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EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, February 18, 1997

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Order.

First of all, I welcome our panel to the health committee this morning. I understand you would like to have each of the groups make a five-minute presentation and then go to a question-and-answer period. That's fine with me.

We have two groups, the Drug Education Coordinating Council and then Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Parents Against Drugs. Those are the two groups, as well as the Council on Drug Abuse and Concerns, Canada. First, Mr. Burford.

Mr. Fred Burford (President, Council On Drug Abuse): I hope it will be all right, sir, if I give an introductory preamble so you will know who the people are.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Yes, very good.

Mr. Burford: Then I'll start into the Council On Drug Abuse presentation.

Good morning, Mr. Chairperson and members of the Standing Committee on Health. We thank you for this opportunity to present to you in person the experiences and views of the four community organizations we represent. During the presentations you will hear, in the following order, myself, Fred Burford, representing the Council On Drug Abuse; Karl Burden, Concerns, Canada - Ben Jenkins, with him, will participate in the question period - Parents Against Drugs, Diane Buhler, and with her Annabelle Williams, the executive director of the PAD organization in Kingston; and John Bates, representing Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Our presentations will be different and each of us supports the presentations of the others. We are all concerned about the misuse and abuse, and in some cases the use, of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other substances. We believe strongly in a multifaceted approach that involves effective prevention, intervention, treatment, and enforcement. Each of our organizations, as the chair has mentioned, is a member of the Drug Education Coordinating Council, called DECC, a twenty-member consortium that was founded in 1983 to foster good communication and collaboration. Those organizations are listed in appendix A.

Since Canada's drug strategy began in 1987, DECC and our four organizations here today have been helped by drug strategy grants. I'll give you a very few fast examples.

In 1987 both PAD and CODA received grants in the early stages of their peer education programs, in which senior high school students are trained to teach an interactive educational program to junior students. For PAD their program is for grade 8, for CODA grades 9 and 10. From the fall of 1989 to the present these programs have been funded by the Masonic Foundation of Ontario. So it's a sort of model: seed money from Canada's drug strategy, then an organization picks up the funding from that point on. Since that time many students and schools have benefited from the program.

In 1993 Concerns, Canada, PAD, and CODA collaborated for a day's workshop on school intervention programs for teachers. This was financed partly by a grant from Canada's drug strategy.

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In 1994 DECC, along with the Addiction Research Foundation and seven other organizations, presented a two-day Family Portraits conference in the International Year of the Family. This was made possible by a significant grant from Canada's drug strategy.

There were others, and our four organizations greatly appreciated each one.

Now I'm speaking on behalf of the Council On Drug Abuse. Founded in 1969, it's a non-profit community organization that develops and presents preventive education programs on alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, mainly to youth, their parents, and their teachers.

CODA, along with PAD, believes very strongly in the effectiveness of peer education. We have seen that trained senior high school students can have a very positive influence on students in grades 8, 9, and 10. The programs use a variety of activities that are based on the value of small group discussions with peer leaders as group leaders. The peer leaders are non-judgmental and they are trained to create environments in which the younger students feel free to interact and exchange views. Research verifies the value of peer education programs; appendix B gives a reference for that.

A typical evaluation of CODA's peer education program is shown in appendix C, where it indicates, given that you are currently using or trying illegal drugs - this refers to a grade 9 student - rate the following statement on a scale of one to five. The statement is: ``The program helped me to decide not to use or to give up illegal drugs''. The grade 9 students gave a rating of 3.9 on a scale of 1 to 5. So 80% found it effective in helping them. Because of the success of both the CODA and the PAD programs, we recommend that peer education programs be strongly encouraged.

The person who developed CODA's peer education program, Don Smythe, also developed a curriculum, ``Strategies in Drug Education'', or STRIDE, for grades 7, 8, and 9. The principal of the secondary school that introduced this program in grade 9 six and a half years ago says it is the most successful educational intervention program he has experienced. He says the contemporary qualities of the curriculum, along with the strong peer-to-peer component, are the reasons for its success.

So it is recommended that there should be an integrated curriculum in tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs from at least grade 5 to grade 9, using contemporary approaches with strong peer components, good training for teachers, and sufficient teaching time.

Consistent with our approaches to prevention and intervention, we would want drug laws to be humane. The main controversy surrounding Bill C-8 centred on cannabis. One of the strong criticisms of the bill as it was passed is that a person who is charged and convicted of the possession of a small amount of cannabis for personal use would still have a criminal record, as was the case under the Narcotic Control Act. The criminal record would be a stigma that could cause problems with applications for a job or an educational institution or in crossing the border. These are legitimate concerns, and since 1984, because of them, CODA has been opposed to criminal records, at least for first-time possession of marijuana charges.

At the Senate committee hearings, on the advice of CODA's lawyer, Mr. Fedunchak, one of Canada's most successful defence counsels, who has defended 200 people on drug charges, CODA suggested a change in Bill C-8, a change that would have added the following to page 5, part I, offences and punishment, particular offences, subsection 4(5):

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Now, I will give some clarifications in order to understand this. This change would fit into the existing system without any major changes. The same forms can be used. These forms consist of ``The Information'', which records the charge, the date, the time, the place, and the result; and the police record, commonly known as CPIC, which always records the reference number of ``The Information''.

With this change, the CPIC would not show a sentence or a penalty. Therefore it would not show a conviction on the person's record. This then would mean in practice - and you have copies you can refer to later... This is what ``The Information'' looks like. It's not in yellow. It's what is used initially when the person is charged. It ends up showing the sentence. Those are in envelopes.

This is what the CPIC looks like. It's also in white. On the right-hand side it shows the results of the case. It shows the penalty or sentence. The fact that it does means the person has, through this CPIC record, a criminal record.

With the change suggested by Ben Fedunchak, if you look on the other side of it, on the right-hand side, if these were possession of marijuana charges, there would be a blank, because they would not be recorded. Therefore this CPIC record would not be a criminal record, because it would not show convictions.

Mr. Fedunchak has discussed this with many of his colleagues, he has discussed it with judges, and they have all given favourable responses to it. So this is a suggestion that I hope will not fall on deaf ears with the Standing Committee on Health as it did with the Senate committee. I don't think they quite understood it. That's why we have supplied ``The Information'' and the CPIC record.

Also, in the presentation you will see various ways in which responses would now be correct. To the question from an employer or an institution, have you been convicted of a criminal offence, the correct answer is no, because there is no penalty or sentence on the CPIC record. They are not supposed to ask, do you have a criminal record? If they do, though, the correct answer would be no, because the person would not have been convicted of a criminal offence. His record would not show a sentence or a penalty.

When you cross the border, they can ask you anything. They can turn you back if they don't like the way you are chewing gum. But if they ask, do you have a criminal record, the answer would be, I've been charged but I was not convicted. Have you been charged with a criminal offence? Answer: yes, but I was not convicted. Have you been convicted of a criminal offence? The answer would be no. This law could be written so this would be done for the first offence of possession of marijuana, or the second, however the law-writers decide it.

I've given Mr. Fedunchak's business and fax numbers for anybody who wants to follow up. I'm not a lawyer and it would be best to speak to him. He has already had enquiries from someone in the federal government in July, but this, of course, was after Bill C-8 was passed.

Of course some submissions to the Senate committee recommended either removing the legal restrictions on cannabis or trivializing the law so it would be tantamount to removing the legal restrictions. These submissions would usually claim that other jurisdictions that made similar changes had not experienced serious increases in the use of cannabis. These submissions conveniently overlook the state of Alaska, where the possession of cannabis in the privacy of the home was legalized in 1976. The concomitant increases in cannabis and the resulting problems among youth caused parent groups to force a statewide vote in 1990. A majority vote resulted in the recriminalization of cannabis in March 1991.

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CODA would also like you to know what Ontario students aged 12 to 18 say their response would be when a secondary school decides to introduce CODA's peer education program. We request that they conduct an informational and attitudinal survey with the younger students who will be taught by senior students. One item reads ``If legal restrictions on cannabis were removed I would begin to use or use more''. Over the last two years, in 18 schools across Ontario, 1,427 students agreed with this statement out of a total of 4,903 students surveyed. This means 29% of the students would begin to use or use more, and therefore be at greater risk. That is shown in appendix D.

Prorating these results across Canada means 725,000 students aged 12 to 18 would be at greater risk - 725,000. This would be a major increase that would be disastrous.

Thank you. In the question period I'm sure we'll have a chance to pursue further information about prevention, intervention, treatment, and enforcement.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): For the committee maybe I can just clarify a few items in your presentation, and first your final comments on the survey done. You are saying 29% of students said they would use cannabis if there were no legal impediments to it.

Mr. Burford: That's right, 29% would either begin to use or use more. Whichever one, they are going to be at greater risk.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): The other question is about decriminalizing cannabis or marijuana use. If I hear you correctly - and clarify it if I'm not correct - you are saying you would want to decriminalize it to the extent of maybe no criminal record for the first-time charge of possession but probably having a criminal record if it were the second or third time...and also if it were in smaller quantities. If it's only the first conviction, you would like to see it not being recorded, as it is now, that you are convicted of a crime under the Criminal Code.

Mr. Burford: At least for the first time.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): But you are not in favour of total decriminalization of the use of marijuana and cannabis. Is that right?

