Pubdate: Fri, 23 Sep 2016
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Peter O'Neil
Page: A5

OTTAWA SET TO SOFTEN INJECTION SITE LEGISLATION

'Overdose epidemic' means more places like Insite needed, MPs
say

The federal government said Wednesday it is prepared to amend
Conservative legislation that critics say prevented the national
proliferation of supervised injection sites modelled after Vancouver's
Insite facility.

The pledge from Health Minister Jane Philpott came after B.C. New
Democrat MP Don Davies, who earlier Wednesday pushed through a motion
to hold an emergency parliamentary study into the opioid crisis, said
Canada needs more facilities like the Downtown Eastside's.

"Mr. Speaker, there is an overdose epidemic gripping our nation," the
MP for Vancouver Kingsway said, citing one projection that an
estimated 2,000 Canadians could die in overdoses this year.

That death toll includes the 488 in B.C. in the first eight months of
2016, compared to 505 for the entire 2015 calendar year, according to
statistics released earlier this week.

In his question, Davies mentioned that in 2013, Vancouver Centre MP
Hedy Fry, a former family physician and at the time her party's health
critic, said the Tory law on supervised sites was intended to create
hurdles too onerous to overcome.

Philpott, who has urged Health Canada officials to help communities
seeking federal approval to set up sites, said the Tory law may be
revisited.

"If it becomes clear to us that we need to make some further
amendments to that act to … ensure that there are no barriers, then we
will certainly do that," she told reporters.

"We believe that supervised consumption sites are a deeply
evidence-based mechanism that we know helps Canadians to access care,
helps to save lives and helps to prevent infections."

Davies said he was pleased with the minister's response. The former
government's law, passed after a Supreme Court of Canada decision
allowed Insite to stay open, included "26 separate, discrete
requirements … that make groups that want to open a supervised
injection site have to go through all sorts of administrative hoops,"
Davies said.

"They have to do immense consultations with a wide variety of groups.
They have to fulfil a lot of paperwork that is very onerous, and any
group will tell you it takes months and months and months and
hundreds, if not thousands, of hours to get the application in. "In
the meantime, people die." Philpott has already announced a
federal-provincial meeting in November to seek solutions to the
crisis, and has taken several interim steps to, for instance, restrict
access to six chemicals used to make the potent opioid fentanyl.

The MP also tried unsuccessfully earlier this week to get Liberals to
expand the breadth of a Good Samaritan bill being advanced by B.C.
Liberal MP Ron McKinnon, who represents Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam.

The bill would give anyone immunity from prosecution for drug
possession charges to anyone who contacts authorities to assist
someone suffering from a drug overdose.

Davies said that bill should be expanded to include other drugrelated
offences, like trafficking, so a broader range of people would be
encouraged to dial 911 to save the life of someone in their midst.

But Liberals on the committee rejected his amendment, saying it was
not within the legislative scope of McKinnon's legislation.
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MAP posted-by: Matt