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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Friday, May 24, 2002

0900

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.))

0905

Sergeant William Blanshard (RCMP Drug Awareness, “F” Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police)

0910

The Chair

Sergeant Cory Lerat (Prince Albert Joint Forces Unit, “F” Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police)

0915

The Chair

Sergeant Rick Torgunrud (Prince Albert Joint Forces Unit, “F” Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police)

0920

The Chair

Corporal Keith Van Steelandt (Prince Albert Joint Forces Unit, “F” Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police)

0925

The Chair

Superintendent Brian Dueck (Human Resources, Saskatoon City Police)

0930

0935

The Chair

Sergeant Jerome Engele (Saskatoon Integrated Drug Unit, Saskatoon City Police)

0940

The Chair

Sgt Jerome Engele

The Chair

Inspector Blair McCorrister (Winnipeg Police Service)

0945

The Chair

Mrs. Skelton

Sgt Rick Torgunrud

0950

Ms. Carol Skelton

Sgt Rick Torgunrud

Ms. Carol Skelton

Sgt Rick Torgunrud

Ms. Carol Skelton

Sgt Rick Torgunrud

Cpl Keith Van Steelandt

Sgt Rick Torgunrud

Ms. Carol Skelton

Sgt Rick Torgunrud

Ms. Carol Skelton

Sgt Rick Torgunrud

Ms. Carol Skelton

Insp Blair McCorrister

Ms. Carol Skelton

Insp Blair McCorrister

Ms. Carol Skelton

Insp Blair McCorrister

Ms. Carol Skelton

Supt Brian Dueck

Ms. Carol Skelton

Supt Brian Dueck

Ms. Carol Skelton

Sgt William Blanshard

0955

Ms. Carol Skelton

Sgt William Blanshard

Ms. Carol Skelton

Insp Blair McCorrister

Sgt Jerome Engele

Ms. Carol Skelton

Sgt Jerome Engele

Ms. Carol Skelton

Supt Brian Dueck

Sgt William Blanshard

1000

The Chair

Insp Blair McCorrister

Ms. Carol Skelton

Supt Brian Dueck

The Chair

Supt Brian Dueck

The Chair

Sgt Jerome Engele

1005

The Chair

Supt Brian Dueck

Sgt Jerome Engele

Supt Brian Dueck

The Chair

Insp Blair McCorrister

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ)

1010

The Chair

Sgt Cory Lerat

Mr. Réal Ménard

1015

Sgt Jerome Engele

The Chair

Sgt William Blanshard

1020

The Chair

Supt Brian Dueck

Mr. Réal Ménard

Supt Brian Dueck

1025

The Chair

Supt Brian Dueck

The Chair

Supt Brian Dueck

Mr. Réal Ménard

The Chair

Sgt William Blanshard

The Chair

1030

Supt Brian Dueck

The Chair

Sgt William Blanshard

1035

The Chair

Sgt William Blanshard

The Chair

Supt Brian Dueck

The Chair

Sgt Cory Lerat

The Chair

Sgt Cory Lerat

1040

The Chair

Sgt Jerome Engele

The Chair

Sgt Jerome Engele

The Chair

Sgt William Blanshard

1045

The Chair

Supt Brian Dueck

The Chair

Insp Blair McCorrister

The Chair

Sgt Rick Torgunrud

The Chair

Cpl Keith Van Steelandt

1050

The Chair

1110

Dr. David Brown (Director of Research and Quality Monitoring, Addictions Foundation of Manitoba)

1115

1120

1125

1130

1135

The Chair

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

1140

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

1145

The Chair

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

Ms. Carol Skelton

Dr. David Brown

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard

Dr. David Brown

Mr. Réal Ménard

Dr. David Brown

1150

Mr. Réal Ménard

Dr. David Brown

Mr. Réal Ménard

1155

Dr. David Brown

Mr. Réal Ménard

The Chair

Dr. David Brown

1200

The Chair

Dr. David Brown

The Chair

Dr. David Brown

The Chair

Dr. David Brown

The Chair

Dr. David Brown

The Chair

Dr. David Brown

The Chair

1205

Dr. David Brown

The Chair

Dr. David Brown

The Chair

1210

Ms. Carol Skelton

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor (Western Safety and Disability Management)

1215

1220

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

1225

The Chair

Ms. Carol Skelton

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

Ms. Carol Skelton

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

Mr. Réal Ménard

1230

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

1235

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

1240

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

Ms. Carol Skelton

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

1245

The Chair

Mr. H. Alex Taylor

The Chair

CANADA

Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs

NUMBER 048

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Friday, May 24, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0900)

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)): I'll call this meeting to order.

We are the Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs. We were established after an order of reference was adopted by the House of Commons on May 17 last year to consider the factors underlying or relating to the non-medical use of drugs. As of April of this year, we were also given the subject matter of private member's Bill C-344, an Act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, related to marijuana.

Just to explain, there are members of Parliament from all political parties who are members of this committee. They're not all here because of a whole bunch of logistical issues, but they will have access to the full transcripts, as does the general public.

We are very pleased to have with us as a special guest, Carol Skelton, who is here from the Canadian Alliance, and Réal Ménard, who is here from the Bloc Québécois.

I'm Paddy Torsney. I'm from near Toronto. Chantal Collin and Marilyn Pilon are our researchers. Eugene Morawski is our interim clerk who keeps us organized.

There are interpretation services in English and French. Everybody has units on their desk, and some questions will be asked in French. We have a whole team of people who control the mikes, so hands off!

I'll now introduce all of you. From the RCMP, we have Sergeant William Blanshard, who is with “F” Division. We have Cory Lerat, who is with “F” Division as well. I have Rick Torgunrud, who is with the Prince Albert Joint Forces Unit of “F” Division, and Keith Van Steelandt, who is with the Prince Albert Joint Forces Unit of “F” Division as well. From the Saskatoon City Police, we have Superintendent Brian Dueck and Sergeant Jerome Engele. From the Winnipeg Police Service, we have Blair McCorrister. Welcome.

I'll have you open in that order. Given the large volume of people, could you try to keep it to around five minutes? Is that going to work for everybody? That would be great. I'll give you a four-minute, thirty-second warning. Hopefully you'll be wrapping up at that point.

Over to you, Sergeant Blanshard.

¿ (0905)

Sergeant William Blanshard (RCMP Drug Awareness, “F” Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police): Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. On behalf of the RCMP drug enforcement directorate and the RCMP drug awareness service, I appreciate the invitation to appear today.

I'm Bill Blanshard, a sergeant with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and coordinator for the RCMP's drug awareness service for Saskatchewan. I have more than 30 years' experience in law enforcement. My duties included detachment general policing, highway patrol, drug enforcement, major crime investigations, organized crime intelligence related to motorcycle gangs, crime prevention, and community policing.

The RCMP support the multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary approach to drug enforcement because we firmly believe there's no single solution to the mitigating drug problem in Saskatchewan. The RCMP has never viewed enforcement as the only response to the drug issue. However, by reducing the supply of drugs, this creates an atmosphere where education and a reduction in the demand for drugs can occur and treatment can be most effective.

In Saskatchewan, we see firsthand the increased threat to our youth at risk. We see the impact and influence of illicit drugs on the education and development of youth and on the peer pressure placed on them to engage in drug use. We have witnessed this evolution as society increasingly accepts the abuse of drugs. We investigate crime and disorder in our neighbourhoods and respond to our community's plea for help. We are up close to the situation. It is from this perspective and experience that I can share some of the issues facing Saskatchewan on the non-medical use of drugs.

We have not done a comprehensive, long-term survey of the population of Saskatchewan, so I don't have a lot of statistics to draw from. However, I can share information given to me by police officers, addiction workers, teachers, health professionals, parents, and youth. My role as drug awareness service coordinator for the last eight years requires interaction with all cultures, races, and age groups in the province.

I can state that Saskatchewan has a drug problem. The problem in Saskatchewan, relatively, is no different from anywhere else in Canada. Obviously, we have a smaller population in a lot of jurisdictions. Our observations, and my personal observations, can be listed in this manner.

Marijuana is easier to obtain than alcohol. Marijuana is cheaper than alcohol in the initial stages. All types of illicit drugs and licit drugs are readily available in the province. There is an increased level in the potency of drugs, particularly cannabis. It is not the same drug it was five years ago. There has been an increase in poly-drug use. We're seeing a term where people are using more than one substance at one time. It is extremely difficult for police and parents to detect drug use, such as marijuana and LSD, relative to alcohol. The majority of the population in this province believe driving under the influence of marijuana is not as dangerous as driving while under the influence of alcohol.

Our youth in society, as a whole, have a general attitude that drug use is not really dangerous. As well, drug use is readily accepted in our society as a normal behaviour. I'm also responsible for the delivery of our school-based drug and alcohol anti-violence programs, such as DARE, PACE, and Aboriginal Shield. I therefore interact with schools very often.

Over the past year, there has been a dramatic increase in demand for education programs for professionals working in all levels of education. A common observance by those in the education field is simply that drug use is in schools and is more common than ever before. In one location, a kindergarten student was found smoking cannabis. In another situation, the teachers commented that they are not smoking pot over the lunch hour any more; they're smoking between classes.

We need to improve our prevention and demand reduction efforts. The age for drug experimentation is lower than it has ever been before. If we fail to demonstrate, through education and enforcement of our drug laws, that drug use is not acceptable in our society, then this generation will believe it's normal to use drugs. We may well lose a generation to drugs and gangs.

Children continually tell us the most pressing issue facing them today is drug and alcohol abuse. We must ensure that this generation and those that follow are not made victims of today's perceptions and suggestions that drugs can be used responsibly. We should replace the convenience of drugs and alcohol as substitutes for dealing with human issues. Let us not give up on the efforts to reduce the drug-related harm before we've really given it a true chance to succeed.

