Rylund Johnson

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I have asked these questions of Justice before. Today I directed them to Health because the decision ultimately made was by the BC public health asking for an exemption to the federal Minister of Health.

And so my question for our Minister of Health is does she agree with the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, 60 percent of the Canadian public, the overwhelming amount of public health officials, the federal Minister of Health, the BC Minister of Health, and really anyone who has worked on the front lines, that decriminalization is a step that saves lives and...

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to substance abuse, two principles must inform our decision. That is evidencebased decision making and harm reduction. If these are the driving principles, Mr. Speaker, we will ultimately lower the number of people addicted to drugs and alcohol in this territory.

Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Health spoke today in her statement, I truly believe that she believes these principles are essential to informing our decisions. However, Mr. Speaker, if we believe this, that substance abuse is a health issue, we must remove the criminal law from the picture.

Yesterday, the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've got a rather specific question about the Active Carbon Sequestration and Forestry Fund.

My understanding is this was initially a 2019 election promise by the prime minister to plant two billion trees, that's where it started I believe, and then we, for a number of years, couldn't spend it because there's a long standing kind of policy in ENR that we don't actually do tree planting and reforestation. It's a we wait for the forest to naturally regrow itself. But now it appears we are spending that money and replanting some trees. So if someone could just tell me the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I think we should maybe talk about this. It's $15 million new dollars to the health authority and, you know, $10 million of that is coming from what was previously budgeted for the COVID secretariat. So I think we are in the final days of winding down the COVID secretariat. I guess I was just hoping the Minister could perhaps give us an update a few months ago when we approved the total COVID secretariat budget. There was some talk of keeping some staff on going forward as we switch to endemic status. There was some talk about perhaps keeping 811, just a bit of an...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, and then I take it that the 2.2 emergency shelter homeless funding may be in a bit more of a question than the $4 million then.

My understanding is that this well, this goes to a number of shelters but one of them significantly was the Arnica, now known as the Spruce Bough, in Yellowknife. I'm wondering if the Minister has an update of whether any hope of ongoing funding, whether funding for what next fiscal would look like for that organization? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, glad to hear that, and I know the facility's master plan is well underway and there's a lot of work to be done on that.

I guess my question is, can the Minister provide an update whether there's any further money committed from the federal government for the transformation? You know, I think well, obviously, there's hundreds of millions needed one day for infrastructure. But I know we're also doing a programming review which is kind of key to that, and we've actually agreed to reimplement some programs so I'm just wondering if there's any federal money in the...

For.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank all of my colleagues for speaking to this motion and bringing it forward. I just also would like to rise in support. I think it is clear that many in our small communities don't have trust in our current healthcare system. And I think we always have to keep that top of mind.

I'm well aware that in many ways Health is by far our largest budget, and it is going through a deficit reduction exercise right now and I fear, when we look at models that we've seen in other jurisdictions, rural healthcare is always a potential target from that deficit...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I heard the Minister of Health say in her first response that one of the key things to a health response is safe supply. And this was fundamental and essential to BC being granted this. I know Yukon has implemented similar safe supply work. I'm wondering if the Department of Health has any plans to address safe supply here in our territory? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In yesterday's auditor general report, it became clear that we have to make sure there is coordination in our response to the substance abuse issues in this territory. And I think one of the clear lines of coordination is of the RCMP's role. But I think before we even have that conversation, we have to make sure we're on the same page.

So my question for the Minister of Health and Social Services is does she believe that our response to substance abuse issues is first and foremost a health issue and not a criminal one? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.