Conservative base.

I find that really quite abhorrent, in terms of how we approach public policy in this country.

I do not know how much money has been spent on all of the litigation involving Insite. It is probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet, this facility in Vancouver has survived. It has survived all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and is still continuing to operate.

In fact, just a few weeks ago it celebrated–and I use the word “celebrate” because it was a celebratory event–its 10th anniversary. To see the people in the community who have become part of the clientele of Insite, to see the people who are actually still alive, who are better off, who are doing better, who are better connected, who have a health connection are very important things. Without Insite, many of those individuals would likely have died of overdoses.

However, is there anything in the bill that would address that, the simple basic human fact that Insite is part of the solution, not part of the problem? We do not see anything in the bill on those issues.

I know that the government has come under intense scrutiny and criticism from a number of organizations across the country, which of course it has ignored. For example, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, and the Pivot Legal Society issued a statement in which they made it very clear that:

People who use drugs are entitled to needed health care services just like all other Canadians. It is unethical, unconstitutional and damaging to both public health and the public purse to block access to supervised consumption services which save lives and prevent the spread of infections.

I think that is it, in a nutshell. What we are talking about here is public health. It is about community safety. It is about people giving people very basic access to health services. Yet, we would never know that by looking at this legislation, we would never know that by reading the minister’s press release, and we would never know that by listening to the rhetoric that we heard from the government side on this bill, and on the issue, generally.

The Canadian Medical Association issued a press release when the bill first came out, in June, in which it said:

The CMA is deeply concerned that the proposed legislation may be creating unnecessary obstacles and burdens that could ultimately deter creation of more injection sites.

Dr. Evan Wood, a renowned scientist who works for the BC Centre of Excellence in HIV/AIDS, points out that one of the important aspects of a safe injection site is that given that each HIV infection costs on average approximately $500,000 in medical costs, Insight has contributed to a 90% reduction in new HIV cases caused by intravenous drug use in British Columbia, which is why the British Columbia government has been such a strong supporter of the program. That is from an article he wrote in The Globe and Mail in June.

We also have Dr. Mark Tyndall who is the head of infectious diseases at Ottawa Hospital. He says:

Supervised injection sites will be open in Canada and the government will be challenged for its callous and misinformed policies through legal avenues and whatever else it takes to do the right thing. Thousands of Canadians—the poor, the addicted, the mentally ill, our brothers and sisters—are depending on it.

These are just a few of the opinions and analyses that have come in from people who have studied this issue over and over again.

We need to understand that if this bill goes through, not only would it prevent other safe injection sites from being set up in Canada, and we do know that there is a great interest in Toronto, Victoria and Montreal, but it would also have an impact in Vancouver. As the parliamentary secretary pointed out, the current exemption permit for Insite will be up in March 2014 so they too will have to go through this process. Given the incredibly ridiculous and absurd criteria and considering the stance of the government, we can see that approval is very unlikely, or it will be very difficult to get.

What does that mean? It means that a place that has been operating successfully for 10 years, that has been well accepted in the community and that went through all of the approval processes will potentially be shut down, and people will be turfed out on the street. It means that people will die of overdoses. It means that we will see open drug use on the streets. It means that we will see greater pain and suffering in this community and the whole community will be impacted by that.

I want to keep coming back to the most basic point of this whole debate, and that is that a safe injection site is not some kind of bogey man or some kind of scary place; it is simply a health facility. It is a health facility that provides a service that helps people who are facing very difficult addiction issues. It provides a safe, medical and supervised environment. It helps people get into treatment. It helps people get off the street. Most important, it stops people from dying of overdoses.

Does that mean anything to these Conservatives? Do they even care that people are dying? What they want to do is vilify those people. We heard the parliamentary secretary. She talks about her mother and somebody else’s mother walking down the street. This is about creating fear in local communities. Maybe that is the reason, as my colleague has pointed out, that this bill is going to go to the public safety committee, because the Conservatives want to have it viewed only through a lens of law and order, as opposed to a needed, necessary and essential public health approach that is about public health and public protection for people, not only the drug users but the community as a whole.

This bill that we have before us is the antithesis of a public health approach. What is this bill really about? It is about fear. It is about dividing people. It is about demonizing people. I find that really offensive because we are talking about individuals. Drug use cuts across all classes. It cuts across people of all different persuasions. So we have to examine that this bill is something that would hurt not only the existing safe injection site but the potential for others across the country that would save lives.