We must follow the procedures of enforcement to reduce the supply and availability of drugs, improve prevention through education and awareness, and continue treatment involvement and research to ensure there's a continuous evaluation determining the levels of non-medical use of drugs.

Thank you.

¿ (0910)

The Chair: Thank you. It was very timely.

Sgt William Blanshard: I practised.

The Chair: Many people say that and don't deliver. You're good.

Sergeant Lerat.

Sergeant Cory Lerat (Prince Albert Joint Forces Unit, “F” Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police): My name is Cory Lerat. I'm stationed in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. I have over 18 years of service with the RCMP, including reserve policing, drug enforcement on a major drug section, and my current job as north district community liaison in Prince Albert.

First of all, I'll touch on what my duties are right now. I travel to northern Saskatchewan, teaching communities how to work with police and addressing the issues of the community. I teach about community policing and problem solving. That's the prime focus of my duty.

I see that drugs are the major concern to all communities that identify issues to us, because all of the criminal activity is related to the drug activity. As an example, one community's focus was that its kids were staying up from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m., travelling around at night, breaking and entering, getting into trouble, and then sleeping in and not showing up for school until noon. They're stoned. The parents and the communities are coming to us, looking for alternatives other than enforcement. So I teach the communities to look for other things than enforcement. It goes back to the fact that the kids are bored in these small, isolated communities. There are a number of factors fuelling this, maybe lack of economic activity, jobs, sporting facilities, and what have you.

The second thing I wanted to point out is that I'm involved with a group called Operation TARGET in Prince Albert. Target stands for together accepting responsibility giving enhanced education towards youth. It is a group of six agencies--the RCMP, Prince Albert city police, addiction services, the sexual health clinic, and the youth outreach centre. We travel to these northern communities and focus on providing the kids the facts and the realities of drugs, gang activity, and prostitution.

The only problem we have with our group is that we all have our primary duties with our agencies, and we need to get resources and money to travel. We could probably be on the road two or three times a week. That's how much demand there's been since we first created the group. There's such great demand that we just can't keep up. Some of the evaluations we've received from kids, parents, and teachers in these northern communities say that it was about time that a number of these agencies got together.

In a team effort with other health agencies, the police work at addressing the problem. It has been very positive. There's nothing negative about Operation TARGET. When I first got into my job as the community liaison NCO in the north district, I was looking for a group effort by a number of agencies to address the problems of drugs, gangs, and sexual exploitation of children in our community.

This is basically all I have to say. Thank you.

¿ (0915)

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Torgunrud.

Sergeant Rick Torgunrud (Prince Albert Joint Forces Unit, “F” Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police): My name is Rick Torgunrud. I have almost 28 years' experience with the RCMP. I'm presently in charge of the Joint Forces Unit in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

Prince Albert Joint Forces is made up of six RCMP members and two members of the Prince Albert Police Service, who work out of our office. We're not a dedicated drug unit. However, we are responsible for conducting and assisting in street-level drug investigation throughout northern Saskatchewan and the city of Prince Albert. We also conduct investigations at the Saskatchewan federal penitentiary in Prince Albert.

Cannabis and cocaine are abused throughout northern Saskatchewan and the city of Prince Albert. These drugs have increased over the years. The persons using and selling them have been becoming younger. The size of the drug seizures has increased. What used to be ounce-sized seizures are now recorded in pounds. Cannabis and cocaine are now as common as alcohol once was, especially among our younger people. Younger persons, including children, are being used and exposed to the use and sale of drugs more often. At times, children are used in the drug dealings of adults.

I was stationed in four semi-isolated detachments in northern Saskatchewan over a 14-year period, from 1977 to 1991. When I first went to La Loche, Saskatchewan, in 1977, alcohol was the major problem. There were very few, if any, drugs in that community. I rotated back three further times, in limited duration postings, having come south for two years and then I'd move back for another two years in each of these communities. Each time I went back, alcohol was still a problem, but each time the drug problem was increasing.

When I went to La Loche in 1977, bootleggers were common and were out probably on every street corner in every city block. Drug dealers have now taken over where the bootleggers once were.

In the city of Prince Albert they have a substantial prostitution problem, with a large percentage of the prostitutes being drug IV users. And there is a large prescription drug problem within the city of Prince Albert. The drugs Ritalin, Dilaudid, and morphine are very available on the streets of Prince Albert.

A large amount of these drugs are obtained through prescriptions through doctors. Once a prescription is obtained, it is double-doctored. They go back and forth to the doctors saying that they've lost it, their drugs have been flushed, they've lost them, and prescriptions are refilled.

We've done searches of residences in Prince Albert of known drug dealers and addicts and we've found pharmaceutical manuals in their residences where they've researched certain illnesses so that they can go to the doctors and get the prescription of their choice.

With the street prices in Prince Albert right now, you can buy one milligram of Dilaudid for $10 and eight milligrams of Dilaudid for $80. Morphine sells anywhere from $15 to $200 a pill, depending on the strength. Ritalin is sold for $20 a pill.

The spinoff of this is that almost all criminal investigations either have a drug or an alcohol-related association. Break and enters, thefts, and armed robberies are often committed in order to obtain money to buy drugs or alcohol. Stolen property is often traded for drugs. Again, when searching drug dealers' houses it is very common to find new hand tools, power tools, video games, VCRs, stereos, big screen TVs, and clothing, which have all been traded for drugs.

In most of the assaults, sexual assaults, weapons offences, and homicides, the victim and suspect have both been using drugs or alcohol. We are also finding that more and more of the addicts and the people who we're dealing with are being reported as having HIV/AIDS or hepatitis C.

Even though the communities in which we police in northern Saskatchewan are isolated, drugs and alcohol are just as readily available and abused as they are in the larger urban centres.

Thank you.

¿ (0920)

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Van Steelandt.

Corporal Keith Van Steelandt (Prince Albert Joint Forces Unit, “F” Division, Royal Canadian Mounted Police): As did Sergeant Torgunrud, I'd like to say a few words here about my own experiences. I was on joint forces for five years prior to going to a limited duration post in Southend for three years, and then I was back to Prince Albert. Southend is six hours north of Prince Albert, in a very remote place, a town of 1,000 people. Up there marijuana is of concern. They're spending $10 for a joint of marijuana. It's probably the smallest joint you'll ever see in Canada. The kids are very young. They go and ask their parents for $10 to get to the store, but it's actually just to go buy a joint. And these are as young as 10-year-old kids.

Cocaine is starting to make its way up to this remote location as well. Actually, the prices are going up. In a town of about 1,000, we probably have 10 to 15 people who are dealing drugs on a regular basis.

When I came back to Prince Albert last July, I noted that one of the main things that shocked me was the large increase in the amount of the drug seizures. Before, when I was on the section, if we were getting a half pound to a pound, that was a good seizure, a good search. Now we're getting four or five pounds from the same people, the same type of city, and everything like that.

To show the increase in the amount, the people we've stopped and checked who are trafficking in marijuana have said that the marijuana isn't going south to the United States because the borders have tighter security, and a lot of it is coming east through Saskatchewan, Alberta, and B.C. right now. It's just going to be more of a problem. There's a lot of money to be made in all types of drugs. It doesn't matter if it's cannabis, cocaine, or the prescription pills.

Thank you.

¿ (0925)

The Chair: Thank you.

Now from the Saskatoon City Police, we have Superintendent Dueck.

Superintendent Brian Dueck (Human Resources, Saskatoon City Police): First of all, thank you for inviting us to this forum.

I have to apologize. I'm a late fill-in. I was in charge of our criminal intelligence division until January of this year but have moved on. The current member in charge was not available today.

You have heard a lot here about the drug problem in Saskatchewan and examples of that. I'd like to talk a bit more about some of our other concerns.

I agree with what Bill Blanshard has said, that enforcement is only part of it. Often police are unfairly portrayed in this country as being the leaders of the war on drugs. I know it becomes a media issue, that the media play on that.

One or two weeks ago there were hearings in Regina, held, I believe, by the Senate committee studying the medicinal use of marijuana. Who did they show in the media play? They showed a drug addict from Saskatoon who said he was part of NORML, the group advocating normalizing marijuana use. There was no play from the other side.

I become very distressed at that. I become very distressed at hearing that we're going to legalize or decriminalize marijuana. To young people the message is, it's legalized and now it's okay. I don't believe that anyone has actually gone to jail for simple possession of marijuana in Saskatchewan since the early 1990s. I know for sure that since 1998, with the reduction in penalties for simple possession, it's not a factor.

In Saskatoon here for a while--and this has been mentioned--we were getting larger fines for simple possession of marijuana than we were for open liquor in a park or in a vehicle. Again, that sends the wrong message to our young people.

I am also somewhat mystified that the Senate committee came out and said that there is no proof that marijuana is a gateway drug. We need to hear from more of our former drug addicts. We have many in Saskatoon here who help us at lectures.

In Saskatoon we've developed our own drug education program. It's somewhat like DARE, which the RCMP run. We call ours DART, drug and alcohol resistance training, and it goes into elementary schools. We use some of these people, and I can assure you that each of them will tell you that there was a progression. They started with this, they went to this, they went to this, and it carried on down the line.

I'm sorry that I have to repeat a few of these things, being a late fill-in. Poly-drug use in this province is becoming huge, and I'm referring to the rave scene. We just had a death last weekend at a rave in Saskatoon. Thank goodness we as a policy community had been actively promoting some provincial legislation, which Ontario and other areas have already done, for controlling raves. It's a huge problem here, and Sergeant Engele, who is actively involved in drug enforcement now, will probably touch on that.

I'm distressed by the lack of infrastructure for drug treatment and drug rehab, especially here in Saskatchewan. We have no facilities for young people that are dedicated solely to young people. We have a private group now that has obtained some land just north of Saskatoon on the riverbank. It's a Christian or religious-based organization, a group of churches in the city, that is trying to get something started. Again, it takes a million dollars, and that's hard to raise privately. I think our governments at all levels have really let down the people in this province.