Mr. Burford: No. It would go through the same procedure as any other offence under the Criminal Code. Therefore it would not be decriminalized. The key thing would be that however it was decided, for the first possession or the first two possessions or the first three possessions - I would suggest for the first two - a criminal record would not be associated with the charge. There would not be a conviction.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): What you are saying is the penalty that person has to pay in the long term for that conviction is onerous and if it could be shown as not being a conviction, in the long term that would help that individual. Is that basically what you're saying?

Mr. Burford: Yes. So often when a young person is involved, in particular, they are experimenting and inadvertently they are caught. We just feel it's too big a price to pay as far as stigma is concerned.

Also, be aware of this. As a secondary school principal, which I was for over thirteen years, I did not see that the fact that there was going to be a criminal record had any deterrent effect whatsoever. They had no idea what it even meant.

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The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you very much. On the next presentation maybe you can tell me more, Fred.

Karl Burden.

Mr. Karl N. Burden (Chief Executive Officer, Concerns, Canada): On behalf of the social action and legislation committee of Concerns, Canada, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

First let me introduce our organization. Concerns, Canada, a corporate division of Alcohol and Drug Concerns, Inc., is an independent nationally chartered citizens' organization that represents its membership on vital social issues relating to substance abuse, such as alcohol and drug advertising and legislation. We operate with a mission to promote and encourage a positive lifestyle, free from dependence on alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs.

As an organization with roots dating back into the 1800s, we have a long history of monitoring the trends and use of illicit and licit drugs. Although social advocacy is important, most of our work today involves education of professionals through two institutes, one in Hamilton and another in Vancouver; intervention courses for convicted impaired drivers and others serving alcohol or drug-related sentences; and materials and programming for children and youth.

Today we come with two items on our agenda. The first is concern about the legal status of marijuana and other so-called ``street drugs''. The second is some information on successful prevention initiatives directed towards drinking and driving in which we are currently involved.

As an organization, we have a growing concern that marijuana is being underestimated by many professionals and other Canadian citizens today. We hear comments such as ``it's not as dangerous as alcohol or tobacco'', which seem to imply that marijuana is fairly harmless. However, from our investigation into the subject we have come to a very different conclusion. Although this is not meant to be a complete list of the effects of marijuana, the following is a list of some of the consequences of this drug that are of concern to us. I have listed in our brief the sources of this information, so I'm not going to mention them verbally at this time.

Marijuana leads to poor short-term memory and learning problems. It impairs cognitive functions, with conditions worsening the longer and more frequently smokers use the drug. These impairments, according to some researchers, may not be reversible.

I would like to add here that Dr. Nadia Solowij from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, has said it's of concern to her that the period of most intense cannabis use coincides with the period of greatest educational, intellectual, emotional, and maturational development. Certainly as a former teacher of high-risk students who were drug involved, I myself have to agree with her concern.

I will carry on with the damages. Cannabis damages the immune system. It contributes to lung damage and cancer risks that are 50% to 70% greater than those that are associated with tobacco.

Of particular concern to us because of our work with impaired drivers is the fact that the control of motor vehicles is impaired by cannabis, as suggested by a study of pilots in flight simulators, who for 24 hours after smoking a single marijuana joint landed planes as much as 24 feet to the right or left of the centre line on the runway. In 1995 the State of Tennessee reported that drugs had replaced alcohol as the number one killer on their highways. Of concern here is the fact that it is so difficult to test for marijuana impairment.

Despite arguments from the drug culture to the contrary, marijuana is addictive. This addiction is well described in the marijuana literature.

Exposure to marijuana during pregnancy is associated with changes in size, weight, and neurological abnormalities in the newborn.

Cannabis produces 50% more tar than the same weight of strong tobacco products. That tar contains more than 150 complex hydrocarbons, including carcinogens.

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Cannabis increases heart rate by as much as 50%, thus creating a risk for individuals who have high blood pressure or heart problems.

For people with a history of emotional problems or mental illness, regular cannabis use can bring on their symptoms or make them worse.

Use of large doses on a daily basis can create physical dependency and cause withdrawal symptoms. I should add that the cannabis that's available on our streets today is many times stronger than that which was available in the early 1980s.

Researchers have been known to state that no one dies from marijuana, as if somehow this demonstrates that it is not a serious health risk. But I would have you note the attached comments...and I've handed copies of a letter from Dr. Janet Lapey, who is the executive director of Concerned Citizens for Drug Prevention, Inc., who states that there are at least nine different ways marijuana can kill, at least indirectly. These include death from motor vehicle accidents, consumption of excessive quantities of alcohol because marijuana impairment has impaired the judgment of the individual, lung damage, heart attacks, and cancer, all of which were caused or made worse by the use of marijuana.

Even if marijuana users face only a portion of the above health and developmental consequences, there is justification for maintaining the current legal status of this drug. It's not our wish to see experimenting young people or casual users of marijuana jailed or given criminal records. However, we have been told by police officers in fairly senior positions that those who obtain such sentences today were originally charged with much more serious offences, such as trafficking or importing, and it is through plea-bargaining that the sentence is reduced to simple possession.

Many of those advocating legislation or decriminalization as a harm reduction strategy fail to consider the impact of their recommendations on those at the other end of the drug-use continuum, namely experimenting children and teenagers. At a recent symposium sponsored by the Drug Education Coordinating Council and the Addiction Research Foundation, Dr. Jessica Warner, a researcher with the foundation, noted in her study of the attitudes towards cannabis and its use among high school students in Ontario that one of the reasons frequently quoted by young people for why they use marijuana is that they perceive a lack of adult consensus on this topic. May I be so bold as to suggest that perhaps one of the mandates of this committee should be to ensure such ambivalence towards marijuana is cleared up.

Given the current enforcement practices, decriminalization or legalization of marijuana is unnecessary. Furthermore, decriminalization or legalization will simply send a message to young people of our nation that marijuana is not considered dangerous or a serious health risk. We therefore strongly oppose any movement in this direction.

The second half of my paper I'm going to refer to only in general. It deals with programs we're currently involved in. The first are directed towards convicted impaired drivers and people also charged with impairment. We have a record of over twelve years of working in cooperation with the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services in delivering a program for convicted impaired drivers, and as recently as yesterday we commenced a new program called KEYS in Brampton for people who have been charged with impairment. The difference between the programs is that the first program is funded by the government, the second one by the offender. We would highly suggest that movement toward the latter is probably preferable, given the situation in our country today.

The second part of our involvement with prevention is in the distribution of materials for young drivers and young teenagers who are considering driving in the near future. We've produced a comic resource book called Risky Realities: the Real Story on Drinking and Driving, which is now in its second edition and has been found to be extremely successful among this target population. Using a comic format, it is attractive to young people. As they read through the story they are referenced to the resource sections, where they learn some of the implications of having a charge of impairment.

One section, for example, is entitled ``Welcome to Five Years on the Bus''. It points in fairly dramatic terms to the financial cost of a charge, which can involve an insurance jump to as high as $11,200 a year for their insurance for a car, which of course for most young people will mean they will be using the bus for the next few years.

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Social advocacy and education programs such as those I have described seek to fulfil our mandate. We try to find many other ways to reach young people to prevent them from becoming harmfully involved with chemicals.

We thank you for the opportunity to share our perspective with you today.

Ben Jenkins, who is with me, will be participating in the discussion period.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you very much for your presentation.

Let me just clarify a few points for committee members and for myself. About drinking and driving, perhaps you can inform the committee about the consequences in Canada as opposed to other countries, such as Britain. Are we much easier on drinking and driving in terms of long-term suspension and so on compared with other countries? I understand Britain has much stiffer penalties if people are caught drinking and driving. Perhaps you can inform the committee on Canadian consequences as opposed to those of other countries.

Mr. Burden: I suspect John Bates will be able to give a more definitive answer when he has an opportunity to speak. I'm aware that in Scandinavia, certainly, the consequences are much more severe than in Canada. About the British situation, I'm not in a position to make a comparison. I know Canada is toughening up its position and I think we're beginning to gain some leadership in this capacity. But I would defer to John, who is the expert in that field.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): We'll wait for John to make his presentation.

The other question is this. You've given us a fairly lengthy review of the use of marijuana and cannabis and the negative aspects of it. I wonder whether from our perspective we need to change the status quo way in which we deal with drug abuse. We've had a lot of presentations saying the old ways of doing things haven't worked and we need to take bold initiatives to deal with drug abuse. The way we as a society have been dealing with it has not worked and we need to look at new ways of dealing with it. They have a very good argument: if it hasn't worked in the past, should we continue with the status quo? Do we need to change the way we look at people who abuse drugs? Maybe you can make some comments.

Mr. Burden: Personally, speaking as a former educator, as I mentioned, in both elementary and secondary school teaching, I feel any change that attracts a lot of public attention toward decriminalization or legalization will send a message to young people that this drug is less risky than their parents and others might suggest it is. So we think what has been happening currently, very quietly relaxing the enforcement rather than changing the laws per se, is probably a much more sensible way to approach this topic.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you.

Our next presentation is by Diane Buhler, Parents Against Drugs.

Good morning, Diane.

Ms Diane Buhler (Executive Director, Parents Against Drugs): Do you have copies of our brief?