I will finish my remarks by moving a motion. I move, seconded by the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine:

 

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: this House decline to give second reading to Bill C-2, an Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, because it:

 

 

(a) fails to reflect the dual purposes of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) to maintain and promote both public health and public safety; (b) runs counter to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Canada v. PHS Community Services Society, which states that a Minister should generally grant an exemption when there is proof that a supervised injection site will decrease the risk of death and disease, and when there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety; and

 

 

(c) establishes onerous requirements for applicants that will create unjustified barriers for the establishment of safe injection sites, which are proven to save lives and increase health outcomes.

 

 

(d) further advances the Miniister’s political tactics to divide communities and use the issue of supervised injection sites for political gain, in place of respecting the advice and opinion of public health experts.

 

Libby Davies Defends InSite

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Posted on 2007.05.3

Libby Davies Defends InSite

NDP MP Libby Davies today, praised the numerous successes of InSite, Vancouver’s safe injection site, despite a recent critique of harm reduction strategies that attempts to contradict the large body of evidence supporting InSite as a life saving program.

The critique comes from the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, headed by former Conservative Member of Parliament, Randy White.

“Mr. White made it clear that he rejected the validity of harm reduction strategies, when we worked together in 2001, on the Parliamentary Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs, long before InSite even opened its doors. It comes as no surprise that he and his organization are trying to undermine the value of this program,” said Davies.

The scientific research on InSite was published in peer-reviewed medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and showed that InSite has led to increased addiction treatment, reduced overdose fatalities and the use of shared needles in the community. Stephen Lewis, Bill Clinton and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation have all praised InSite as a global model for reducing HIV/AIDS transmission through needles.

“Despite the successes of InSite, the majority of federal spending on Canada’s Drug Strategy still goes toward enforcement, and not harm reduction, as the critique implies,” said Davies.

In its 2007 budget, the Conservative government removed harm reduction as a pillar of Canada’s Drug Strategy, and stated that it will spend most of the Strategy’s $63 million budget increase on enforcement measures.

“Above and beyond the scientific research, this program has been embraced by municipal government, local law-enforcement, local businesses and the general community who see the positive changes on our streets, and the reduced strain on our policing and health services,” said Davies. “Scientists and activists accept the positive findings from the study from InSite, and like so many Vancouverites, I’m proud that this effective program is part of our community,” added Davies.

Old Site Images – Page 5

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Category: Old Site Images

All Images from before 2018

Title Published Topics
Hasting Little League_0 2013.06.18
Libby at BC Coalition Booth 2013.06.18
Seasonal Open House 1 2013.06.18
Ukranian Centre Anniversary 2013.06.18
Crosstown Clinic 2013.06.18
Libby and Thom at MTL pride 2013.06.18
Libby at Centre for Excellence 2013.06.18

On Bill C-46, An Act to Provide for the Resumption and Continuation of Railway Operations – Libby Davies

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Posted on 2007.04.17

On Bill C-46, An Act to Provide for the Resumption and Continuation of Railway Operations

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the NDP as we now enter third reading of Bill C-46, An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of railway operations.

Having looked at that name, and as many of my colleagues have said earlier in debate today, the bill is a very draconian bill and it is nothing more than ramming through back-to-work legislation that is impacting the health, safety and lives of workers who assume a tremendous risk in terms of their operations on the railway.

I want to say that many of my colleagues in the NDP have been on the picket lines. We have spoken with workers who have been out on strike and I would point out that this was a legal strike.

There have been many comments made in the House that have undermined the rights of workers who have been engaged in a legitimate strike, in a legitimate process under Canada’s Labour Relations Act. Even today there is a perception that somehow the
workers who have been involved in this labour dispute, a very nasty dispute with an employer, CN, are somehow in the wrong.

However, let us be very clear. When the workers rejected the tentative offer that was negotiated, as they have the right to do, they began a series of rotating strikes. Let it be known and let it be very clear, that it was the company it was CN, which then proceeded to lock out the workers.

The misconceptions that have taken place in terms of this labour dispute have done a huge disservice to the members of this union. I want to say to the 2,800 members of the United Transportation Union who have had the guts and the courage to uphold their rights in the face of a very difficult situation.

We are here in our places because we want to uphold the labour rights in this country. What we have seen the government do in terms of ramming through this legislation has been something that we find very despicable and insulting to the process and the history of what labour rights are about in this country.

It is very curious that once the tentative agreement was rejected, it was less than a week that the government then brought in the back to work legislation. I think we have to ask this question. What was the rush on the government’s part? We have heard
repeatedly that the economic sky was going to fall in Canada and things would fall apart, but that was certainly not the case.