I'll go back to proactive issues. In Saskatoon we have a methadone treatment program. We think it's probably one of the best in the country, although I know it's not without controversy.

There have been failures. There have been overdose deaths from carries of methadone reaching the wrong people. Again, it becomes a publicity issue. England allows no carries of methadone, and yet they have methadone being trafficked on the street. We've taken a lot of hits here for that.

Representatives from the police service, Sergeant Engele and myself, have sat on the advisory board for that program since the beginning. The College of Physicians and Surgeons invited us to do that. We're probably the only province in the country that has police involvement. Certainly British Columbia doesn't. It was foreign to them when I spoke to people there about it. I believe that has given us a step up in getting out the police view on some of these things.

We as a police service have audited that harm reduction program, and there are many success stories. I'm not opposed to harm reduction. I'm just wary about how it's done.

In Saskatoon we have a needle exchange program on the street. I don't believe it's the right place to have it. We need only look at Vancouver. They've had needle exchange longer than we have, and their hepatitis C and HIV rates keep skyrocketing. I know there are differing views in the police community, but I've done a lot of reading on safe injection sites, and I know they're an issue. If we're going to do that, it needs to be part of a health care clinic where they get complete health care.

These people are desperate. We reviewed some of this earlier, and I am sure there will be questions later. I don't believe that addicts necessarily should be going to jail either. I believe enterprise drug traffickers need to be in jail. I don't believe that addicts need to be there, any more than alcoholics, for those kinds of crimes.

Saskatoon has a huge problem. Probably 90% of our house break-and-enters are committed to obtain drugs. In the early 1990s, when I was in the drug section working as a street constable, the proceeds of those break-and-enters were used to buy marijuana. In the year 2000 they were being used to buy cocaine and pills by the same age group. We're talking 12- to 18-year-old young people who are using it. Again, I dispute the statement that it is not a gateway. It does escalate. There's no doubt about it.

Many social factors are involved. The police can't possibly cure all of those problems. Sergeant Lerat touched on that, such as a lack of facilities and self-esteem issues with these people. Again, I'm really distressed at the lack of infrastructure.

When I was in charge of CID, we started a program called Operation Help for our street sex-trade workers. It was a unique idea. It won a Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police award last year at the conference here.

I'll run through it really quickly, and then I'll be done. We recognized that these people were on the street, as was stated earlier by Sergeant Torgunrud, and were involved in the sex trade for two reasons: addictions and threats of violence. We looked at how we could get by that, rather than just cycling them through the courts. It's a multi-agency program, which involves social services, addiction services, and the aboriginal community. We have an aboriginal elder on the board. In Saskatoon the majority of our sex-trade workers are of aboriginal descent. When these people are picked up, they're brought into our building and they're put into a circle. They're told they have a chance for a lifestyle change. No charges are laid the first time they're brought in. Our success rate has been astounding.

The only thing that has stopped it is the infrastructure to take these people. When you have someone who is committing themselves to getting off the street and cleaning up their life, you can't tell them, “You go home now and in a month we're going to be able to get you into a facility”. It has to be immediate.

As I say, when our people from the vice unit first brought this idea forward, I loved it, and I gave them immediate approval to keep going on it. I told them that if in the first year we had five people commit themselves to go into treatment, we would have had a success. In less than a year we had 32 who committed themselves. They were walking in the front door of our station saying, “We haven't been picked up yet for hooking. How do we get into Operation Help?”

Again, it isn't all a police issue. The police have been doing their job. Unfortunately, I think too much of the social end of it has been downloaded onto the police. We just need the infrastructure and the money put into those things.

¿ (0930)

I would say just one more thing. It goes back to the decriminalization of marijuana. I've seen it. I'm a 31-year police officer. I'm a grandparent. I've raised two of my own children. I see a parent attitude. I'm sure that Bill would back me on this; he talks to many parents, many groups. We've gotten to the point in this country with cocaine and heroin where I think we've almost scared parents to the point where they say, “Well, doggone it, I don't want my kid on cocaine or heroin or morphine or whatever; maybe marijuana isn't that bad”.

We looked at things like the Blue Lens program the Vancouver Police did regarding the prostitution and the problems in the Gastown area, which was a tremendous documentary.

The publicity of the medicinal use of marijuana, etc., is adding to this attitude too. It's no different from someone close to me saying, “Well, my son isn't doing drugs any more; he's just drinking now”, not recognizing that as a drug of harm as well.

I would add one more thing--and this again goes for prescription drugs. We have a horrible problem in this province with that. Somehow we have to wake up nationally and form a national triplicate drug registry, so when someone is getting narcotics in Alberta, we in Saskatchewan, or a pharmacist or a doctor in Saskatchewan, will know about it immediately.

We had an example of that with an overdose death of a fellow--and he was aboriginal again--that led to a lot of bad publicity for the Saskatoon police. He was getting all kinds of prescriptions, and Indian Affairs hadn't allowed that information to be released. It came out in an inquest, and it didn't look very good for the people issuing all of these prescriptions.

Thank you.

¿ (0935)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Superintendent Dueck.

Mr. Engele, do you have an opening statement as well?

Sergeant Jerome Engele (Saskatoon Integrated Drug Unit, Saskatoon City Police): Yes, I do.

I'm Sergeant Engele with the Saskatoon Integrated Drug Unit. I'm the non-commissioned officer in charge of operations. I've been a police officer for 22 years, and I've spent the last 11 years in the drug unit.

Our integrated drug unit is composed of 12 RCMP officers and eight city police officers. I've been qualified to give testimony as an expert on cannabis products, cocaine, psilocybin, morphine, Ritalin, and codeine. I'm on the advisory board of the methadone program and a committee member of Needle Safe Saskatoon.

I'm going to speak a little bit on a different topic. I will advise you of the problems we have in the city of Saskatoon, which are more with pills that are diverted from prescription drug use. Morphine and Ritalin are two of the main pills being abused, especially in our stroll area. They are being made available to our prostitutes. People at risk are being taken advantage of and abused on the streets because of their addiction to morphine or Ritalin. Break-and-enters and thefts are up because of people wanting to get that product.

Our older addicts are basically staying with morphine, Ritalin, and cocaine. But we have a separate group of people who will become addicts: our youth, who are very vulnerable but feel that nothing can ever hurt them. They are abusing Ecstasy and crystal meth.

We see more and more of them on the streets now. They are not only at raves but all over on our streets. Violent youth crime is becoming very rampant. Part of this is because there is no deterrent. Our youth feel they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. Our court system is currently letting us down. Our officers are putting people in front of the courts. We are laying the charges, but nothing that is really a deterrence is happening to these people.

As for our methadone program, it uses a harm reduction method that I feel works. We have 250 people on the program approximately. Of those, a few cause major problems, but there are also some very solid successes. One of them is a gentleman who I used as an agent three different times. He had lost his family and did not have a job. He was on welfare. Currently now he is working, has his family back, and is paying taxes--and he's very proud of it. So this is a success.

As for the Needle Safe Saskatoon program, they give out approximately 5,000 syringes in a month. The collection rate is at 92%. A true needle exchange program should be one for one, so that we have the counselling. When someone is really in duress or really needing help, the counsellors have to be there, not after the fact. We're giving out 100 to 300 syringes at a time. That is not a true exchange.

How do we rectify our drug problem? That's through enforcement and education. In our schools, we, the police service, have a drug and alcohol resistance training program called DART, and their second step, Quest, which is being used in the various schools at this time as education, not only to the youth but to the parents. Our police service provides the parents a powerful portion of DART, which is there to teach the parents so they are made aware of what is out on the street.

The main issue would be a drug court. Drug addicts, or anyone who is abusing drugs, do not have a problem, in their mind. If they are charged with an offence, they would be put into a drug court and it's forced upon them. The drug court can monitor them a lot easier, and if they don't follow the steps, a deterrent is there. Whatever the sentence would be, they would then fall into going to jail or whatever sentencing. If we had the drug court, the same judge would sit all the time, and he or she would then be able to see if they are progressing or not. If they aren't progressing, the deterrent can be there. If they are progressing, they can continue on. We would probably be able to keep more people away from addiction than put them into it.

I agree with Superintendent Dueck that our Saskatoon District Health, our methadone program, Needle Safe Saskatoon...it should all be under one building, so that we have all of the agencies together. It happens all the time that if addicts are sent from one building to see a person in another building, they run into a friend and they're distracted and they don't make it to that second meeting. If we can keep them all together in one building--and we have hospital rooms here that are closed.... We have the facilities. There is not a great expense. It's just a matter of people sharing and organizations getting along, working together, and putting everybody together in one building.

Public safety is the first thing we have to worry about when it comes to harm reduction. It's imperative that we do not put someone who has made a choice to go into the world of addiction ahead of the general public, especially youth. It's important that we think about that before we take steps to go to an injection site. We have to have a true needle exchange program on a one-to-one basis before we take further steps. Thank you.

¿ (0940)

The Chair: Can I just clarify? In the same building you want the Needle Safe Saskatoon, the addiction people, and the methadone clinic?

Sgt Jerome Engele: Right, and a rehab centre--everybody together.

The Chair: Thank you.

And now from the Winnipeg Police Service, Blair McCorrister.

Inspector Blair McCorrister (Winnipeg Police Service): Good morning. Last week, I was advised by the chief that I was going to take over the new reorganized crime bureau, which is drugs, the gang unit, homicide, and major crime, hence my appearance here today.

Having said that, I have 28 years on the job, 15 of which were spent in the vice unit as well as the crime division.

The Chair: He just didn't want to come himself. That's why he gave you that big promotion.