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I don't believe I have a copy. Do you have them in both French and English?

Ms Buhler: No, I don't. I'm sorry.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Can we give these out to our members, Antoine? Unfortunately they have just the one in English.

Mr. Dubé (Lévis): Yes.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you.

We would prefer, and we ask, that all witnesses provide briefs in both languages to accommodate all members of the committee. But we'll let these be handed out.

Ms Buhler: My daughters aren't quite at that stage of bilingualism yet.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: It's not worth filibustering over that.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Go ahead.

Ms Buhler: Thank you. I am here today to make a brief presentation on behalf of Parents Against Drugs, an Ontario-wide organization that began in 1983 as a result of parents' concerns about their drug-involved teenage children.

From a primarily self-help organization, PAD has grown to a provincial agency providing a range of educational and support services aimed at preventing substance abuse amongst youth.

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In a moment you will hear from my associate at the Kingston PAD chapter.

My first point concerns the nature of the harm associated with adolescent substance use. From the experience of our family and youth intervention service it's evident that youthful drug use has an increasingly complex profile, very often accompanied by sensation-seeking, depression, alienation, anger, and aggression. PAD's recent submission to the Rationalization Project of the Ontario Substance Abuse Bureau highlighted the need for a range of intensive comprehensive treatment options for youth if we are to impact on their substance use and assist them in making a positive change for their future. We must commit resources to exploring the kinds of treatment programs that will impact on these multi-troubled young people.

The second point concerns the relationship between substances. I have purposely referred to ``substances'' or ``drugs'' because youthful substance use in the 1990s is not focused on any single licit or illicit drug. Specific use of any single drug is variable, of course. However, there is a significant relationship among tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, borne out by the research of the Addiction Research Foundation. That's referred to in your package.

Again, early smoking is a known precursor to later use of other substances, and in fact problem alcohol and other drug use. In prevention education, therefore, we need both an integrated approach on the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, and a substance-specific approach.

In addition to tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, our youthful clients are involved in a wide range of substances, particularly hallucinogens such as LSD and magic mushrooms and Ecstasy and methamphetamines. It is interesting to me that discussions about criminalization or decriminalization of substances come from ivory-towered scientists who point to the need to reduce the harms associated with the criminal ramifications of an individual's illegal use of marijuana, or sometimes heroin. Where would that leave our youthful clients, whose drug use combines tobacco and marijuana with hallucinogens and methamphetamines?

In addition, we have found that in at least 50% of our families a criminal charge precipitated their contact for intervention. Interestingly enough, while the nature of the parent contact concerned their son's or daughter's use of drugs, only one criminal charge in the last three years concerned illicit drugs. All other charges were assault, vandalism, theft, break and entry, and prostitution.

My final point concerns parent education. Since they have not been given a clear message about the use of drugs themselves, parents have become immobilized about passing on a message to our children. To give such a message may seem complicated, because teenagers do normally experiment with a variety of new sensations and are keenly influenced by their peer culture. But parents can pass on the message that serious risks are associated with any drug use, whether or not it is the first time the drug is used, whether the drug is used rarely or often, and particularly by adolescents. I think that is a message that could be reflected clearly within the national drug strategy.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you.

Annabelle.

Ms Annabelle Williams (Executive Director, Kingston, Parents Against Drugs): I would like to thank the committee for letting all of us present, and especially my point of view from the Kingston PAD chapter.

The Kingston PAD chapter has provided the Kingston and surrounding areas with their services for a period of ten years. We started out as a support telephone line for parents in need and usually in crisis. A community board was struck and PAD Kingston established itself within the community and outlying areas. From this humble beginning we have developed unique services that respond to the well-being of the community. PAD Kingston receives funding at present only from the Kingston community, even though we apply quite often for core funding on a regular basis from the government foundations and other areas.

We've developed a parent support group that has to this day remained a strong component to our organization. Within that parent group it became apparent that parents needed a voice to advocate for their needs.

You have a copy of my presentation here, so I'm just going to highlight some of the areas we have developed. What I would like to show you is that we are a grassroots organization. However, we are providing services within our community that are important to our community.

PAD Kingston has also in the past four years developed a program for youth called Choices, for grades 5 to 8. We found there were programs in the high schools. What we were getting from the high school students... We went in and surveyed the high school students, and they told us it would be important to start at a younger age because it would have been important for them to have had this information at a much earlier age. That's what we ended up doing. That's where we concentrated, because we had such limited funding available.

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Right now we present to about 800 to 900 school children a year. Within our community that's quite a large number. We do this all on a voluntary basis, with voluntary facilitators who are trained with us at the PAD Kingston centre.

We pride ourselves in being creative. I think one of the words mentioned was that we have to be innovative. I think we are with our youth in the Kingston area. With their help - we actually have youth representation - we're developing programs that include peer education and role-playing through a theatre program. Many of the youth really respond to the theatre program. They see their peers coming in and it really does put a face on younger people who have possibly been using drugs but who are making headway and developing resources for themselves.

We ensure youth are consulted on their programs through evaluation and representation. We do have statistics. Although we are small, we are compiling statistics. We are finding the students obviously are benefiting from the courses we are developing.

We feel it's very important to note that we provide an excellent service with the help of volunteers. We have a hands-on community board of directors and facilitators who are trained through PAD Kingston to provide some of the school programs. During the past two years the demand for services has increased beyond what our budget will allow, and this is an obvious concern for us.

Just to give you an idea, I'm the full-time executive director. I'm part-time right now, but I hope to be working four days a week. I have an office secretary. That is our staff complement.

It would be important to our organization that this committee see that dollars are being provided to organizations that not only follow through with their commitments but are accessible and responsible to the community. We need to obtain ongoing stable funding to respond to our community's needs. In order to maintain healthy communities, we need to start by providing education and opportunities for our youth on a continual basis.

It would appear in this community we have more demand for support from parents and that youth are on a trend of experimenting with substances at an earlier age. However, we are having an impact on our youth. If we are to remain responsive to the needs of the community, we hope through this Standing Committee on Health that we and other grassroots organizations are provided with the opportunity to make our programs part of every community.

We've been requested by other communities quite close to Kingston. We go out from the Kingston area right up to Smith's Falls, and beyond that area. They have requested that we come in and show them what our Choices program is and show them our Parents Matter programs.

So I'm here truly as a grassroots little fish, but we would like to get bigger.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you very much. I can assure you this committee understands the importance of having groups like yourselves working with schools and doing the preventive work you do.

Ms Williams: Incidentally, there's no charge to the schools at all. The school board provides us with our facilities, a classroom so we can have our resource centre, which obviously we're grateful for, but that's it.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I believe Mr. Bates has a final presentation.

Mr. John Bates (Founder and Director of Public Policy, Mothers Against Drunk Driving): Thank you very much for the opportunity to come here.

As background about MADD, we started off fifteen years ago with five people around a kitchen table. Now we're a very large national organization and we require no funding from anybody, because our own fund-raising efforts have been outstandingly successful.

It so happens that alcohol labelling was a plank in our very first statement of policy, the one we produced fourteen years ago. Labelling is still one of our most important planks.

I'm going to hop through this presentation quickly, because we can get into some of the questions you asked, Mr. Chair.

First of all, let's stop kidding ourselves. Alcohol is a drug. It's as much a drug as cocaine, heroin, or any other so-called illicit drug. It's an addictive, mind-altering substance.

The fact that alcohol is a licit drug or a legal drug does not in any way change its status as a dangerous drug. In fact, the social damage caused by alcohol outweighs that of all illicit drugs combined. We lose something like 500 people to illicit drugs every year. We lose about 19,000 to alcohol. That just can't go on. Some 1,500 people die in impaired automobile crashes. Alcohol accounts for some 65% of snowmobile deaths, 50% of all violent crime, and so forth.

When the Honourable Paul Szabo introduced Bill C-222 in a statement to the House in December 1995, he articulated beautifully the problem faced by society from alcohol. There's not much we can add to that, so I won't even try. But we remain mystified why alcohol is the only consumable product that is exempt from the labelling laws. Why? It doesn't make any sense at all. With all the mortality, morbidity, and misery caused by alcohol, does it make any sense at all to refuse to warn Canadians about the dangers involved?

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Probably at this point it would be instructive to ask why the industry is so concerned about this. Their objection seems to lie in several areas, but in the final analysis they seem to think the labels will be expensive, won't work anyway, and will scare people. They constantly state that there's no proof labels will work, but that's quite irrelevant to this argument. Clearly it's up to the industry to prove that labels don't work rather than up to us to prove they do.

Just a word of caution. When the government starts mucking around with alcohol labels - and the Honourable Paul Szabo can attest to this - you will be faced with the most ruthless, most funded lobby anywhere. We've been fighting with the alcohol lobby now for years and years and years. They have millions behind stopping labelling. The reason they don't want to do it is not what they say. They know it will hurt sales.

Another odd thing about the industry and their labels is they would like us to believe if you have a couple of drinks a day it's actually good for your heart. There are some studies that tend to show that. But a lot of other things are good for your heart too, such as vitamin E, exercise, and vitamin C. But to tout the benefits of alcohol is to ignore the ravages it causes society. One would be hard pressed to think of any health measure that causes the misery and the mortality that alcohol does. I'm not going to get into cirrhosis and fetal alcohol syndrome and car crashes.