I think it begs the question that maybe this Conservative government has another agenda and that is that it wants to clear the decks for a possible election. It knows that it needed to get this back to work legislation through the House because once an election is called it would not be able to do that.

I want to put that out there because there was really no reason for the government to move so quickly against these workers who have a legitimate interest and who have a legitimate process that they were abiding by. I would say again, they were out on a legal strike. They engaged in a legal process. They voted on a tentative agreement which they had a right to approve or to vote down. They chose to vote it down. They also have the right to a process to engage in further rotating strikes, to engage in further negotiations. We believe that is what should have happened instead of this kind of legislation that is being brought forward.

I want to say in speaking to this bill that some of the issues of concern about why this strike happened in the first place have been entirely lost. I want to commend my colleagues in the NDP for standing up one after another today to keep this debate going, to put on the public record what the real issues have been in this strike. I want to say that the main concern that has been put forward by the 2,800 members of the United Transportation Union has been health and safety. These are the men and the women who keep our railways operating. These are the men and women who work sometimes terrible shifts, in terrible working conditions, in unsafe working conditions to keep these trains
rolling across the country.

We believe that the issues that they have placed in terms of why they went on strike are issues that have to be resolved. For that reason we are very concerned that the government’s bill that includes only a final offer selection will not be an adequate process and will not allow these issues to be fully addressed.

We happen to believe that the health and safety of workers is of paramount importance to all Canadians. That is why we have a Labour Code.

If we cannot address that in a labour agreement, if we cannot address that during a strike, if we cannot get those issues on the table, and we are left with just basically a final offer selection, then we believe that is very undemocratic and very unfair.

We want to say to the government today, because we know that the bill is going to be rammed through tonight and it is going to be approved, that it has a responsibility in terms of ensuring the health and safety of those workers. We want to ensure that those
men and women do not experience the kind of derailments that we have seen across the country.

One of my colleagues pointed out earlier that we have seen a doubling of the derailments and the safety incidents that have taken place. Whether it has been in the Fraser Canyon, Pickering, Ontario, or in New Brunswick this has become an all too common occurrence under CN operations. It begs the question as to what is taking place in this company and why is it that health and safety issues and working conditions have fallen so far down the agenda. What is the government doing to address those concerns because it will not be fairly addressed through a final offer selection?

I do want to say as well that in this debate we have brought forward the issues that are of concern to the workers. We have been very dismayed by the debate in this House. It has been completely dismissive of those issues.

My colleagues and I have been on those picket lines. We have spoken to the workers. We know that their decision to go on strike in the first place was not made lightly. People only do this as a last measure when all other resources and processes have failed.

I think we have to come to an acknowledgment in this House that with this legislation that is being rammed through tonight there still will be all kinds of outstanding issues and conflicts that will result for this company and for the workers who work for this company.

As has been pointed out before, this is truly scandalous and obscene for a corporation where the CEO makes $56 million a year in salary and bonuses, which is something like $9,000 an hour. It is truly obscene to see that on the one hand and on the other hand to see that the legitimate interests of workers are not being adequately addressed. Where is the fairness in that process? We have to ask ourselves why this company allowed it to get to this point where we are now in this kind of situation.

The NDP has been very unequivocal in its opposition to this back to work legislation. I remember that when I was first elected in 1997 we had another piece of back to work legislation concerning the postal workers. I remember standing in this House at about 2 a.m. and feeling disgusted that one of the first pieces of business that I had to vote on was sending workers back to work when they had not had a fair negotiating process. I
did not think we would see that kind of situation come about again, but here we are again tonight.

I am very dismayed to see that only members of the NDP and members of the Bloc have been opposed to this back to work legislation. It makes me wonder what on earth has happened to members of the Liberal Party, who purport to support labour rights. We saw them vote against the anti-scab legislation. We saw them flip-flop on that. But on something as basic as this back to work legislation, I can tell members that the labour
movement is truly dismayed that the Liberal Party has abandoned workers in this country by voting in favour of this back to work legislation. It is something that we expect from
the Conservative government, but it is not something that we expected from the Liberal Party.

We stand here proudly, because even when it is unpopular to do so we believe that back to work legislation should not be used. We believe a legitimate process should be allowed to take place.

I am very proud today to rise in my place and to say on behalf of all New Democrats that we categorically oppose this back to work legislation. We believe it is a denial and a violation of the rights of these workers. It is not a democratic process. The elements of this bill will not produce a fair arbitration process and will not address the issues that are still outstanding for the 2,800 members of this union.

We will be voting against this legislation. We do it on principle. We do it on substance. We do it for an understanding of what it means for these workers. We do it on the basis of understanding what it means for workers in this country as a whole.