Insp Blair McCorrister: I'm currently, actually, in charge of a general patrol district in what is commonly referred to as the north end of Winnipeg. I liaise a lot with the school boards and with the parent advisory boards. I can tell you that drugs in the schools is a number one concern. It was such a problem that at one point last year we had to do an undercover operation in one of the schools. Of course, if anything, it raised the importance of a discussion on drugs with the parents and the students, because these are problems brought to us by the students, not only the parents.

I can tell you through my other experiences that we don't have clear, hard facts on the number of deaths from marijuana accidents, and we know they occur. Those are facts that don't get to us. We know right now, through certain acts, we're having trouble getting information from hospitals, so we don't know when people are brought to hospitals with health issues because of drugs.

We know that through these problems, through the issue of drugs, neighbourhoods have declined. It has a serious impact on businesses and quality of life for the citizens in Winnipeg. The wrestling of control by organized gangs has led to a number of murders, home invasions, and kidnappings. The organized gangs have stepped up their attacks; they are now attacking police officers. There's been a fire bombing of a police officer's house in Winnipeg. They intimidate witnesses routinely, with drive-by shootings, beatings, and assaults. It has a serious impact on the quality of life in Winnipeg.

I and the chief and members of the Winnipeg Police Service do not support decriminalization or legalization of marijuana. It is a problem. It is seen by youth as a viable employment strategy to sell drugs. That reached me recently through a friend of mine, a single parent who has one son. He's reached grade 8, and he's decided to leave school and follow his desire to sell drugs. Once they go down that road, you know it's long term. It's going to cost society a lot of money and a lot of resources to bring him back on line.

I feel the police in all areas have taken a lead role by going into schools, by talking about the dangers associated with drug use. A lot of resources are put into this all over the country, and I think we need support in this area. We need stronger support groups out there. We need more funding to develop better programs. We see ourselves as partners, but we need a national strategy that can assist us, and we need tie-ins from both health and education so that we follow the same path.

Thank you.

¿ (0945)

The Chair: Thank you, and thank you for travelling here to be with us today.

We'll now have some opportunity for questions. As I told the panellists yesterday, this committee is fairly unique in Ottawa in that there are no party positions on a lot of these issues. We're all struggling to find the right solutions, so while we represent different parties, we've sometimes taken different positions, even from meeting to meeting, in trying to discuss and argue the points back and forth so we can get some good information and some debate. We tend to be fairly non-partisan.

That's just the fair warning before we turn to the questions.

We'll go for, let's say, 15 minutes maximum in the first round. If anyone asks you a specific question and somebody else also wants to address it, just give us a signal. But if it's already been covered, you really don't have to repeat the message.

Ms. Skelton.

Ms. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, Canadian Alliance): I'd like to start with a question that you might not be able to give me an answer for, because it is a confidential question in some ways and could put forward information you might not want to have out there.

Can you tell me how many people are involved in drug enforcement in Saskatchewan in the RCMP, in the Saskatoon City Police, the Prince Albert police--each of your forces--and what percentage of the budget of your forces is allocated to drug programming and drug enforcement? Are you able to tell me that?

Sgt Rick Torgunrud The Prince Albert joint force last year was made up of four members on the GIS side and thee members who were federal enforcement side, plus the two city police members who were basically there for the drug war. We were all involved in drug investigation, but not full time. Our budget last year for the whole unit of seven members was just under $100,000.

¿ (0950)

Ms. Carol Skelton: Did you say $100,000?

Sgt Rick Torgunrud: That's right. That's not including wages. That's for fuel and vehicle expenses, overtime, stationery....

Ms. Carol Skelton: How far north do you cover?

Sgt Rick Torgunrud: We go to the Alberta border, the Manitoba border, and the territories.

Ms. Carol Skelton: And you got $100,000 to cover that area?

Sgt Rick Torgunrud: That's for our operational expenses.

Cpl Keith Van Steelandt: I would say it took seven members, or six members, this year to cover that entire area.

Sgt Rick Torgunrud: In northern Saskatchewan we have approximately 30 detachments in our area that we're responsible for. The majority of them are isolated or semi-isolated. We have Stony Rapids, Fond-du-Lac, and Wollaston Lake, which are fly-in communities. Most of the other ones are accessible by road. As you heard, Southend is six hours north of Prince Albert. La Ronge is probably two and a half hours away.

Ms. Carol Skelton: How far is La Loche? I flew across there.

Sgt Rick Torgunrud: La Loche is about seven hours--six or seven hours. It's roughly 300 miles north of Prince Albert.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Can I just ask a question about La Loche? When I was there, the jail was so full the prisoners were out sweeping the sidewalks. Now that they're using marijuana as much as they do, are they still doing that, or have they built a new jail since I was there?

Sgt Rick Torgunrud: They have a new office. When I was there in 1977 we had a smaller office. We also had a common jail where people could serve sentences up to 14 days. It was common to have them cut the grass and wash vehicles. At that time we could let them out. If they needed a change of clothes they'd go home and get clothes and come back and go to jail. Nowadays, I don't think you'd do that.

Ms. Carol Skelton: It was intriguing when I was there. I'd never seen that before, coming from the south.

Insp Blair McCorrister: In Winnipeg we have approximately 20 officers assigned to the drug squad, supplemented by staff members. Salary-wise, I couldn't tell you what that equates to right now, and right now I'm not familiar with what the budget is.

Ms. Carol Skelton: You have 20 officers. Does that cover the gangs or is it just drugs?

Insp Blair McCorrister: No, we have a separate gang unit.

Ms. Carol Skelton: How many do you have on that, then?

Insp Blair McCorrister: We have 10 members.

Ms. Carol Skelton: You have 10 members.

Mr. Dueck--

Supt Brian Dueck: I wouldn't be able to tell you exact budget figures, because, as Jerome pointed out, we have an integrated drug unit. The RCMP looks after its budget and we look after ours. We have eight full-time drug members, but I would add that we also have four full-time organized crime members, and right now they have been, for the last three years, working full time with the drug unit. Organized crime is drugs. That is the most lucrative trade in this country.

Budget-wise, it's hard to say, but our integrated drug unit also covers rural areas, and we would assist detachments wherever. We've done operations going through rural Saskatchewan into small towns--undercover operations and what have you--actually some very unique ones. We cover a big area. Saskatoon is the focal point, of course, but we're also available to go probably as far south as Davidson. We wouldn't go very far north, although we've assisted Prince Albert at times. East and west, we would go as far as we needed to go.

Ms. Carol Skelton: It's too bad we didn't have somebody from Regina here this morning. Do you have--

Supt Brian Dueck: They have a very similar unit. Actually, Bill is from Regina.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Yes, but you're with the RCMP--

Sgt William Blanshard: I could make some comment in that respect. The dedicated drug enforcement unit is probably the same in Saskatoon. As far as budget is concerned, we have a dedicated joint forces drug enforcement unit, plus--and they have it here--the proceeds of crime integrated unit as well. We have one dedicated drug awareness coordinator for the province--that's me. I'm probably the only police officer dedicated full time in this province to coordinate, develop, and promote drug education programs.

As far as costs go, you no doubt have had this information. The RCMP federal drug enforcement budget is about $370 million a year. Policing costs associated only with alcohol-related incidents are $400 million a year. Street-level profit from the illicit drug trade is $18 billion a year. In a sense, we're going to crunch numbers. We cannot meet the demands of our investigations. I think most of the dedicated enforcement people here will tell you that our problem is dealing with the street, early intervention. We are very limited in what we can do proactively before they get into the area of trafficking and prostitution gangs.

From a personal point of view, we could be more active at the first incidence of any indication of anti-social behaviour, if you will, and be very effective there. By the time we get to dealing with them in the justice system, they probably have eight, nine, ten years of experience in the drug trade.

¿ (0955)

Ms. Carol Skelton: This is just a personal question. Being from Saskatchewan, I have to find these things out. How many RCMP officers this year have been taken out of the province for special assignment? Do you know offhand?

Sgt William Blanshard: There would be a handful with respect to peacekeeping duties. We have seconded several to Ottawa recently for initiatives with home security, but they are temporary.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Any of our drug enforcement fellows or anything like that? We haven't lost any members?

Sgt William Blanshard: Not that I'm aware of.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: Okay, thanks.

Insp Blair McCorrister: We talk about the numbers in the drug units or the gang units that specifically are assigned to that function. However, the reality is that they focus on problematic areas that are causing the community the greatest concern. Hence, a lot of the work dealing with marijuana is left to general patrol members, community police officers, and so on. So if you wanted to break it down and say how much of the budget is spent fighting drugs, a lot of it is.

Ms. Carol Skelton: That's the entire budget?

Insp Blair McCorrister: The entire budget.

Sgt Jerome Engele: Just in regard to the time spent targeting marijuana, as a drug unit we don't spend any time whatsoever on targeting people with possession--none. We go after the dealers, the people we're going to be targeting for possession for the purpose of trafficking. Any charges of possession are just guys who walk in on a search or people who are found. If we go to do a search and the amount of product there isn't enough to substantiate a possession for the purpose of trafficking charge, it's just possession. As a drug unit, we never, ever go after anyone for possession. Patrols themselves are the ones that do the possession, and that's through street checks or checking someone in a bar and finding joints on them. So I don't think anyone is really even targeting possession charges any more.

Ms. Carol Skelton: They don't have time.

I have one question. Someone mentioned that marijuana has changed. What do you mean by changed?

Sgt Jerome Engele: Marijuana is a lot stronger now than it was in the past. They are also spiking or adding different ingredients to the marijuana. When you're buying the marijuana, there may be a little bit of cocaine laced in it. They may lace it with MDA or any other kind of product. PCP is another one. They lace it so it's a lot more powerful. It isn't the marijuana of the sixties. The THC content is a lot higher.