Basically it means this. In this case the best interests of the alcohol industry and the best interests of Canadians are for the most part mutually exclusive. What is good for the beer companies is not necessarily good at all for society itself.

Let's get down to some cases here. All schedule F prescription or proprietary drugs carry cautionary statements on their labels. Diazepam, or Valium, for example, cautions users not to consume alcohol in combination with that medication. There's a synergistic effect. Two beers used by a person who is already using diazepam has the effect of several beers. He is actually badly impaired at that point, but it wouldn't show up on a breathalyser. That's one of the reasons the so-called statistics on impaired driving are actually low.

Some cold tablets, for example, are downright scary, with one popular brand stating

The alcohol industry's argument is that adding such information or labels would be horrendously expensive. But they must have printers scratching their heads. Here is a bottle - or it was a bottle and it's now an empty bottle - of Gosling's Bermuda rum. On the back of it is a warning. It says:

The industry would say adding that little bit to the bottom of this thing is going to cost them something like $40 million. I forget what they said during the Bill C-22 hearings. I have news for them. It's not going to cost them a dime. It doesn't cost any more to put that on.

Mr. Szabo, this is for your collection.

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Mr. Volpe (Eglinton - Lawrence): He gave the full ones out to the other committee.

Mr. Bates: Mr. Szabo has a whole case of those things. I've seen it.

Mr. Volpe: He has brought them here as evidence.

Mr. Bates: There's another one coming from Bermuda. The Bermudians are pretty smart people. They ought to be, since they don't have any income tax at all.

Mr. Volpe: They also have good sunshine.

Mr. Bates: They have good sunshine and good food and stuff like that.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Maybe we should go over there to review their policies.

Mr. Bates: You should.

They have lots of them down there, Paul.

Mr. Burford: Bermuda will never legalize marijuana.

Mr. Bates: Nor will they put out alcohol without warning labels on it.

I'll drop it at that point. We just don't see any reason why we can't have labelling. The reason I'm here now is to say can we please get Bill C-22 back to the House before the election is called so we can get C-22 passed and finally we will come into lock-step with the rest of the world, namely the United States. One of the weird things about labels is that these same companies that appeared before the Bill C-22 special committee now split-run labels for Canada and the United States. It actually costs them more not to have labels. If they had labels they wouldn't have to split-run their label runs.

You asked a question, sir, about where we stand in penalties. Well, the penalties are quite irrelevant. People don't commit crimes with a view to being caught. We've done a lot of things wrong in the battle against drinking and driving, one of which is to assume heavy penalties are going to create something.

They used to have heavier penalties in Scandinavia, and that was broadcast all over the world. It became the Scandinavian myth. They are just as bad as we are.

We've been taking the wrong tack on impaired driving. The serious impaired driving that results in death and serious injuries and so forth is caused by people below 0.165 or better. The first mistake we make is not going to zero tolerance. That's one thing Sweden did. They went down to 0.02, and we should too.

There's not a law anywhere in the country saying you can't drink and drive. Sure you can drink and drive. You can drink and drive until you have 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. We should be down to 0.02, as Sweden is.

Secondly, we know who the killers are. They are the ones who drink to excess, the alcohol abusers. When we locate those people, we have to get them off the road and keep them off the road for life, whether it's a first, second, or third offence, or until they have gone to an alcohol treatment facility and can come back and prove to a medical tribunal that they no longer have an alcohol problem.

There's another way of keeping these people off the road. That's the so-called alcohol ignition interlock. These things are absolutely foolproof. If we do give somebody a lifetime suspension and we know some 40% will probably drive anyway, we put an interlock on their car and the car won't start if it detects any alcohol at all in their system. If it detects something below 0.02, which is generally taken as the lowest measurable amount, fifteen minutes later it starts blowing the horn and blinking the lights to tell the person to take another test, and so on.

That's the way to do it. We've been doing so many things wrong and we're still killing 1,500 to 2,000 people a year. We've been at it for 15 years and we have extremely strong penalties. I think section 245 of the Criminal Code calls for 14 years for causing death and 10 years for causing serious injury. But still there has been no appreciable drop in the incidence of impaired driving. We keep hearing fewer people are being killed. Sure, but that's things such as air bags and increased seat belt use and radial tires, better highways, and so forth. What we've been doing up to now has been dead wrong.

One thing that has worked is the so-called roadside sobriety spot check. The fear of being caught is more important than anything else.

We've been doing a lot of stuff wrong. It's time we changed our ways.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you very much, Mr. Bates.

Just one question on labelling, because you spent a lot of time on that and our colleagueMr. Szabo has spent a lot of energy and done a lot of work on this whole issue of labelling. On cigarette packages we have warning labels. Do you think we have fewer people smoking as a result of the warning labels on cigarette packages?

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Mr. Bates: More people are trying to quit because of those things. It sure affects me, I notice. You're going to die if you smoke this. Wow!

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you very much.

We'll go to questions now. Mr. Dubé.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: First, let me say that I have a great deal of respect for each and every one of you who devote your lives to the health of your fellow citizens and to the collective good. Before asking my question, I want to say that this morning's formula is interesting, even though I find it a bit paradoxical.

You know that we are now presently studying Bill C-71 on tobacco, which provoked a certain debate this morning, thanks to Mr. Bates among others. Indeed, we have products here that are presently illegal, such as marijuana or other drugs, and on the other hand, there is a legal product, which is glue. There is also tobacco which is a legal product, and yet it is dangerous to one's health. The only difference one might note resides in the famous notion of abuse.

We are told that health problems have to be addressed but that we should not decriminalize marijuana because that would be a big mistake. We have to be understanding and tell ourselves that it is probably less dangerous than hard drugs, but people say that it should not be decriminalized.

On the other hand, you have alcohol, which has not only been decriminalized but legalized, except when you get caught with a breathalyser because you have abused it. That kind of test does not exist for soft drugs. It might be progress if there were such a test - in particular for those who are driving in an impaired condition - a test that would allow us to measure things in some way as we do for alcohol.

I don't have any questions for anyone in particular. I want to give each one of you the opportunity of expressing his or her point of view. I have sat on the health committee for barely six months and I have been exposed to all kinds of comments from people who support studies whose results contradict other studies. Some say that marijuana is not dangerous to your health and that it does not cause dependency; others say the opposite. Quite frankly, it's very difficult to form a precise opinion in this case. I think we're going to have to ask for additional evidence sometime to try and clear up this murky issue.

Here is an easier question. It is forbidden to steal, don't you agree? You're going to say that this is not related to the discussion we're having at this time, but we do agree that stealing is illegal. And yet, we know that there are people who will steal in spite of that, and for that reason we lock our cars and install alarm systems in our houses to protect ourselves. But there aren't many thieves; we are talking about 5% of the population and perhaps less, but because of them we have to equip ourselves with all kinds of systems, enact laws, have police services, and many other things. I'm drawing an analogy with the dangerous products we are discussing.

Generally speaking, if the population were well-educated, aware of health concerns, had good parents and all that, you would not need laws nor all of those systems. If people continued to steal, you could point them out and tell them that they are wrong to act that way. But it must be said that often, and studies carried out by the health committee show that this is the case, these people are also victims.

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The people I'm referring to, the thieves or delinquents, are victims. They are suffering. Most often, people who abuse alcohol or drugs are unhappy people whose lives are in some way dislocated.

What should we do to help those people? They need help. Rather than being considered guilty, they should be seen as victims. What should society do? What should we all do together to provide better assistance to them? Rather than thinking about how we could help them, we are debating how we can protect ourselves with better anti-theft systems or by having more policemen. Those who offend are considered as guilty parties rather than victims. Perhaps I am exaggerating a little,Mr. Chairman, but I am raising an existential issue. Who would like to answer it?

[English]

Mr. Burford: Diane Buhler would like to start.

Ms Buhler: I think health is the primary issue. The question is this. Would a casual user of a drug see that as the primary issue? Some would and some wouldn't.

I can only answer about youth. Youth are the ones we're concerned with and we typically work with. I think the point I made was that with youth there is not the single substance. If you were to separate out cannabis, marijuana, and say, well, we see only users of that particular substance as victims, whereas users of other substances are perpetrators... Most youth go either way. They use drugs. They may make a big deal of the fact that this is a natural herb, this is ``God's weed'', and all that stuff, but when it comes down to it, magic mushrooms are in the same vein. They grow naturally too.

They are victims of using all sorts of mind-altering substances. The reasons they use them are many. In some cases they are casual and in some cases they are profound.

From the interactions and debates I have had and been exposed to with people presenting the fact that criminalization multiplies the victimness of innocent people, I don't necessarily think they are concerned with getting them help. I know we are. As an organization we do exactly that. Sometimes that help is very complicated to give them.

I agree with your point, actually. I think that's exactly what the philosophy of anything should be. If ever there is a change in the law, I do hope it will come from that perspective and that perspective only.

My huge fear is that is not where it's coming from, and it doesn't seem to me that's where it's going. If the philosophy of providing health and education concerning that vastly precedes any kind of change, then I would be much more supportive, but I just don't see that happening. Again, from debate I see it as a much more casual treatment, because of arguments against the harmlessness of the chosen drug.