It is a black day for workers when any legislation like this is used by Parliament, legislation that violates our Labour Code and our labour standards and undermines those democratic processes.

HANSARD
House of Commons
April 17, 2007

Mr. Peter Julian (Burnaby—New Westminster, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the intervention from the member for Vancouver East. She comes from British Columbia, as I do, and we have seen the government systematically betray British Columbians with dozens of broken promises. We saw it with the softwood sellout and hundreds of lost jobs in British Columbia as well as half a billion dollars in illegally taken tariffs given away just as a gift to the Bush administration.

The Conservatives applauded the hundreds of lost jobs, which shows how seriously the Conservatives take British Columbia. In fact, the Minister of Finance stood up on budget day and said that his Conservative Canada goes from the Alberta Rockies right through to Newfoundland and Labrador. What he said was insulting to any British Columbian.

Last week, on the pine beetle epidemic, we heard the Minister of Natural Resources saying quite simply that the pine beetle epidemic that has devastated the interior of British Columbia was “not a priority”.

Now we have the issue of rail safety, which British Columbians have been concerned about for years as we have seen the loss of life and the environmental devastation. British Columbia has been more profoundly impacted by CN’s irresponsibility than any
other province. British Columbians have said repeatedly that rail safety has to be a priority, and the Conservative government, like the previous Liberal government, has completely ignored British Columbians’ concerns.

We have here tonight a case of the Conservative government choosing CN management and giving it a blank cheque to impose any sort of working conditions on its workers while very clearly the employees of CN have signalled to all arliamentarians
that safety has to be addressed.

My question for the member for Vancouver East is quite simple. Why does the Conservative government not get the fact that British Columbians’ concerns have to be taken into consideration?

Ms. Libby Davies:
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Burnaby—New Westminster for his very fulsome question. My quick response would be that maybe the Conservative
government members have become as arrogant as the former Liberal government so quickly that they forget the interests of the people they represent.

As for that list the member read off, whether it is the pine beetle infestation in British Columbia, the impact of the softwood lumber agreement and the incredible impact it has
had on workers’ lives, or this back to work legislation and the impact of rail safety, all of these are issues that affect people in their working lives and affect their families.

One of the issues in this labour dispute and strike is the health and safety issue. The hours of work affect not only the workers on the railroad but affect their families too. This is about quality of life, something we hear that the Conservatives believe in supporting. They seem to have forgotten that in British Columbia, as they have across the country.

Again I think it begs the question as to why this legislation really has been brought in. Is it for a political agenda? Is it to clear the political deck so that the Conservatives can make whatever decision they want if they decide to go for an election?

This certainly is not being done in the interests of workers, neither those at CN nor any other workers. It is not being done in the interests of British Columbia, because if that were the government’s motivation it would have invested its resources, its influence and its political work in making that process work.

Instead, what we seen is that at the earliest opportunity Conservatives opted out to bring in back to work legislation. That is a sign of their failure and their lack of responsibility in making sure that a process that exists could work.

I would agree with the member that the Conservative government has completely let down British Columbians and certainly has let down these workers who are doing their
best to make these processes work and to get their legitimate issues addressed. The government has let them down.

Mr. Chris Warkentin (Peace River, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, it seems that the NDP is going to keep us here this evening, so I think that while we are here I may as well give an intervention on behalf of the farm families that I represent in my constituency.

Over the last couple of weeks I have spent the time travelling from one end of my constituency to the other. What I have consistently heard from farm families is that the rail disruption that is happening is affecting the farm family to the extent that many families are in a situation where they are going to be unable to pay their bills. They will be unable to make these important payments that the banks and the different suppliers
are demanding. Unfortunately what this means is that many farm families will experience financial devastation and many will actually lose the home they are living in because they
are unable to get their product to market.

Again and again we have seen the NDP be totally unresponsive to the needs of our farm families. I stand here today just to beg the NDP to allow the grain to start to move in this country so that our farm families will get what they need. I will tell the members of the NDP that the people they have consistently not talked about, those for whom this labour disruption has the most devastating effect, are our farm families.

Again and again I ask the NDP to consider for just one moment the effect that this is going to have on our farm families.

Ms. Libby Davies:
Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to say that I am most terribly sorry if this member is inconvenienced because he has to be here tonight to deal with this legislation. That is really so sad. We consider it a matter of duty to deal with this legislation and to debate it in a legitimate and serious way. If it takes all night and if it takes all day that is what we are prepared to do. My apologies if that one member has been inconvenienced by being
here tonight.