Ms. Carol Skelton: I was thinking maybe it was genetically modified.

Supt Brian Dueck: I assure you that many of them could make a good living at productive plant growth because they are experts at it. There's no doubt about that.

Sgt William Blanshard: In a sense you are correct. The advent of hydroponic marijuana right now and over the last ten years is substantial. When I was in street-level drug enforcement back in the seventies, 1%, 2%, 3% THC, the active ingredient--tetrahydrocannabinol--was common.

In Saskatchewan right now, the average is 6% to I think 12% THC levels. Through tests, we've seen it as high as 35% THC levels. That's unusual, but it has gone that high. And if you produce hashish, hash oil, or marijuana resin from that, the THC levels are much higher. It's a different substance completely.

À (1000)

The Chair: Do you have a comment, Mr. McCorrister?

Insp Blair McCorrister: I guess what came through my mind is when I was in the drug squad, we had a licence to grow marijuana for the purposes of providing expert opinion. And it's not hard; we had levels up to 24%.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Are we, as legislators at the provincial and federal levels, letting you down, and how can we help you?

Supt Brian Dueck: Yes, ma'am.

I guess I must be politically correct, being a federal employee, but frankly, in 1988 the Canadian drug strategy probably would have had potential like we wouldn't believe, had it been applied.

In 1988, when we looked at the drug issue, we saw a reduction in adolescent drug use. Then we dropped the ball. We did not continue the efforts we had initiated in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and drug use amongst adolescents started increasing about 1994-95.

Since I've been in the drug education program, we've tried to introduce programs, and we know it has to be long term--kindergarten to grade 12, not just grade 5 or grade 6. We have to be there, and it has to be age sensitive.

There are wonderful programs out there. The trouble is, we're allowed or able to present only a very small part of them. We need support if it's going to be the duty of law enforcement. Law enforcement is only as effective as you want it to be. If there is a decision to decriminalize totally marijuana, cocaine, and other drugs, of course, Canadian law enforcement will follow that lead. That's our job.

But I think you see some of the passion here with law enforcement; we see what the results are.

Has government let us down, and what can you do? Let's attack the problem. I hear the phrase “the war on drugs” used often. We haven't gone to war. A war has the significance of having every single resource we have being dedicated to a common purpose, much like they did with hoof-and-mouth disease. We haven't done that with our drug problem in this country. Harm reduction is the result of our failure, and I think if we truly want it drug free.... And it won't be drug free, because humans like to get stoned. They've been doing that since before the wheel was invented. But the point is, we can reduce a lot of use.

A big part of enforcement is children. If it's not socially acceptable to use that substance, they won't. We have good kids out there, but they get the wrong message. And pardon me, but it's possibly this type of committee that might be giving us bad information: if we're studying decriminalization to such an extent, then maybe it isn't that bad.

A lot of the information that's coming to the public through the media--and I happened to be part of the Senate panel that day--is one-sided.

So, pardon me, but yes, you're failing--not failing us, but failing society.

The Chair: Just before I recognize Sergeant Engele, I'll say two things.

One, the Senate committee is completely different from this committee. The Senate committee is specifically looking at marijuana and is more focused on decriminalization. This committee is looking at all drugs, and in our first meetings in Vancouver, people actually encouraged us to not even look at marijuana. We received the marijuana reference--that private member's bill--only in April, so it hasn't been our focus.

And we've been sorely lacking media attention, so we're not communicating too many messages here.

Supt Brian Dueck: My intent was to draw a comparison or a simile between the two, but--

The Chair: Yes.

And we've heard from people that the medical use of marijuana has created some confusion in young people's minds.

Supt Brian Duek: Correct.

The Chair: Thank you.

Sgt Jerome Engele: Under our Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, they have the over and under 30 grams for possession charges. And for possession for the purposes charges, it is 3 kilograms. Those numbers should not be in the code, because all of our traffickers or dealers know what they can or cannot carry. So when we go to the courts, it's very hard, as an expert, to prove or to stand up and say that amount was for the possession for the purpose of trafficking. Putting numbers in the code makes it difficult for us to have the charge proceed, as it should, when we know people are out there dealing.

What they'll do is pick up an ounce of marijuana--which is 28 grams--go out, deal it, go back, pick up another ounce, deal it, go back, pick it up, and they'll only get charged with possession, when really they are trafficking and should be charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking. In this way, they have worked their way around the Criminal Code.

À (1005)

The Chair: Superintendent Dueck.

Supt Brian Dueck: When you ask whether we can do something nationally, I think one of the issues, certainly, is consistency in sentencing, a consistent message, and we're not seeing that. I mean, you've just mentioned British Columbia, Paddy. They don't even want to talk about marijuana. That's really unfortunate.

You know, it is one of the largest growth industries in British Columbia. Unfortunately, they're a port and they concentrate on shiploads of cocaine and heroin. It's a huge, huge problem there. Again, I'm not sure where the studies came from, and I'm not comparing you to the Senate committee, believe me, but certainly that's where I read the comment regarding gateway, that they had come up with the....

I mean, there are many studies out there that say marijuana is a gateway. The University of Oregon did a major study just a few years ago. I simply don't believe marijuana has had the testing and the study that needs to be done, especially when you see, as Bill mentioned, the tremendous increase in potency. How do you know what the effects of that are?

But consistency in sentencing, let's get that message out there. I've heard stories in British Columbia that a grower of marijuana who gets taken down gets fined $10 a plant. Well, what's the potential profit on that plant, Jerome? You can tell me that.

Sgt Jerome Engele: It's three ounces per plant, at $250 or $300 an ounce, so you're looking at about $900 or so each plant.

Supt Brian Dueck: Their overhead or their risk factors are minimal there. We seem to be moving almost in that same direction here. I don't know, but we need to get a consistent message out there.

I heard a great idea one day. I think it was out of Ms. Skelton's party: it's time the Government of Canada, when they write a law, to maybe put its interpretation into that law so that our higher courts aren't allowed to interpret laws. That's been a major issue since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was brought in. They will interpret what this law means. They're interpreting for the government, and maybe it's time, when the government builds a new Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, or whatever--a Criminal Code amendment--that they also put the rider in that this is what the Government of Canada, the people of Canada, mean by this law.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. McCorrister.

Insp Blair McCorrister: We are about to start a pilot project in the north end of Winnipeg by putting three officers in a number of schools. The reason we're doing that is because when we had these community meetings, their big fear was of the drugs and the associated problems with the students in the schools. Really, is that the image we want? Do we want armed police officers in elementary schools throughout this country? We need help in developing programs that can better address these issues and put the police back into other preventive roles.

The Chair: Thank you.

I'll now turn to Mr. Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): Thank you very much for appearing here today. I have a lot of questions to ask you, and I'm going to try to start with the general then move to the particular.

Yesterday, we met two organizations with which you are no doubt familiar, the Calder Center here in Saskatoon and the White Buffalo Youth Inhalant Treatment Centre. In a moment, if you are willing, we'll talk about the entire question of supply. One of the things I'm trying to understand as a member of this committee is the individual motivations that lead people to use drugs.

We can go into all kinds of philosophical considerations and talk about destiny, psychopersonal motivation and so on, but one of the speakers yesterday gave us four explanations. He told us that people take drugs in order to be accepted by their peers, that it was cool, that it was part of popular music and, lastly, because there was personal distress. So those of you who meet with young people--I believe Cory does that full time and others do as well--do you agree with that analysis? If we had some kind of explanation to give on the reasons why young people use drugs, would you agree on the three or four reasons we were given yesterday?

I believe it's on that basis that we have to try to understand why young people use drugs and then propose solutions.

À (1010)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Lerat.

Sgt Cory Lerat: Yes, I do. There are a number of factors, especially for the isolated northern communities. Again, it goes back to a lack of activity, or a lack of recreation, for the children, and it goes back to the parents, who have a lack of jobs within the communities. It's goes right down into the youth. They have nothing really to do. They're bored. They may not have a hockey rink. They may not have the sporting facilities, so they turn to drugs. There are also other factors that could go back to the residential schools, back into the seventies and the sixties. That could mean there's a lack of parenting skills, a lack of supervisory skills, for the children. There are a number of factors. Those are some of the factors that could lead to high drug use.

Other things I've seen or I've heard in my travels in northern Saskatchewan are that they have the satellite dishes and they're influenced by the stuff they see on the satellite dishes. Kids are unsupervised. You travel into an isolated community such as a place like Sandy Bay, which is northeast of Pelican Narrows, probably about a five- or six-hour drive northeast of Prince Albert, and you see gang graffiti that you might see in Detroit on the schools up there in a small community. That's what I've seen in my travels. They're influenced by the satellite dishes they have up there. They're influenced by the high amount of sexual activity on those satellite dishes. The kids get to watch whatever the want on the satellite dishes. They're influenced by what's happening in L.A. and Detroit, and they're getting influenced right in isolated communities like that.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: So you're telling us that the more idle young people are, the more they are candidates for drug use. Ultimately, the paradox is that all the solutions that would make it possible to keep people busier and to ensure they have centres of interest, this type of solution to this kind of concern, must come from the lower governments. It must come from the municipalities and the recreational centres and has nothing to do with the Criminal Code. It especially has nothing to do with the federal government, even though the rumour is that the Prime Minister has established a Liberal task force to develop a strategy on urban policies and study the possibility of directly subsidizing the municipalities. But here we're talking about political fiction, and you know, Madam Chair, how much I detest rumours.

This leads me to ask you a second question. I sat on the subcommittee that reviewed the entire issue of organized crime. To give you some background, I would like to tell you why I, as a member, got interested in organized crime. The reason is that, in 1995, you may perhaps remember, Daniel Desrochers, an 11-year-old boy from my riding, Hochelaga--Maisonneuve, died as a result of an attack involving a booby-trapped car. In the early 1990s, there were two bunkers in my riding, so there's no need to tell you what that can represent in the community.