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Ironically enough, if there were huge educational campaigns and arguments about the harmfulness of cannabis...and then saying, but because we want to help people who are using this harmful substance we will do this, to me that would be a sensible tack to try if it were premised on the fact that that's what we need to do to help people. I don't see that happening.

I would have to support what Karl has said, that without a philosophy of helping preceding any change, a change would be perceived as reflecting a philosophy of harmlessness. Right now I think we're very much stuck.

The question asked before was, do we not need a change because things are not working? Yes, we do need changes. We vastly need changes. We are not doing something right at this time. I think things were better five years ago. We did see decreases. Right now we see increases, and we see them in smoking with youth. It's almost like battering your head against a table. The negative results we're getting when we're trying so very, very hard are quite devastating. It does inspire us to do things better and differently, and we are searching. But it is very difficult to do that when you're pulling out a single drug and focusing on it totally without any sense of the nature, from our point of view, of substance use by youth, which is not cannabis-specific.

At a certain experimentation level, yes, it could be. You will get many more young people answering yes to the question: Yes, I did try it, but I no longer use it. I would say that cannabis specifically is at the experimentation level and at the level where it is no longer used.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Mr. Hill.

Mr. Hill (Macleod): Thank you. I also appreciate your presentation. I can feel your concerns on this issue.

Mr. Burford stated that he felt that one-time use of personal use for marijuana should not engender a criminal penalty. I like to try to keep things tight, so I'd like to ask each one of you to answer yes or no to his suggestion.

Ms Williams: Whether it should be?

Mr. Hill: Yes or no.

Ms Williams: Yes.

Mr. Hill: You're saying you agree with Mr. Burford that the first-time penalty for marijuana possession should not be criminalized. Do you agree?

Ms Williams: Well, I'm -

Mr. Hill: Please, each one of you just say yes or no as to whether you agree with it.

Ms Williams: As a representative from an agency, we have to -

Ms Buhler: Bearing a criminal record. Can we be specific?

Mr. Hill: Do you agree with him?

Ms Williams: So it has to have a criminal record.

Mr. Hill: He has suggested that the first-time penalty for possession should not be criminalized. Do you agree?

Ms Buhler: He said criminally charged, but not bearing a criminal record if convicted.

Mr. Hill: Yes.

Ms Buhler: Okay.

Ms Williams: Criminally charged, yes, but -

Mr. Hill: Do you agree?

Ms Williams: I agree.

Ms Buhler: I agree.

Mr. Hill: You obviously agree. I don't want a big explanation, I just want -

Mr. Burden: May I make one point?

Mr. Hill: Okay.

Mr. Burden: It depends entirely upon how that charge has come about. If the original charge was for a much more serious crime, I wouldn't agree with it. If it's simply a possession situation and the charge is possession, then I would agree.

Mr. Bates: I agree with Fred. I'd also say the same thing of the first simple .08 charge on impaired driving. It shouldn't be a criminal offence either. They're not the problem.

Mr. Hill: Now, Mr. Bates, you said in your presentation that labels have been mandatory on alcohol containers in the U.S. for years without much consequence to the industry and there is no reason to think that the Canadian alcohol producers would suffer either. That's your quote.

Mr. Bates: Yes.

Mr. Hill: A very few moments later you said the industry is afraid that sales would be reduced, and you know they would reduce.

Mr. Bates: Well, sure. There's no -

Mr. Hill: Those statements are inconsistent.

Mr. Bates: No, not really. There's no financial reason. The reasons they are giving are just smoke and mirrors that it's going to cost more. That's not the consequence. Sure, it would cut down the alcohol consumption, and there we think it's two sides of the same story.

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Mr. Hill: My advice to you is to take your first statement out of your presentation because it's inconsistent. I know it would reduce sales. I want to reduce sales. But your first statement here, where it says they would not suffer, is inconsistent with your second statement. I would encourage you to think of that, if you could.

Mr. Bates: Fine.

Mr. Hill: The third thing I had...and now my memory has just left me. I can't believe it, but I'm going to have to pass for a second.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I'm sure you'll get it back. We'll come back to you.

Mr. Szabo.

Mr. Szabo (Mississauga South): I want to thank all of you. It's always good to hear from people in the trenches just working away. Obviously, you're the ones who know the realities because you're dealing with clients and people who have been touched by the problems.

This issue as to whether labels would work, in a vacuum, is really an unfair question if you consider that after the crucifix and the red cross, the most recognized symbol in the world is Coca Cola. Coca Cola does not market Coca Cola in one way. It has songs, it has a label, it has a colour, it has a jingle, it sponsors, it advertises, it gives away - it's pervasive. It takes any opportunity, and it works. Therefore, if you're going to have anything that works, you must have a multiplicity of approaches. That's the whole idea.

Look at what the tobacco companies are doing. They don't have many options, but they continue to associate themselves with organizations and events and that kind of stuff. It's a brilliant strategy, and they're taking every opportunity. It's just not one way. Labels are one way. If you are interested in the health impacts or the consequences of the misuse of a substance, you should continue to look for every opportunity in a multiplicity of ways to keep that in front of people so that it's a reality check at every opportunity.

I would never agree... You couldn't hold the world constant and then introduce labels and say let's test to see if they work, because the world doesn't stay constant. There are many factors influencing it. So it's an irrelevant question to ask if labels work.

This morning I started reading a book called The Divorce Culture. I would like your comment on this. It reminded me that there are many approaches - multiplicity again. There's preventive, remedial, curative, and all this other stuff in between. With regard to divorce, it says you can be like all of us, activists and politicians, and say let's prohibit, let's penalize - very specific things - to deal with a problem after the fact and to some extent try to prevent it. But there are other social things happening that really impact upon it, and we're talking about kids. Everybody seems to believe it's the kids that are the problem.

Did you know that in the province of Ontario, for the first time in ten years, the number of impaired convictions has increased? Do you know what? It had nothing to do with the kids. In fact, the kids learned more about the designated driver. They've already got the message. Do you know who was responsible for the increase? It was everybody but the kids.

We have let the pendulum swing too far. We're blaming marginalized groups and we've forgotten about everybody else.

I really think the message I have received from reading this book, The Divorce Culture, is that there are social problems in our society that are contributing in the first instance, at the grassroots, to a lot of problems in our society. One of the biggest ones is the breakdown of the family. Fifty percent of children before the age of 20 will experience divorce in their family. The loss of that parental guidance, the loss of the input, results in poor outcomes in health, poor behavioural outcomes, and increased criminal justice problems. This will lead to lack of support, which means they will become involved with some of the problems we're dealing with here, whether it be tobacco, alcohol, drugs, or whatever.

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I don't think our challenge is to look for the simple solution to the problem, but rather to deal with a multiplicity of approaches in dealing with it. One is to start to recognize that we have abandoned, to a large extent in our society, the best interests of the children in favour of our own.

I guess it's a little bit of a speech. I'm much impressed. I guess the question is harm reduction -

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Do you see how easy I am, as chairman, giving you all that time for a long preamble?

Mr. Szabo: Sorry.

Having said that, harm reduction is the issue. I'm just saying that what we do right now is not working, so why don't we decriminalize? Why don't we just ease up? That will make for cheaper, safer drugs, less violence in our society, and all this other stuff. It's almost condemning what we're doing today and resolving to try something else.

My question is, is there any proof that harm reduction as a model is a useful approach?

Ms Williams: We have a school in Kingston that would match any inner-city school in any bigger city. In the classrooms we have to vary what we teach our children. In one classroom we actually had to use harm reduction theory, because in a class of 26 children I had 15 regular substance users. This is rare, but it did happen. From that point of view, going in and telling them there are labels on this, that, and the other did not have any impact on these children at all because they had already gone that route.

So from that point of view, when I look at it, I think we have to be really careful with our prevention strategies and how we educate our children.

What's interesting about Kingston is that what we promote is not only teaching our children, but we also work with the parents. We try to coordinate our Choices program with our Parents Matter program, so parents receive almost the same type of learning process as the children. I think this is something that's really important, because you're right, any time there's substance use it's a family problem. It isn't just a child's or a youth's problem. I think that's something really important.

We found that harm reduction actually did help our youth, because we weren't standing there preaching, don't do this, don't do that. Basically, they were listening to the fact that if you do this on a regular basis you should have a break here and there; otherwise these are the consequences. That was just from our own point of view. We found that worked really well.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Mr. Jenkins, I believe you wanted to respond to that.

Mr. Ben Jenkins (Member, Board of Directors, Concerns, Canada): Yes. I think it takes in Mr. Dubé's comments about harm reduction too, because if I heard it right I think that's what he was getting to, or at least that was the issue.

With regard to the harm reduction approach, I guess it all comes back to what Mr. Szabo was saying as to what kind of society we want.

Let me start my explanation here by telling you where I'm coming from. I spent 25 years in the RCMP as a drug enforcement officer in Ontario. I retired in 1991, and I'm in my own business now, Drug Awareness Strategies. I go into companies and help them with substance abuse issues.

So it would greatly increase my business for me to say yes, decriminalize this. But I say no, don't decriminalize this, don't consider this. I'll go into my explanation for that now.

I'm here as a director on the board of Concerns, Canada and as a member of the Drug Prevention Network of the Americas, a UN initiative for the western hemisphere.

