Health committee  I absolutely do not accept that logic. I would say that we need about six silver bullets. It is not a silver bullet; it is one step towards treating people with substance use disorder as human beings, with everything that we all have. To shut it off like that is to me unconscionable.

Health committee  I think it's a matter of funding recovery and treatment facilities. As well, having good surveillance, good oversight and good policies in place for those facilities is critical. Substance use disorder is the only health issue in this country wherein people have to go to the street to get their medicine.

Health committee  Criminalization of people who use drugs tends to push them into the corners. It is incredibly stigmatizing. What is more stigmatizing than being arrested, and thrown into the criminal justice system, when, in fact, you have a substance use disorder, and you need to have drugs you can only find on the street in a dangerous and illicit way?

Health committee  Using the substances that are available to people, which are the illicit toxic substances on the market today, is the reason, the one single reason, that people are dying or suffering permanent brain injury. It just follows that if a safe supply of pharmaceutical alternatives were available to people, and they were able to access those in a low-barrier way, they wouldn't die.

Health committee  Absolutely. I think we're all waiting for things to become safer. When people lose a loved one to any cause, we have traditions. As I said, we have rituals and things that are really important to our mental health in losing someone we love. Families who lose a loved one to drug harms are already dealing with the stigma and the isolation due to just that, the problematic drug use.

Health committee  I think anything helps. Everything helps. If it were a hotline that could address suicide as well as other mental health issues—and I should say including even drug use and addiction—yes, that would be a great idea. It couldn't hurt, but at the same time we need, across the board, connections through a phone line or through a phone app whereby people who are using drugs are able to connect with somebody who is listening.

Health committee  I am the co-founder of a non-profit national organization called Moms Stop the Harm. Two other moms, Lorna Thomas and Petra Schulz, and I lost our beautiful sons to drug harms in 2013-14. The next year we decided to act. By early 2016, we had an organization of 18 people. Today our members number well over 2,000 families across Canada.