Mr. Speaker, when I heard about Bill C-12, I was hopeful. I was hopeful because I believed that the Liberals had listened to what both Canadians and Conservatives have been saying about Bill C-2. On the surface, it looked like there was some reason to hope. Bill C-12 is a repackaged and less offensive version of Bill C-2. It does remove the most egregious of the sweeping new powers that the government sought to grant itself and other government agencies. It no longer proposes to restrict Canadians' use of cash, and it no longer proposes to allow Canada Post to open Canadians' letters.
The Conservatives in the House gave voice to Canadians in speech after speech and forced the government to back down from a bill that would have violated Canadians' individual freedoms and privacy. We are prepared to do our job once again with Bill C-12 as the country's loyal official opposition. The Conservatives will examine every clause and every line of the bill to make sure the Liberals do not erode Canadians' rights.
After listening to the Prime Minister speak on television last night, on television instead of in the House, in front of an audience that even the Toronto Star described as being made up mostly of Liberal staffers, where he does not have to answer our questions and where he does not have to debate, I realized something else about Bill C-12: It might be better, but it would not do what the people of Nanaimo—Ladysmith so desperately need it to do. It would not do what British Columbians need it to do, and it would not do what grandmothers across the country who are raising their grandchildren because of fentanyl need it to do. It would not actually secure our borders. It would not actually treat those in our communities who are in the thrall of fentanyl. It would not actually bring safety back to our communities.
While the bill would fill a loophole by banning precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, it fails to address the sentencing of those who traffic in it. There are still no mandatory prison sentences for fentanyl dealers. There are still no serious penalties for those who profit from destroying our lives and our communities. Bill C-12 would make some incremental improvements, but they are beyond insufficient. Criminals who traffic in fentanyl and firearms will continue to use our porous border to victimize Canadians, and they will continue to walk free soon after being arrested.
I will give the government credit where it is due. Bill C-12 is way better than Bill C-2, but let us be honest. These measures fall far short of what Canadians deserve.
The Liberals continue to permit drug consumption sites near schools and day cares. Last week, I had a call from a constituent about a proposed wet housing site that would back onto a kindergarten in my riding.
At the health committee, my Conservative colleagues called on the government to shut down fentanyl consumption sites near the places where kids learn and play. The Minister of Health refused to do so. She would not rule out approving more of these sites, even after acknowledging that they are now repositories for rampant fentanyl usage.
Last night, the Prime Minister looked Canadians in the eye and spoke yet again of the need for transformational change. He spoke of a rupture, of sacrifice, of responsible choice and of generational investments. Well, the addictions crisis is still in full bloom in Nanaimo, and the numbers are still staggering across Canada. There were more than 50,000 deaths in the last decade. There are more victims of the addictions crisis than there were Canadian deaths in the Second World War. Some 79% of accidental opioid deaths in 2024 involved fentanyl, up 40% since the Liberal government came into power.
The number of emergency department visits linked to fentanyl has more than doubled since 2018. Superlabs in Canada are now producing massive amounts of fentanyl. These are not small operations pressing pills in basements. These are industrial labs producing drugs on a massive scale.
In a country of 41 million people, it is simply disingenuous to argue that with the multiple drug busts in the 96 million dose range, these drugs are meant for domestic consumption. We have to face the reality that drugs are being produced in Canada for both domestic consumption and export. Bust after bust is described as the largest, most sophisticated illicit drug lab in the country. Police seize kilograms of fentanyl; kilograms of meth; illegal unregistered firearms, many of them loaded; silencers; explosives; and millions of dollars in cash.
This is what we are up against. Productivity in Canada is down, and we have a massive wage gap with the United States, except for criminals. Organized crime has set up an innovation sandbox in Canada that boggles the mind. The criminals know how to use AI, how to improve efficiencies and how to find synergies, and they are eating the government's lunch. Why? It is because the Liberal government, for all the Prime Minister's rhetoric, only seems willing to tinker around the margins with tiny pilot projects and token funding announcements.
Yesterday, we had another one of these, with the Liberals proudly announcing $4.3 million in funding, including $442,000 and change for the city of Nanaimo, to address these issues. I will take their money, but I will vote with my conscience. For those following Nanaimo's news, $442,000 is barely enough to build a fence around city hall. It is nowhere near enough to meet the need in a community that has been devastated by the addictions crisis. In Nanaimo, we need the government to spend less and invest more. We need hundreds of millions of dollars in investment for real solutions, not a few thousand dollars of spending for a press release.
If someone gets diagnosed with cancer, they get a full continuum of care: a diagnosis, a prognosis, surgery, chemo, radiation and follow-up for life. If someone gets diagnosed with addiction, they get Narcan. They might get patched up, if they are lucky, and then they get dropped off on the curb. This is not a system of care; it is abandonment. We need triage beds. We need detox beds. We need treatment spaces, recovery centres, sober-living houses and long-term maintenance programs. We need real treatment and recovery options so people can come home to their families, clean and healthy, and we needed it a decade ago.
The Prime Minister started his tenure in the House with lofty comments about Athens and Rome, but now he seems content to fiddle while Nanaimo burns. The Prime Minister is absolutely right. We need transformative change, but he is unwilling to deliver it.
I challenge the Prime Minister to come down from his ivory tower and engage with us in Nanaimo. I know he comes to my riding. He has family there, but I challenge him to spend less time jogging around beautiful Westwood Lake and more time talking with the people who deal with the addictions crisis on the front lines on our streets. He talks a good game about collaboration, but he does not collaborate. He talks about transformational change, but he is not even having the conversations that would allow him to make it. Bill C-12 is proof of that.
The Conservatives forced the Liberals to back down from the worst parts of Bill C-2, and we will continue to hold them to account on Bill C-12, because Canadians do not want more photo-ops, press releases or the seventh announcement of the 1,000 border officers the CBSA has never heard of and has not been given actual instructions to hire. They want real change. They want safe streets, healthy communities and a government that values their lives more than it fear losing an election.
Grandmothers want to stop raising their grandchildren. Addicts want hope, and communities want to stop living in fear. That is what the Conservatives are fighting for, and that is what a Conservative government would deliver.