I want to speak to you on the harm reduction side of things. There's a premise in the harm reduction side of things, as Mr. Dubé correctly stated, that there are going to be a certain number of the population who are going to use drugs no matter what we do, and that is quite correct. If you accept that and then shift your focus to putting your resources toward minimizing those harms, what you do is redirect your resources away from the problem itself. You have to be very careful about becoming part of the problem versus part of the solution in that whole scenario.

Perhaps I can refer to alcoholism...if any of you are familiar with that particular situation. You don't give an alcoholic a beer every three days or so to help him along in that sort of situation. The same parallel I would draw is neither can you give heroin addicts free needles to try to keep them away from AIDS. When do you become part of the problem? Now you're giving them the equipment that's allowing them to stay sick. You may be doing this for very compassionate reasons, but the end result might be very drastic in terms of keeping them sick, to say nothing of the signal you're sending to younger people.

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This is a very complex issue and you have to look at it from all aspects. As Mr. Dubé said, no matter what you do, a small percentage of the people are going to commit a crime, such as theft or whatever.

I would draw an analogy with rape on this question. Rape is against the law in Canada, yet we know that a certain percentage of the population is going to commit rape. What should we do? Should we give these people one woman every two weeks or every three months, or whatever? The parallel is there.

When I was in the RCMP in Peterborough I enforced the drug laws and I arrested very early age teenagers for ``minor drug offences'', possession charges most of them. I had a definite idea that this wasn't working, so I decided I would take them home to their parents and explain what the drug was, the circumstances, and I would answer any of their questions. I always left them with the warning that if I caught this young person again we would go through the judicial system.

I kept a ledger of all this, and after a year or two I found that there were two components. If they were in that household, I never saw those young people again. Those two components were discipline and good communication. I don't mean discipline as in corporal punishment. I mean a set of rules with a set of consequences. That's what our criminal law is. As Fred suggested in his presentation, that criminal law is there and most people will abide by it. Although we're going to lose a few, that's just human nature.

This whole harm reduction concept is very dangerous, because once you accept that premise and redirect your focus to taking care of the problems rather than the initial problem itself, rather than reducing harm you'll be getting into a whole debate that is very difficult to get out of. You're on the first rung of the ladder toward full legalization.

Harm reduction strategies, as far as free needles, free drugs, and that sort of thing are concerned have my complete agreement if the person who has the problem says they want to get rid of their problem in a bona fide treatment setting. Give them anything they need to get rid of their problem. As far as just passing the stuff out willy-nilly, without that commitment from the individual, you will never succeed in that.

My father used to say you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. He was right. If you don't have the commitment, you're not going to solve anything, no matter what you try to do and for whatever compassionate reason you're trying to do it. You're actually adding to the problem.

I want to speak to one other issue before I stop talking to this particular point. It is the comment that the old methods haven't worked. It was brought up first by the chairman, that presentations have been made to that effect. I would argue that point strenuously. Diane Buhler brought it up herself, that five years ago we were witnessing a decrease.

Well, if you go back five years, you will see that the politicians of the day - Mr. Mulroney declared it was an epidemic and Reagan declared a war on drugs - gave the leadership so that everybody knew it was unacceptable behaviour. Everything that flowed from that, including the rock stars and the education system and the parents and the work community - all said yes, it's unacceptable behaviour. We had prevention and education programs and the numbers were going down. Around 1990-91, the political gloss went off it, the resources were withdrawn, there were cutbacks, etc., and we witnessed drug use going up again. I think the old methods did work.

In terms of options for the courts, after 25 years' experience with the RCMP, I can tell you that when you arrest somebody, no matter what the offence - we'll take possession of marijuana as our example - the police officer has discretion as to whether he's going to lay the charge or not. That's one level of review. You lay the charge, the prosecutor then asks what the heck we're doing here, this is a minor offence, why are we wasting our time with this? That's another level of review. The defence lawyer comes in and wants to know what you're doing with this minor offence. That's another level of review. You get to the judge and the judge listens to the evidence. That's another level of review. Then above the judge you have an appeal court. Those are all levels of review before a conviction can be registered.

When you get to the judge, he has the alternative of an absolute discharge, which means no finding of guilt and no sentence; it absolutely disappears. Or he can say the circumstance warrants a conditional discharge, so there is a finding of guilt, but if you do community service or whatever the conditions are for a time, three months, six months, a year, or whatever, then it will disappear: no criminal record. Or he can say, I'm registering a conviction.

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So after all those levels of review, one would think maybe a conviction is warranted, whether it's the first instance or the fifty-first instance.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you very much, Mr. Jenkins, for that explanation.

Fred.

Mr. Burford: Mr. Chairman, Ben Jenkins has commented in response to the idea that a new approach is needed. Certainly I won't repeat it in detail, but as was indicated, a new approach was used from the end of the 1970s into the early 1980s. I was part of what was going on at that time, through the Ontario Secondary School Principals' Council and their efforts as far as drug education was concerned. As long as this was an approach that had full support it worked. That was a new approach that worked.

That approach was abandoned somewhere in the 1980s. The reason it was abandoned, probably - we can't blame these reasons - was there was concern about AIDS - schools had to divert their attention to deal with this problem - and concern about family violence. I'm not criticizing why it was abandoned, but in reality that new approach lasted only a few years.

So the new approach we need is to get back to that, to get back to the focus on education. This is the new approach we need, rather than to go down some path that is going to give a public message saying it's okay to use marijuana now. That would be the message that would be given, and would it ever be received, as has been indicated by the suggestion that across Canada 725,000 young people would be affected.

About comparison, with break and entry or stealing, we're talking about material things. When we're talking about people being affected by alcohol and other drug use we're talking about humans, and in our case, since our focus is on young people, young humans having their potential adversely affected, having their lives diverted. This is a very, very serious consequence.

Obviously as citizens we're concerned about stealing. I think you can apply the analogy Ben used about rape to speeding. There's no strong movement to a new approach in speeding, despite the fact that speeding goes on in a wholesale manner. And I'm sure in Ottawa it's the same as in Toronto, as far as traffic lights are concerned: people go through the red light left, right, and centre. Yet I haven't heard of any uprising to change, because there's a sort of basic reference point our justice system has to give us.

I can well remember Dr. John Macdonald, who was once president of the Addiction Research Foundation, saying in 1982, or around there, because of all the problems associated with two legal drugs, tobacco and alcohol, it makes no sense from the public perspective to entertain any change in the marijuana law if we know change is going to bring about increased use. I submit we do know it would bring about increased use.

Victims always, whether it is through alcohol or tobacco or gambling or illicit drugs, include the network around every individual: their family, their close friends. That network is spread out and the damage that is done goes far beyond that one person who is a victim of the substance he is involved with.

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The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I am sorry -

Mr. Burford: That's all I wanted to say.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): We have this room only until 11 a.m., so I ask people to keep their questions and preambles shorter.

Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Murphy (Annapolis Valley - Hants): Thank you for coming. I appreciate your coordinated effort. When you're talking to me about a lot of what you've told me, particularly the grassroots stuff, you're preaching to the converted.

I have two things. One, I ask Karl if he would tell me a bit about the program that puts the cost of rehab on the offender.

On the other issue, having been in mental health and psychiatry for about 30 years, I've watched coordination. I think we need to have an overall policy at a federal level, which then moves down to the provincial, but at the end of the day none of that is of much value unless we move it to the grassroots, move it back into communities.

I hear the different approaches from MADD and PAD. You're all talking about the same people, and you have some different programs that deal with them. My experience has always been that if you can get a coordinated effort of all these programs in the community, you have some opportunity for success.

I think you all mentioned that a few years ago, that was more the approach we were taking. We've kind of lost that. I don't think we've lost it, because I'm watching very committed people working in their communities, but you're at more of a national level - well, not you yourself.

What do we need? What ingredients do we need to get the education, the MADD, all of the different groups, to work in communities and make a coordinated effort? We tend to go off on our own and we tend to get groups with specific concerns, but we're still dealing with the same population as a whole. So I ask somebody to comment on how we get that coordinated effort in hosts of communities around this country. That's where the issue will be.

Mr. Burden: I will speak to the first part first. Our organization currently has about 1,000 clients a year going through our various programs for the Ministry of Correctional Services in the province of Ontario, mainly in the greater Metropolitan Toronto area. By the time those who are convicted of impaired driving come into our program, they're in part of their probation. So the period from the time of the offence to the time of taking the course is considerable, in some cases I think even years.

Our belief is that if you can provide the intervention more quickly after the offence, you will get a more successful response. This is particularly so if it can be prior to court appearance, because the motivation is high to do everything possible to make sure the final sentence is as low as possible for the individual. So we have introduced this program, also believing that the provincial government in Ontario is moving in the direction of mandating this as a second step toward the 90-day suspension they recently put into place.

The idea is that soon after the offence has been committed, the person attends a course. In our case, at the moment it's twelve hours over four days. The course looks at various scenarios. Number one, it does not assume when a person comes in that they are an addict. We try to provide the information through an educational model to help the individual look at his own behaviour to make that kind of judgment. It's been learned in some research that if you throw a person who has an alcohol problem but has not admitted it into a treatment model, they'll get their back up and say they don't belong there. The effect will be mitigated.