In terms of his assertion that the NDP has been unresponsive to farm families, I have to say that he should go and look at the record. He should go and look at which party and which members have been raising the issues of farm families in this House. It has been the NDP.

Which members have been raising the issue of the Wheat Board and the democratic rights of farmers who were elected to that Wheat Board, which the Conservative government has thrown out and has been trying to violate? It has been the New
Democratic Party.

In any labour dispute or any strike, there is an economic disruption. That is a reality. I do not deny that. Nobody in this House could deny that. But we have rights in this country for workers and employers. It is a process that has been well honed. It is based on practice. It is based on law.

Yes, there can be economic disruption and economic hardship, but the fact is that if the government had taken the time to act properly and to make sure the process worked, then we would not be where we are today: dealing with this legislation.

I put it back to the member. I believe it is the government that has let down those farm families by letting us get to the point where we now have back to work legislation. There could have been much earlier preventative action taken. We could have had a collective agreement and a fair process could have taken place.
The member should not lecture us about supporting farm families. We have done our job and we will continue to do our job. It is the Conservative government that has let
down those provinces and the Prairies.

Mr. Wayne Marston (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, I spent nine years working for the Canadian National Railway. I was a signal maintainer. I saw accident after accident. I was there when the bodies of four people were picked up off the ground. I know the concerns that come from the workers. I speak to these workers back in Hamilton all the time. They are concerned.

The members opposite can talk about the farmers and the wheat. Let us think in terms of how many railcars go off the tracks and how many derailments we have had in this country over the last six months. They should ask themselves what the problem is.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Andrew Scheer):
There are eight seconds left for the hon. member for Vancouver East.

Ms. Libby Davies:
Mr. Speaker, the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek knows what he is talking about. He is speaking from his own experience of what these health and safety issues are for railway workers. I thank him for raising this.

Supporting Insite

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Posted on 2014.06.18

Supporting Insite

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Speaker, Bill C-2 was first introduced in June 2013, a little over a year ago, as Bill C-65 and came back to the House as Bill C-2 in October.

     I am proud of the fact that about 50 members of the NDP caucus have spoken to this important legislation. However, I am ashamed to say that what we have heard from the government side is divisive debate. From day one the Conservatives have portrayed the issue of respecting the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision on safer injection sites in Canada as a black and white issue.

    I go back to January 27 of this year when the government House leader told the Hill Times that he will tell people that opposition parties want drug injection sites to be established in their neighbourhoods without people having any say. He then talked about the extreme position that the NDP was taking. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    For the government House leader to portray our discourse on this legislation in that manner shows first, how the Conservatives like to create division and fear among people, and second, that they know absolutely nothing about North America’s only safe inject site, which is located in Vancouver’s downtown east side and called Insite. The fact is that Insite was set up over 10 years ago after extensive consultation with the local community.

    The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Insite and other supervised injection sites must be granted Section 56 exemptions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act when they “decrease the risk of death and disease and there is little or no evidence that it will have a negative impact on public safety”.

    Upon reading the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada it is clear that it understood the arguments that were being made by the litigants, that this was a health measure, that it was about saving lives and that it was about preventing people from needless drug overdoses. Over the past 10 years, Insite has gone on to become incredibly successful and has helped improve the health and well-being of many people. It has saved literally countless lives in the downtown east side.

    Over 30 peer review studies have been done on Insite. It received its first exemption in 2003. From the extensive research that has been done since it opened, Vancouver has seen a 35% decrease in overdose deaths. Furthermore, Insite has been shown to decrease crime and communicable disease infection rates and relapse rates for drug users. That is quite remarkable. NDP members have always said that Insite is just part of the solution; it is not the only solution.

    It is quite remarkable that this facility has been able to accomplish so much. One would never know that after hearing the speeches from government members. One would think it was just about chaos and law and order, that it was about imposing something on a community.

     Insite did get a further exemption under the act for another year.

    I want to put firmly on the record that Insite has done a remarkable job in Vancouver.

    I would also note that over those 10 years, organizations, like the HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association, never mind the 30 plus peer review studies, have all come out firmly on the side of evidence that Insite is about saving lives. They came to this conclusion upon their analysis of how Insite is operated. They have been critical of Bill C-2 because they know, as we know having examined the bill, that it is really about setting the bar high. Because so much discretion and subjectivity is given to the minister it would be very easy for her on flimsy, non-evidence-based opinion to turn down other applications across Canada.

    That is the fundamental problem with this legislation. At the end of the day, Bill C-2 would not meet the test of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision on Insite.

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