DRUG TREATMENT PROGRAMSLEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO

Monday 17 March 2008 Lundi 17 mars 2008

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: This is to the Premier, also the MPP for Ottawa South.

The United Nations has rebuked our city, the city of Ottawa, for violating international drug treaties because of this government. The government has gone behind the city's back and funded a crack pipe program despite their protests. The Shepherds of Good Hope say needle distribution such as that funded by the provincial government is too dangerous. And today, an Ottawa Tim Hortons is considering removing its washroom to stop drugs from being shot up there.

The government's anti-drug strategy is bizarre. It is more about handing out crack pipes and not about providing drug treatment. Will the Premier respect the United Nations, the government of Canada's laws and the city of Ottawa and stop funding unaccountable programs that hand out drug paraphernalia and place it in the hands of drug dealers?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: The Minister of Health.

Hon. George Smitherman: I would like to thank the honourable member for her question. I note in her question and in some of her media comments and the correspondence she has written to me that she uses the words "philosophical" and "ideological," but in point of fact, our strategy is motivated by only one thing, which is to do our very best to limit the transmission of infectious diseases like hepatitis C and HIV, based on evidence. While she does quote the United Nations, they themselves are in conflict with the World Health Organization, which is part of the UN, who speak about the necessity of doing our very best for people who are addicted.

But I do agree with the honourable member that this is not one solution. It's one part of a continuum to engage people in the conversation and get them thinking about the things they can do to mitigate the risks to their health as we look, especially in the Ottawa community, to enhance our capacity for treatment. I will look forward very much to working with the honourable member as we seek to do that in response to the calls from that community.

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Ms. Lisa MacLeod: I appreciate that the government has one side of the story, but they are long on the supply side of drug paraphernalia and short on the treatment side. Their spending priorities are all wrong.

Last week, this Liberal majority defeated my request for a drug rehab centre for youth in the city of Ottawa. Yet in today's Ottawa Citizen, the Minister of Municipal Affairs is onside with that as a priority. I need to know: Which is it? This government is all over the map. There is no balance. There is no acknowledgment that prevention and treatment of drug abuse should be our priority as a province. Will the Premier commit today to funding a drug treatment facility in the city of Ottawa so we can get the kids-your government has provided crack pipes to-off drugs, off the streets and on the right track?

Hon. George Smitherman: I think it's the honourable member who has a little bit of an ideological burr under her saddle. To put things in perspective, we're spending a relatively few number of dollars, several hundred thousand at the very most, on the distribution of products designed to prevent the spread of infection, whereas we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on our existing addiction treatment capacity.

But where I think the honourable member is especially not particularly up to date-I spent a lot of time in Ottawa talking to the media about this, and I was very clear to say that we're interested in working with the Ottawa community on enhancing the continuum and most certainly enhancing access to treatment, which in the very first answer I acknowledged was insufficient. My colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs has been working with the city of Ottawa on this. We're expecting a report within a month or so, and I can tell the honourable member and all members of this House that it is most certainly the intention of our government to enhance treatment capacity for individuals in the Ottawa community and indeed in other parts of the province of Ontario.