From the moment the Liberal government came to power until today, 11 bills have been introduced to fight organized crime.

We reviewed the witness protection issue. With Bill C-95, we saw a definition of gangsterism, which was amended under Bill C-24 and reamended under Bill C-36. The $1,000 bill was withdrawn from the market because it was felt, once again, that it exacerbated the drug question. We reviewed the question of the seizure of proceeds of crime. What I'm trying to understand is whether, despite this activism... It can't be said that, in legislative terms, there have been very concrete tools, mandatory reporting, as you know. Nevertheless, you seem to say that organized crime, as related to drugs, has not changed much. With regard to the law, and your ability to prosecute young offenders, can that be a possible solution, and, in terms of legislative tools, what is missing in order to deter people from drug use? Each of you has stated that enforcement is not the only solution, but enforcement may at times be necessary.

À (1015)

The Chair: Are you referring to youths only or to all persons?

Mr. Réal Ménard: I'm asking the question in relation to youths, first, and in relation to drug traffickers, second.

[English]

Sgt Jerome Engele: Well, to start with, the dealers are using the youth. Nothing really happens to the dealers out there. They distance themselves from the product and they get the youth to go out and do the trafficking for them. What happens is a youth gets picked up and nothing really happens to him in court, and they know that. So these dealers--anyone who uses a youth--should really get whacked. Nothing happens to that person either.

It's very difficult for us on an enforcement level to move up the ladder because of the agent and informant type of information. An informant is someone who doesn't have to testify in court; an agent has to. Anytime we deal with someone and they give us information, the only way we can usually get that information and use it in court is if we can turn that person into an agent. Naturally we are never going to use a youth, because you're putting him at risk. You can't do that.

To get someone to be an agent and testify in court is very difficult. By the court setting up the agent/informant status and changing it, it has made policing very, very difficult. We can't use information a lot of times because a person may be an agent. If you direct that person in any manner whatsoever, you turn him into an agent, and he or she then has to testify in court. The Criminal Code has to be careful with that, or change something so that our hands aren't so tied.

As for organized crime and concrete tools and hoops, we have to go through many paper hoops to get all of this information, to get affidavits signed, so that we can even start an investigation. We're looking at three or four months of officers sitting there writing just to fill out forms, so that we can start an investigation. By then they have such a strong grasp in their community, and it's hard for us to infiltrate. Our hands are tied by paper--red tape. It should be an easy form so that we're able to start something. If we see a problem, we should be able to be up and working on it within a week--not three, four, six months before we can start an operation.

We have our prosecutors who again we work through. They are advising us. They keep coming back saying you can't do this, you can't do that, because you need to fill in all the little hoops. All the investigative tools have to be utilized or you have to fill in all the investigative needs before you can get your affidavit signed. The bills are there, yes, but to get to use them is very difficult.

The Chair: Mr. Blanshard.

Sgt William Blanshard: Bonjour. Along the lines of what Sergeant Engele has said, if you're dealing with youth, one of the recommendations I would like to make is to deal very much like we're doing with the drinking and driving matters within Saskatchewan. Any time a young person is picked up for the violation of any criminal offence, they should be diverted to drug and alcohol assessment to determine if they're in a predisposition, already addicted, so we can intervene at a very early stage. That might be one way to deal with it, rather than deal strictly with probation, community services, etc. We must have professional intervention. That would be one area I would look at.

With regard to organized crime, my feelings go out to you, because I realize that it was a motorcycle gang initiative that killed that young child. I worked with those people for four years. Frankly speaking, I am so angry--and this comes personally maybe. I watch a member of the Hells Angels walk down my street and on the back of his jacket, it says “Hells Angels”, and he is telling everybody he is a member of an organized crime unit and we let him walk down the street. If I walk down the street with the “Taliban” or “al-Qaeda” on the back of my jacket, I would be approached and asked what am I doing. We glamorize, we overdramatize, people like the Hells Angels, and it's time possibly to look at issues of what do we require to prove organized crime activity.

Believe me, trust the integrity of law enforcement, because there's nothing personal in what we do. It's personal only to get the bad guy off the street, if I can use that term.

But we need some support, and you should support the integrity of your law enforcement in this country, because it is good, and I'm not saying that because I happen to be a part of it.

Those are some of the areas I'd look at.

À (1020)

The Chair: Mr. Dueck.

Supt Brian Dueck: I'd like to comment too on organized crime. First, I'd note that until early this year I attended the tier-two level meetings in Ottawa on organized crime, so I have a very good understanding of what went on in the province of Quebec. The Province of Quebec, after the death of that 11-year-old boy and then the shooting of Michel Auger, took it in hand and they did exactly what needs to be done.

I know that all levels of government are getting tired of hearing the police say, give us more money. Of course, we have to justify what we're doing with the money, but I can assure you that in the province of Quebec the organized, coordinated effort they put into Operation Wolverine had significant impact. Mom Boucher just went back to court and was convicted on the original charges. He hasn't even met his new charges yet. But the province there has taken it in hand and said enough is enough.

It's unfortunate that civilians had to die and had to be injured before some of that took place. The police had been telling them in Quebec for years. And it was money and resources. Any time you tackle an organized crime initiative, it takes years, and there are never enough human resources or financial resources.

Look at Saskatoon. Municipally, the cost for us to finance our share of organized crime investigations is huge. It is a huge drain on our budgets. And when you have civic political leaders who--and there's nothing wrong with community policing initiatives, but you see the emphasis going there--don't understand what organized crime is about.... I can assure you, we have a Hells Angels gang here. We have them in Regina. We have other puppet clubs in this province, and they are controlling a huge part of the drug trade.

I think the new anti-gang legislation goes a very long way. I would like to see one more thing, and I know it needs a change in the charter as well, and that is a non-jury trial for any organized crime member going to court. I know there are people who, of course, because of the individual rights and what have you will scream at that, but the influencing of jurors.... They went a long way in Quebec with that in the last Boucher trial, but the story was also told of Mom Boucher walking into a furniture store and just circling a girl who had witnessed a bombing. What did she do? She was done. That was it.

I agree with what Bill says. There needs to be legislation. I know Steve Sherriff in Ontario is going to try it. They are going to try prosecuting when they wear their colours, just for wearing their colours. And they're going to do it. It's been a glamorization; Mom Boucher walking out and throwing the party--

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Based on the information I've received from police officers, currently, under the new act, the fact of wearing their colours constitutes evidence in court. This has made it more difficult for the Hell's Angels to operate and bikers are now walking around in suits and ties. Based on the information I've obtained, the Hell's Angels no longer wear their colours when they are walking around. Consider the example of what happened with Mom Boucher. Simply because he was deemed to be associated with the Nomads and the Hell's Angels, he was sentenced to 25 years without parole.

It's a very effective deterrent. Police officers told us that, since the Stinchcombe decision, that is since they have had an obligation to disclose all evidence, trials could cost from $3 to $4 million, just for transmitting documents to the Crown. Lastly, you admit that Parliament has taken measures, which aren't perfect, but the organized crime environment and the tools you currently have are nevertheless very different from what existed in the 1990s.

I would like to ask you other questions, but my time must be running out, Madam Chair. How about a brief grace period!

I have a little trouble understanding the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association. A prohibitionist strategy is currently being applied, and it hasn't yielded results with regard to either organized crime or youth drug use. Don't you think that a non-prohibitionist strategy might be likely to yield better results?

[English]

Supt Brian Dueck: I'll answer that. Have a look at what's been happening in Europe. Look at the drug parks, with needles, in Switzerland or Holland. It hasn't yielded anything either. In any report that I've read it's caused more misery; it's caused more disruption for the community.

À (1025)

The Chair: I am going to interrupt you, because Switzerland doesn't have drug parks any more.

Supt Brian Dueck: I know they don't. I was getting to that.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Explain to him that we're going to visit--

The Chair: We're going to go to see Frankfurt and Zurich.

That was 10 years ago.

Supt Brian Dueck: As I was saying, that was an experience of attempting to get rid of prohibition, an attempt at opening it up, making it more legal, and it was a dismal failure as well. They've gone back to education. They've gone back to more methadone clinics. They've gone back to using safe injection sites. Australia's looking at that; England is looking at them.

I'm sure you're aware of that.

We as policemen are accused of saying, well, prohibition has to stay there because we're trying to protect our jobs. That is the furthest thing from the truth. If we were protecting our jobs, we would have nothing to do within the--

Mr. Réal Ménard: I didn't say that.

Supt Brian Dueck: I'm not saying that you're saying that, sir. I'm saying that has been thrown out during the whole war on drugs philosophy. It's a lucrative, wonderful place for a policeman to work, and it has been said many times to us.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Every one of you has job security. So if we don't do that, you're going to do something else. That's not a very sound argument.

[English]

The Chair: A brief answer, Sergeant Blanshard.

Sgt William Blanshard: With respect to prohibition, the Mounted Police, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Canadian Police Association do not advocate that the single approach to this issue is strictly prohibition. We have to work with a multitude of other agencies together, and that isn't really happening. Prohibition does work.

In areas that have been properly evaluated, where there was a zero tolerance, adolescent drug use has dropped.

Perhaps I can use a personal comparison.

When I was doing presentations for a soccer team and I asked my 14-year-old son why he did not at least experiment with drugs--they're all around--he said, “Well, because of you, Dad”. Well, I'm the law, so to speak, and then I asked him why he didn't even look at it, and he said, “Because I know what it'll do”.

So the approach is this. He knows there's going to be a consequence to his behaviour from me, but also in conjunction with an education program, it reaffirms what I'm telling him. That may be a poor comparison, but prohibition will work.

Our young people want to believe in the law. Unfortunately, the previous generation did not role model being legal, moral, and ethical, so they are living what we produced, in a manner of speaking. Prohibition, along with a lot of other issues, will work, I hope.

