QUESTION PERIOD — Health
Decriminalization of Drugs
May 1, 2024
Senator Gold, like everything else he touches, Justin Trudeau’s completely wacky policy of drug decriminalization has proven to be a failure. Even B.C. Premier David Eby acknowledges that it is ruining lives and causing death and chaos on Canadian streets. Yet, your government plans to push forward by decriminalizing in other cities.
This morning I met with Estelle Savoie-Dufresne, a young lawyer from Montreal and a mom to a beautiful 5-year-old daughter who lives in the Atwater area. Recently, her young daughter had a question for her. She looked at her mom and asked, “How should I pick up a syringe?” She was asking because she sees them in both her playground and her park.
Senator Gold, perhaps either you or Minister Miller, who represents that riding, can answer that question. Please demonstrate to us here in the chamber and to this five-year-old girl how she should pick up a syringe as she plays in her local park in our hometown.
Thank you for your question. That happens to be my neighbourhood. I’m very familiar with the circumstances that plague the people and the neighbourhood due to multiple causes such as drug use, homelessness, deinstitutionalization and all the ravages of colonization, as you would know, Senator Housakos, since you know Montreal so well. That is also an area where folks from the Far North find themselves torn from their roots. This has nothing to do with the question of decriminalization of drugs. This is a problem that is vast in Montreal.
Having said that, when jurisdictions approach the Canadian government and ask for their help to solve a health problem, the government will listen and work with them, as it did with B.C., and it will continue to do so while at the same time —
Decriminalizing hard drugs, Senator Gold, is completely —
I’d like to remind senators to please wait until I call you before you ask your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Your Honour.
As I said, Senator Gold, that response is completely wacko when we’re talking about basically decriminalizing hard drugs. The good news for that mom and her daughter, Senator Gold, is that Pierre Poilievre will form a government, will ban hard drugs, will stop providing taxpayer-funded drugs and will instead put that money into detox and recovery.
In the meantime, could you look at this young mom from your hometown, and all others like her, and tell her that you will not further decriminalize hard drugs in Montreal or in any other —
I feel for the mother and for anyone — children, families, parents — who feel insecure or unsafe on the streets of our cities and our towns. In that regard, there is no difference in our position, senator.
Where we do differ, quite frankly, is in the way in which you seem to try to disregard both the scientific and public policy issues surrounding drugs and retreat to a —
