QUESTION PERIOD — Indigenous Services
Opioid Crisis
October 1, 2024
Leader, two weeks ago, a tribal council representing 14 First Nations on Vancouver Island declared a state of emergency due to the ongoing opioid drug crisis. The tribal council noted that First Nations people make up less than 4% of B.C.’s population, but almost 20% of toxic drug deaths in the province.
Speaking with Global News, tribal council president Judith Sayers pointed out, “We’ve seen British Columbia declare a state of emergency eight years ago on this . . . And what has changed?”
Leader, flooding B.C. communities with dangerous opioids has done nothing to reduce overdose deaths. Will the NDP-Liberal government put an end to its so-called safe supply experiment?
Thank you for the question and for underlining the tragedy that drug abuse has visited upon the communities to which you refer and, indeed, so many and too many of our communities and our citizens. Today at the flag-raising ceremony — the survivors’ ceremony — we also heard about how drug use has affected generations of those who were survivors of Indigenous residential schools.
The problem, however, is not, with all respect, the safe sites program that was initiated within the province or provinces in order to provide a safer place and a regulated place. It is much broader and much more intractable, frankly, to resolve, but it must be addressed.
Leader, these 14 First Nations on Vancouver Island declared a state of emergency due to toxic drugs on September 19. Since that date, what specific actions have the NDP-Liberal government taken to provide meaningful and culturally appropriate services to these B.C. communities in their time of need?
Again, nothing that I have said or would say is to minimize the seriousness of the emergency. The Government of Canada is working with its provincial counterparts and with First Nations, Inuit and Métis as appropriate to address the problems that together we have absolutely every obligation to address.