The Chair: Thank you.

All of you are involved in some kind of education program, I think, and have been in schools and other places. If one of our colleagues were here, he would ask if the only drug education comes from police officers and whether that's really effective. I think you've said already, Mr. Blanshard, that it needs to be more multi-faceted.

Mr. Dueck, you're nodding your head that you agree.

À (1030)

Supt Brian Dueck: I agree. That was one of the things when we developed our DART project here in conjunction with Saskatoon District Health. Sandy Lane was here yesterday. She and Sergeant Engele have worked together in developing the program, and her people assist in delivering the program.

We have gone into schools in the past and done that. It appeared to us that it was a nice hour and a half for a teacher to take a break while we were in the classroom. We said when we developed this program that this time we weren't going to just go in and do that, that there had to be a follow-up. We have done things like pre-testing now. We're going to do post-testing of these students three to six months down the road to see what they've retained. We've also insisted that the police component of the drug education has to be part of overall life skills and lifestyles teaching that is going on in the schools. The schools certainly wanted us back, but that was the only way we would go back, and I think a big component of that is the testing.

Another aspect of that--and we picked up this program from Pride Canada, who unfortunately are no longer around--is the Parents Are Powerful program. I think that's a big component. You can tell the kids all you want in the schools, but if that isn't being modelled and the message delivered at home, it's fruitless.

The Chair: I was also going to say that part of the Auditor General's analysis before Christmas was that in this country we think we have a 50-50, evenly balanced approach, that we're probably working 50% on demand reduction and 50% on supply reduction. You guys are the supply reduction people, by and large. Yet it turns out that it's 95% supply reduction and 5% demand reduction.

When we had various departments of the federal government come before us, it was the RCMP and Corrections Canada that seemed to be doing the most work on demand reduction, which was great. We don't think they shouldn't be doing it, but it was fascinating to see that they were the primary deliverers of those messages and programs.

Part of the challenge is that the main people who deliver on the demand reduction side are the provinces, so we have some jurisdictional issues. They are the ones who do education. They are the ones who do health care. They also do some supply reduction in terms of municipal police forces and what have you.

I know, Mr. Dueck, that you are bemoaning the fact that you don't have enough treatment resources and what have you. Our read, especially on the youth, is that you have some of the best programs.

In Vancouver, in B.C., they have about six beds for youth; you have 12. They have six beds for the whole province, and it's a really sad situation. Some people have suggested that we might direct provinces to have more treatment beds, with national standards on these kinds of things in terms of different programming.

If you had an opportunity for a wish list beyond legislation or perhaps the court system, are there other things you would recommend? Do we need a national education program? Do we need other ways to deliver the message?

I noticed you mentioned, Mr. Blanshard, that the drug business was worth $18 billion. You said that the anti-drug program cost about $300 million and the anti-alcohol program was $400 million, didn't you?

Sgt William Blanshard: No. I'll just address that point. My understanding is that the federal budget for law enforcement, for the federal drug enforcement directorate, is around $325 million to $350 million a year; I'm not exactly sure. That sounds like a lot of money, but if you compare.... According to some of the studies, policing of issues just surrounding alcohol costs the Canadian public $400 million a year.

What the drug dealers on the street make--I'm talking the street-level profit, if you will--from illicit drug use in this country is about $18 billion. So we're woefully underfunded to deal with...they're better equipped.

If I can just comment briefly on policing as a part of the education process, so much of Canada is isolated and does not have the benefit of even six beds. Often throughout Canada, the police are the only agency there and they are the consistent agency. So, yes, they can be equipped to really be effective.

À (1035)

The Chair: Okay. It wasn't a question of them not doing a good job, although there's some evaluation of the DARE program, which is the primary vehicle in a lot of provinces, that suggests it may not be as effective as people were suggesting.

Sgt William Blanshard: We're not introducing DARE the way it should be.

The Chair: Okay, we won't go there. I just want to be a little provocative for you.

Comparing $450 million to $350 million--it's interesting that we have revenue sources from alcohol sales, legal substances. Some people would argue we should get rid of that profit margin for the drugs, legalize and regulate them in a better fashion, and have a revenue stream in terms of taxes. I told you I would make it a little provocative.

Half of the $18 billion in the trade results from it being illegal; you can charge more and you have the costs of doing business. Occasionally, you lose one of your runners and you have to do some time. If you saw the movie Blow, that was a really fascinating example of where dealers figured it was a cost of doing business.

Supt Brian Dueck: But look at what the costs to business are for drug use and drug impairment in businesses. Those are huge.

The Chair: I just compared it to one legal drug, as you mentioned, versus illegal drugs.

I'll just go around the table, starting with you, and ask if you have comments about what you would also like and/or what would happen if we changed the regime totally.

Sgt Cory Lerat: Looking at it from the drug awareness side, which I've been involved with primarily in the last two years, I think we need the parents and our community leaders to be educated and to realize what the problem is. In a lot of the smaller communities I go into, they say, yes, we want the police to come in with Operation TARGET and we'll give the education to the kids. But the parents, community leaders, chiefs and councils, mayors and councils, are not really, I guess, taking the problem as seriously as it should be. They are not lending their support to us.

Let's face it--and I speak for the isolated communities and the problems there--whenever there are complaints for the police to handle, most of the problems and most of our work is drug and alcohol related. We're not getting the support from our community leaders at the provincial, municipal, and chiefs of council levels, and we need that support.

I would like to see more education aimed toward those people as well as the kids. We need more resources and money for the education of the youth, yes, but everybody has to be educated on the problems, and that includes our leaders at those levels.

The Chair: Are there any communities that have voted to be dry, or is that not a possibility?

Sgt Cory Lerat: Yes, there are quite a few dry communities in northern Saskatchewan. We can't enforce that dry by-law, or whatever it is--band council resolution, in some cases. We can't even enforce that. So if there is a legalization of marijuana, it will just be rampant throughout communities.

We have the problems I told you about before with kids roaming around all night. If it's legalized, I can't imagine what it's going to be like for our guys. In some of those places, we have two and three police officers who are completely run off their feet. They are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They may get out of the community once every three weeks. You were there. Man, it's.... I have to deal with a lot of those because I also mediate complaints between the community and the police.

A lot of times our guys are working straight through. There are a lot of cases where they're on call all night. They're working in the morning and get very little sleep. It's all drug and alcohol related.

Our leaders, as I said, have to be educated, as well as our youth.

The Chair: They need to take responsibility.

Sgt Cory Lerat: Yes. They need to take responsibility, absolutely.

À (1040)

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Engele.

Sgt Jerome Engele: First of all, there is the educational portion of it. When you have a three-pronged attack, the teachers teach all the time, a police officer comes in and says something, and then the parents are saying something. We don't necessarily listen to our parents until we're older and then they do know something.

The students don't necessarily listen to the teachers. If a police officer comes into the school and says something, maybe a light bulb will come on and they will pick up something. If it comes from different people, it's a steady influx of information.

It's the same information, basically. Quest and Second Step give their information. DARE and DART give our portion of it. It's basically one piece of information backing up another. Somewhere along the line it will sink in.

As for marijuana legalization....

The Chair: Not only marijuana, but all drugs.

Sgt Jerome Engele: On all drugs, it is worse yet.

As for legalization, first of all, how do you monitor it? Is it a 19 years and older thing, the same as alcohol?

When I first started working in patrol 22 years ago, I dealt with a bootlegger. I charged him and he was given a $2,500 fine.

The Chair: It's a lot of money.

Sgt Jerome Engele: Back then it was big money. He said it was the price of doing business. It isn't much compared to the amount of money they make.

If you legalized the drugs, first of all, how do you police it? How do we know how many plants they have? How do we know how many grams of cocaine they are selling. When you take it, how much are you going to cut it?

If I bring in cocaine that is 79% pure, I'm going to cut it to make a profit. Am I going to cut it three times? Am I going to cut it twice? The purity is going out and you're not going to know.

How are you ever going to enforce it? It can't be done.

The Chair: Okay, wait a second. If we changed the regime, we would change it and make it very similar to alcohol. We have controls on what's sold. We have testing on what's sold.

Part of the problem with individuals ODing is they don't even know what they're getting. As you say, someone cut it with something different or delivered a different supply. You'd actually have testing.

Sgt Jerome Engele: We have alcohol for sale in liquor board stores right now, but people don't buy alcohol. They buy listerine; they buy “sniff”. They aren't going to go to the store to buy cocaine, marijuana, or alcohol. They're going to go to the bootlegger, the other person, where they can afford it. It's going to be put at a level that can be made accessible to certain people.

Drug dealers got into the schools and to the youth by making it affordable. It used to be $100 a gram until a certain group of people came into our city. They put it down to the quarter-gram level to make cocaine available to our youth. Once you get in, you get them hooked. They're addicted and away they go.

If the government decides they want to legalize it, we're going to have a bunch of addicts walking around in a zombie state. Our production levels in the province of Saskatchewan would be nil. It's what I can see.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Blanshard.

Sgt William Blanshard: The issue is, if we legalize it, we could remove organized crime from the perspective. We could organize and regulate the strength of the doses, etc. I think all we have to do is look at what we did with alcohol.

We know the strength. There are 40,000 people a year who die from tobacco-related health issues. There are 20,000 people a year who die from alcohol-related issues, that we can track. Only a thousand or so die from illicit drugs because they're illegal. Not everyone is using drugs.

If you legalize drugs, everyone is going to use. We'll have taken it from being somewhat normal to use, or not such a big deal, to being fine. You are going to create problems--I'm not saying you personally; we will create problems associated with drug use, and not only with marijuana.