However, if you put them in an educational model and they get an opportunity to understand the continuum of problems in the use of alcohol and where you jump over the line, though there is not one place you easily do that, but if they begin to analyse their own drinking patterns and realize they're quite a way along towards full-blown alcoholism, then they suddenly become self-convicted. That opens the ears and opens the way to reaching these individuals.

That's our intent in trying to provide this program. We see it as a precursor to treatment. Our hope is that at the end of the twelve hours, the four days, the person will ask where to go for further help. We will then refer them to a treatment resource.

We also believe that having the individual pay for that intervention increases the motivation. When the government is paying, you sit back and relax and say this is a freebie. But when you're putting up the bucks, you tend to listen and get more out of it.

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The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Mr. Bates, you had a comment.

Mr. Bates: I simply wanted to say that our organization started small, but we now have chapters right across the country, from Vancouver to Newfoundland. We have something like 30,000 members and adherents at this point. We operate from our head office in Mississauga. Everybody knows exactly where the resources come from, what we stand for, and where we are. Everybody is out there. From the head office, it goes all the way down to a chapter in Bobcaygeon, where they sell things to raise money and also apply the educational things.

To hitchhike very quickly on what Mr. Dubé said, no law anywhere that I know of has completely eliminated any crime. All it does is decrease the rate of commitment of the crime. That includes speeding and everything else. We have laws against speeding, but people still speed. We have laws against bank robbing, but people still rob banks.

The other thing we've relied on heavily that doesn't work is the so-called public awareness campaign. I can't think of any other crime for which we would just say we were going to stop the crime by having public awareness campaigns - ``friends don't let friends rob banks'', as if that would have any effect at all on the incidence of bank robbing. It doesn't. ``Friends don't let friends drink and drive'' has had absolutely no effect on the incidence of drinking and driving.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Fred, you have the final comment.

Mr. Burford: Mr. Chairman, I think it's a very good question. The basis has been laid in Ontario for having community action plans where the different components of the community come together: the schools, public health people, the police, medical people, doctors. It's a matter of encouraging this to happen.

We have had the experience where in a two-day community action plan, a catalyst comes into the community in the form of someone who is a fairly gifted speaker about alcohol and other drugs, and this lines up the different people in advance to get together. That includes the schools. Actually, it works best if the schools are going to be the hub of what's happening.

The leadership for that to happen has to come from some point, and I think it would be helpful if it came from the federal government to the provincial government to the municipalities, and then into the small municipalities in the provincial jurisdiction. The groundwork has been laid there. There have been community action groups, called CAGs, in Ontario for a number of years, so the seed of that approach has been planted. It's a matter of having a way to bring it out.

One other thing: we do not blame the kids. Parents Against Drugs and CODA have pure education programs. We rely on the responsible kids, knowing that those kids will bring out the best in the younger kids they're involved with. There is absolutely no blame of kids on our part.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Mr. Volpe, do you have a question?

Mr. Volpe: I will try to lengthen my question and reduce the size of my speech, gentlemen and ladies.

Thank you all for appearing today. It was about 18 years ago that I first met Fred Burford. One thing that he has said today and that his colleagues around the table seem to have repeated is something that I heard eighteen years ago. At the time, marijuana use was on the rise and a critical stage was reached, at least as assessed by high school principals in your board and in others. The most significant point you left with the audience that day was that you thought the use of marijuana had reached such staggering proportions because of one basic factor, which was the breakdown of the family as many of us had known it, or at least fantasized about it in nostalgic terms.

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The evidence you pointed to was two large communities in Toronto, the Jewish community and the Italian community. You felt that the breakdown in those two areas where traditional family ties had been very strong seemed to have a loosening impact on the behaviour of the kids, primarily the boys in the families.

As I recall the study, you found that the incidence of use and then abuse amongst young boys in those two community groups was approaching that of the larger communities. As far as your organization then was concerned, that was triggering an increase in numbers and reflecting social viewpoints with respect to marijuana, i.e., a loosening of the strictures of the community opprobrium normally attached to abusive consumption.

That is something Mr. Jenkins would refer to as those stages of evaluation and judgment that took place on an ongoing basis in communities like the Jewish community and the Italian community in a city twenty years ago, where for purposes of finding themselves in a different environment, they looked within and reinforced each other's behaviour. Because of integration, that had collapsed. Society was no longer there to offer all the supports that needed to be there. Now we're relying on organizations like that of Mr. Jenkins's former boss to re-impose them.

Would you agree that this assessment is still current today?

Mr. Burford: There are many factors. It makes inroads into many different cohesive communities, like the Greek community. But the two you mentioned, which are very large and have strong traditional backgrounds, are the Italian community in Toronto and the Jewish community.

Diane, you are probably very aware as far as the Jewish community is concerned, more so than the rest of us.

Mr. Volpe: He's put you on the spot, Diane, but I guess where I was going...I wanted to come back to John Bates -

Mr. Burford: I guess it's something we are still very concerned about. There are victims identifiable at this point because of the situation at that time, and there will be victims we can identify ten years from now from the present situation.

Mr. Volpe: I didn't mean to be critical, Fred. I just thought I'd heard then - and maybe Diane should answer - that you were using those two communities as examples because they were familiar to the audience in the room. But it was also because everybody knew that the strong, cohesive family forces, the constant supervision, discipline, communication, upward mobility, the desire to maintain communication back and forth - all of the things normally considered to be positive - were collapsing, were evaporating.

I'm just wondering whether I misunderstood that those things are an integral part of the collapse of personal discipline that leads to substance abuse, whether it's alcohol, drugs, marijuana or whatever, or whether we're looking for different sources for the problem.

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Ms Buhler: I'll take a stab if I can, and I think this relates to Mr. Szabo's point as well.

Family changes are something we have to live with. I think the changing family, as was brought out in our Family Portraits conference, is extremely important. I don't think we should look at one or two communities, because family values and the need for family values underlie families in all communities. Family changes are affecting all communities.

Undoubtedly those kinds of changes, as well as immigration and lowered expectations around employment, are huge issues affecting youth today. Our last conference really brought out that the stress on youth is extreme.

That is affected by the changing family; it's an absolute fact. As we're not going to blame the kids, we're not going to blame the changing family or family break-up. We're not going to go back to saying you can't break up. It's a fact of life.

Something we hopefully could change is the employment future of our young people. That's huge, absolutely huge.

There is the micro-picture of families as well. There is a need for families to understand and relate better to those stresses on their kids, and to not have the expectation that everybody is going to walk out of their home and be able to accomplish this, this, and this. We don't know what's there for our kids to accomplish tomorrow. We just don't know. There is such a huge unknown and it poses a concern to our families, from the newest families in the country to the families with a stable background of living in the country. All are in the same position.

Those are huge factors, but they have to be taken into the picture and dealt with.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I'm sorry, Mr. Volpe, you've run out of time.

Mr. Dubé, do you have another question?

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: There's very little time left. I want to make sure that you understand that what I was saying earlier was meant in a very broad sense. I know that my comments provoked some observations. The position of our party, the Bloc Québécois, the Official Opposition, is not to criticize what is being done in your areas to solve those problems. Quite the opposite; we think that your efforts are deserving of greater resources so that you can do even more. I appreciated all of your comments in this regard. You could say that it is easy for me to say that since I am in opposition and unlike Mr. Martin, I don't make the budget decisions. That is true.

But that is what I've always thought, even before I was a Member of Parliament, when I worked in the area of leisure and sports with young people. When I was 20, at the beginning of my career, I thought, like others, that if you got people to participate in sports, they would not have any problem with drugs. But pretty soon I realized, as Mr. Volpe pointed out, that the same kind of problem existed even in the sports world, and that the ``healthy mind in a healthy body'' approach was not always applied. There were other things going on.

As you were saying, I think politics are a factor, to a certain extent. During the 80s, politicians waged a fierce anti-drug war. I am aware of the efforts that you made, as a former member of the RCMP, when you were an officer in this anti-drug battle, and I know that you did not always have the necessary means to wage an effective fight against the drugs that are coming into the country through all the doors and windows. Canada is surrounded by oceans. In my own area I saw small planes which managed to avoid being detected by radar dropping bagged loads of drugs that people would go and pick up six months later.

I know it's not easy, but it seems to me that we have to fight this with all our might, on a worldwide scale. I would be less worried about marijuana if not for the fact that more and more we are beginning to realize that criminal gangs, which I don't need to name, are adding substances to hashish. The same phenomenon is probably happening in other provinces. These people add substances to make the young people they sell this bad stock to more dependent more quickly. The effect is worsened.

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Do you have a question, Mr. Dubé? We're running out of time.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: I encourage you to continue and I assure you that for our part we're going to try and convince government members.

There are contradictions, don't you agree? We have budgets for prevention. I remember complaining in this committee about the fact that the Health Department was cutting treatment programs. A centre in my region which treats young addicts is not receiving a cent anymore, as of this year. The centre now has the responsibility of finding funds elsewhere. It's all well and good to talk about prevention, but what happens to youngsters of 16 to 18 years of age who are victims and who need help to get out of their situation? We have young addicts who have been on waiting lists for a year, in one case. It is unacceptable that they have to wait for one year before they receive treatment. Earlier, I was talking about politics, but in this case I am serious, very serious. I encourage you to continue.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you, Mr. Dubé, for the encouragement you have given the groups.

Mr. Hill, do you have a final question?

Mr. Hill: Mr. Burford, I need more information on the Alaska experience. I have heard those on the other side of this debate say that Alaska proves there is no harm. I need to know from you what happened to those numbers of marijuana smokers during that period of time.

Mr. Szabo: It was just a cold day when they said that.

Mr. Hill: I am quite serious. I have had it argued strenuously that in Denmark, Switzerland, and Alaska there has been no change. You've said here very plainly that cannabis use increased and a new vote took place in 1991. If it's too long, could you provide me with that in document form?

Mr. Burford: I have a newspaper article here that discusses it. I'm sure we can make copies available to you.

The parent groups in Alaska became very disturbed because marijuana use there was the highest of any state in the United States. They exerted all the force they could and they got the vote. First they had the agreement to have the vote, which was a big problem to get, and then it was 54% in favour of recriminalizing.

Mr. Hill: Do you have that with you today?

Mr. Burford: Yes.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I want to thank my colleagues for the excellent questions they have put forward, and I want to thank you for the excellent presentation and the good work you're doing in our community. Hearing from groups at the grassroots is very important for our committee. Thank you very much for coming forward.

Mr. Burford: On behalf of the others here, I would like to thank you and the other members of the Standing Committee on Health. I think the interchange has been very productive and very cordial. We really appreciate not only being here, but the way in which we were received.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Thank you very much.

I ask members to stay because we have a motion on the floor by Mr. Hill.

Mr. Hill, do you want to speak to this motion?

Mr. Hill: Is there a technical problem? I have my seconder down as being Keith Martin, who is not here.

This is simply a motion to bring the Minister of Health here to talk about the estimates, which is a fairly...

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Could we have order, please?

Go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Hill: We want Mr. Dingwall to appear before our committee to discuss the estimates. That is the motion.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Is there any discussion?

Mr. Volpe: I don't have any problem with having the minister before us, but I'm in a picky mood this morning and I really don't like the inference that can be drawn from the language of the motion. Of course, having the minister here to discuss the main estimates is good.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Are you saying you want to amend it to stop at ``main estimates''?

Mr. Volpe: Yes, as soon as the main estimates are tabled, period.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Is that acceptable to Mr. Hill, an amendment to put the period after ``tabled''?

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[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Last week, in Mr. Hill's absence, the chairman, Mr. Simmons, had voiced a complaint. Since I also missed a meeting, I would like Mr. Hill to explain why he objected, it seems, to our committing funds to travel to meet groups to discuss the drug issue. Could we have his version of the facts?

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I'm sorry, can we deal with this motion first? Then you can bring that matter up.

We have a motion on the floor that has been amended to end at ``tabled''. I presume, Mr. Hill, that the amendment is acceptable to you.

Mr. Hill: It's a friendly one.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Yes, a friendly amendment. The friendly amendment is acceptable.

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Motion as amended agreed to

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): We will inform the minister that he has been invited by the committee to come forward at an appropriate time.

On another matter, Mr. Dubé has some comments on our last meeting. I certainly can't speak for the chairman, who is not here today, but if you have a comment, go ahead, Mr. Dubé. We are running out of time.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: I had asked why we could not go to meet with witnesses or, if that proved too expensive, to talk to them through teleconferencing. I complained about this situation. The witnesses we have heard were all very nice and appropriate, but unfortunately, very few of them came from my area or the province of Quebec. I am saying these things because we have problems and the committee as a whole should also hear about the situations that we are experiencing. I am familiar with the situation, but I would like an organization such as the Centre de toxicomanie Jean-Lapointe de Québec or the addiction centre in Montreal to come here to testify, and I would also like us to hear a few other witnesses from Quebec. I am about to complain because so far, we have heard no one from that area. I'm not complaining yet, Mr. Chairman. The Chair, Mr. Simmons, told us that we could not proceed in that way because Mr. Hill had stopped us from committing funds and hearing people from Quebec. I'd like to hear what Mr. Hill has to say in that regard.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): For Mr. Hill's sake, this matter did come up with your colleague, Mr. Martin.

The chair - not me, but the chair of the health committee - was very unhappy that we were not getting approval of the budget to travel because it was the feeling of the Reform party, and I guess Mr. Hill, their representative, that moneys were not to be expended to travel. For that reason, this committee has been unable to get an agreement or a budget to travel to other parts of the country to continue our study on drugs.

Give me some guidance, but I think it would best be left to the steering committee to deal with this issue.

An hon. member: We don't have one.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): There's no steering committee. Okay.

Mr. Volpe, and then we'll go back to Mr. Hill.

Mr. Volpe: Part of the discussion last week centred on the fact that because the committee was unable to get a budget for travelling, the consequence was to bring the projected witnesses here, and the cost was greater than the travel budget that had been presented for approval. I think that's what Antoine is saying. We're getting an opportunity to see some of the people, but we're not getting a chance to see them in place. We are also losing the opportunity to save money. I think that is where the chairman expressed some frustration.

There is a way to deal with that, I suppose. You suggested having the steering committee go through this, but here we are, the members of the steering committee.

I think we can re-propose the concept of a budget, the one we suggested initially. If we get approval around the table - because as I understand it, we have to have unanimous consent amongst all three parties - then we can look again at those relative costs and go through with the agenda as initially outlined and try to get a quote on it. I know the clerk was busy trying to get a quote for the Bill C-47 committee.

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Dr. Hill had a particular view and he expressed it. Notwithstanding the fact that we had done some research on it, we couldn't present the request to the liaison committee. I think we can resolve this if we can get agreement to go ahead and present a budget and see where we go from there.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): The chair has strong views on this and I don't want to be speaking for him -

Mr. Volpe: I think you're underestimating the strength of the views that were expressed last week.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I don't want to spend a lot of time on this issue because a lot has been spent before, but I'll go to Mr. Szabo and then Mr. Hill.

Mr. Szabo: I think we have to do some damage control with regard to the whole of the committee work on the national drug strategy. Questions were asked of the Department of Health when they first appeared about whether they were doing their own concurrent study. They responded and said they were doing it. This thing expires March 31. A number of the groups, including the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, had to be given notice of whether they were going to continue getting funding by December 31 or they were out of business. They passed a director's resolution to that effect.

I'm a little concerned and I'm not sure what the heck we're doing now. I'm slowly starting to hear some repetition in the testimony, and I would really like to have an opportunity to hear from everybody who wants to speak exactly what information we still need to hear that would help us make a positive contribution to the whole issue of Canada's national drug strategy. It's just not clear to me any more what the heck we're doing and why. I would feel more comfortable, rather than passing a budget, if we do something to figure out what we're going to do before we start talking about budget.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): I can see this is not going to get us too far.

Mr. Hill, can you give some direction or shed some light on this issue?

Mr. Hill: My position on travel has been and continues to be that it must be cost-effective. If it's more cost-effective to travel to listen to these individuals, you have a very attentive ear. I have not seen one shred of evidence that it's more cost-effective to travel. If you have new evidence that says this is more expensive than travelling, show it to me. I'm a keen, enthusiastic traveller. If you cannot show me that, I am as opposed to travel for the sake of travel as any individual can be. You'll never get me to concur if it's not cost-effective. It's simple.

Mr. Volpe: That's fair enough, but I'm just repeating what we heard last week. I don't think I'm repeating anything different.

[Translation]

An honourable member: Mr. Clerk, give us some proof.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): One final point by Antoine and I'll have to cut off the discussion.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Before our chairman got angry last week, I had said, and he did not understand me, that an inexpensive compromise did exist. I know that members' travels are very expensive and that we also have work to do in the House. The Standing Committee on Human Resources Development has already used what are known as teleconferences. They are not costly and no one has to travel. They represent a compromise. We can hear people from a specific part of the country and discuss the issues we want to raise. We could do that in particular to hear people from Quebec who work at the Centre de toxicomanie Jean-Lapointe, an addiction treatment centre. I am convinced that if we hold a teleconference in the usual way, it will not be costly. It has already been done. Why not do so in this case?

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): As I said earlier, the chair, Mr. Simmons, has very strong views on this issue. I don't know if we're going to resolve it here today, but I would like to have him here when this discussion takes place.

The view has been that it's very important to travel, and Mr. Simmons would prefer that we have a budget so that we have an opportunity to travel.

There were a number of ideas like teleconferencing and other briefings being put forward before we invite these people. I think we are not going to resolve anything today at this time. I'd rather have Mr. Simmons here chairing this because he has very strong views on it.

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Mr. Volpe: In order to have an intelligent conversation when Mr. Simmons is here, we can do something in advance.

The clerk obviously had given Mr. Simmons some indication of the cost of bringing these witnesses here. We don't have that. On the basis of that information, Mr. Simmons drew a conclusion that the cost between that and what it would have been for the committee to travel was appreciably different, to the disadvantage of the committee travelling. We could ask the clerk to gather that information again so that when the committee meets next in the presence of the chair, we will be able to draw a comparison. Then perhaps, with all party members present, we can draw our own conclusions. That might be very helpful.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Dhaliwal): Okay. If you can secure the information and other figures, we'll leave this on for our next meeting.

Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.

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