I know some proponents want to legalize all drugs. If you go there, then you can rest assured cannabis, cocaine, PCP, and designer drugs are nowhere near light alcohol. The way they biologically affect us is completely different from alcohol. You've probably had experts talking to you about it.

The Chair: They've probably tried them.

Sgt William Blanshard: For every dollar we collect in liquor tax, we spend $5 on health issues. For every dollar we collect in tobacco tax, we spend $7 on health issues.

If we legalize drugs, for every dollar we collect in taxes on drugs, I'm guessing we're probably going to spend $10 or $15 on health issues alone. So let's be careful.

À (1045)

The Chair: Mr. Dueck.

Supt Brian Dueck: I see that we have some younger people than I sitting at the back. We've had addictions experts tell us that young people--14- to 16-year-olds, or under 19--don't drink to be social; they drink to get buzzed. They don't do drugs to be social; they do drugs to get buzzed. I think this is a major issue.

I agree with what Bill says. I have some misgivings regarding alcohol as well. But I agree that it's a totally different drug--and I will call it a drug.

I guess the one point I would throw out to you is one that we mentioned earlier. We have a huge prescription drug problem in Saskatoon. Prescription drugs are legal. Why are people injecting them? They can fake an injury or an illness, go to the doctor to get a prescription for morphine, and take it home and inject it. Why are they doing this? Why are people on the street paying $100 for a morphine tablet to replace heroin when they could probably buy an equal dosage of heroin almost as cheaply?

I would like to just go back to what Mr. Ménard said earlier regarding young people and their boredom. I also think it goes beyond boredom. It goes to self-esteem and family issues. I watched a show last night on ABC about a drug treatment program in Oregon. It looked like a fairly successful program, at least with the youth they had there. The program takes a group of kids into the wilderness for three weeks. They drive them to the limit, to the point of self-examination and looking at themselves. These youths sat around the fire, and finally opened up and talked about their issues. Their issues were family, divorce, and self-esteem problems, and the problem of not being wanted. Their issues were far bigger than just going out to get a buzz to have fun. There are bigger issues than that.

I agree with what Cory says. I've spent time in the north as well. Issues of boredom, self-esteem, education, and job opportunities are huge there. These are the issues that need to be addressed. I do not agree that the federal government doesn't have responsibility there. It does.

The Chair: We'll debate that later.

Mr. McCorrister.

Insp Blair McCorrister: We've had a methadone clinic in Winnipeg for many years. Through a lot of police investigations, I've sat and listened to people tell and encourage other people openly to go to the clinic. This is what you have to do. These are the things you have to say you're feeling to get into this program.

But I really haven't seen a lot of success with the people who've been in the program, because they keep coming through our door after that. That's all I have to say.

As a wish list, I'd like to get back to a national strategy that attacks not just the enforcement side, but also the health and educational sides.

The Chair: Mr. Torgunrud.

Sgt Rick Torgunrud: I'm lucky being at the end of the line, because most of the things have been said. I'll pass on to Keith in a second.

Just to comment on legalization, up until a few years ago, gambling in this province was illegal. We now have casinos in virtually every centre. I think we've all heard stories about internal thefts and about people spending their paycheques. Gambling addiction is common in every city.

If we were to legalize cannabis, I think our addiction rates would be astronomical.

The Chair: And the last but not least....

Cpl Keith Van Steelandt: My wish list is for money and resources for police, health, and everything. Getting to the kids and youth is where you're going to make the biggest difference.

Everybody we arrest or search, we sit down and have a talk with about why they have gone down this road. It's always a bigger issue than dollars and cents. They started off somewhere.

What would help is watching some American TV. They have excellent ads, with the youth saying, “Yes, Mom and Dad, I wish you were in my face. I wish you weren't looking after my privacy, but inspect my room, instead.”

Parents need to get out there and realize that they have to be involved in their kids' lives at every level of society. I have raised three kids. They've been exposed to drugs. Kids who have come to my home have been involved with drugs and have gone down the wrong side.... But it was just education, being involved, and them knowing that if they did slip and fall, you're always there. I don't know how many bingo games I worked so that I could afford to have them in skiing, hockey, or anything like that. There isn't anybody here who hasn't done the same for their kids.

So a big issue is just getting the parents involved in the lives of their kids.

À (1050)

The Chair: Thank you.

Unfortunately, I think we are well out of time. I know we could talk and debate these issues for hours.

This committee will continue to hear from people probably until the end of June. If we had a magic bullet or wand, or whatever, it would be until July or August.

We have an e-mail address and a website. I encourage you to let us know your opinions and ideas, or good examples or different programs, because we have a very broad mandate. It's problematic on the one hand, but it gives us lots of opportunities on the other hand.

On behalf of all of the committee members, those present and those not present, thank you for taking the time to come to see us. Some of you have come a greater distance than others. Thank you for the effort you put into the presentations you've made and for the work you do each and every day. It's really important in our communities. We really do appreciate it on behalf of your communities and the whole country. So keep up the good work.

Thank you very much.

I'll suspend the meeting for about five minutes.

À (1047)

Á (1106)

The Chair: Colleagues, I'll bring this meeting back to order.

Dr. Brown, you heard me introduce the committee earlier, so I can skip that process. You are from the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba. We'd be happy to hear your opening statement and then ask some questions.

Á (1110)

Dr. David Brown (Director of Research and Quality Monitoring, Addictions Foundation of Manitoba): Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm glad to participate.

I should note that I'm not an MD. I'm only a sociologist, so my qualifications to speak to some topics will be limited.

I'll also note that I seem to have picked up a cold somewhere between here and Manitoba, and that may lead me to read from my text a bit. My head is so stuffed I'm not sure I can hold a thought.

The Chair: As long as you don't share the cold, we're happy to have your thoughts.

Dr. David Brown: I'll stay over here.

I'd like to start off by giving you a quick overview of what the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba is, what we do, what our stand is on some of the critical issues. Then I'll speak to some of the concerns that seem to be reflected in your terms of reference. I'll try to answer some of those, and then I'd be happy to answer any questions, or try anyway.

I've been with the Addictions Foundation for two years. I'm the director of research. Although research is not one of the main functions of the Addictions Foundation, we have a pretty active research unit.

The AFM, the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, is the primary agency in Manitoba responsible for addressing harms associated with psychoactive substance use, including alcohol, illegal drugs, and other harmful substances like inhalants. We do that through education geared towards prevention and early intervention. In particular, we have a very good program operating in primarily rural and northern schools, called our rural and northern youth intervention strategy. That essentially places one of our counsellors in the school. We partner with 32 different schools in the province, I think two of them actually in Winnipeg.

In terms of limited resources, what we try to focus on is catching kids in high school who are slipping over the edge in terms of their trouble with substances. We try to catch them and work with them before they get further down the road in terms of the harm they're experiencing, as opposed to a more general education program.

We also do more intensive rehabilitation with both youth and adults. I heard you talking about beds earlier. I think we have about a dozen beds in Portage la Prairie. Our Southport unit, which is generally full, tends to mainly be used by first nations youth, an equal number of male and female over time. We have referrals to that residential setting for youth who are in extreme crisis and whose life situation is characterized by having multiple issues--family issues and abuse issues, along with substance use issues.

We also operate community-based youth programs in various centres in Manitoba, including the cities of Winnipeg, Brandon, and Thompson, which essentially involve youth being referred to us for day appointments and group work, sometimes individual counselling and assessment.

I should note, on that point, that most of the youth we work with come to us with problems of either alcohol or cannabis, as opposed to the other, better-known substances. Certainly alcohol remains an issue. We also do adult rehabilitation. On that point, we operate residential facilities for adults in Brandon, Winnipeg, and Thompson. Again, that's for alcohol and other substances. We also do community-based rehabilitation--day visit work with individuals and their families throughout the province.

I've left a report up at the front, and you're certainly welcome to it. It gives you a bit more detail. Just as an example, though, I think in our last year of operation with the rural and northern youth intervention program, our youth program involved about 1,400 young people in Manitoba, in community-based and early intervention and residential categories.

We're funded directly, for the work I've just described, by Manitoba Health. We are set up as a non-profit crown corporation in the province. In terms of infrastructure, we have a board appointed by the provincial government, and the chair of our board reports directly to the Minister of Health. That's our relationship to the Manitoba government system.

In terms of our approach, that's certainly evolved. AFM has been around for 40 or 50 years, and as the field has changed, so have we. At this point in time, AFM, as is most common in the major substance use agencies in Canada, takes a holistic approach as opposed to a medical or moralistic approach. What that means for us is that we operate under the assumption that the individuals who come to us may be at risk for substance use problems because of various combinations of psychological, social, or biological factors. We certainly don't assume they have a disease. Some may be biologically addicted; many aren't. Many may have become involved in substance abuse, including misuse of alcohol, for various reasons, not simply that they have become alcoholic in the sense of having become addicted to alcohol.

A couple of polemical terms in the field, you've probably realized, are “harm reduction” versus “abstinence”. This is a tricky one. I think we spend a lot of time fighting language in this field. I think, in the practical sense, AFM does not see harm reduction approaches and abstinence approaches as necessarily being in conflict. We see harm reduction as an approach to, or a set of strategies to mitigate, the harms due to using substances, where we take into account where the user is at. If we're talking about people who are using inhalants, living in doorways in downtown Winnipeg, abstinence is probably not our immediate concern; it's probably keeping them alive through the winter--or the week.

Whereas some individuals are immediately ready to go on an abstinence program, be it for alcohol or other substances, and that may be the best option for them, for others it appears not to be. It's not just a question of their individual preferences, but we realize, especially with youth, that if we say it's all or nothing, we lose them. Once we lose them we can't work with them on a harm reduction ladder down to the foundational step of abstinence, which would be the least risk, the least harm, point of view.

For us, and certainly for me, the question is not a philosophical or a value one as to whether abstinence is bad or good and harm reduction is bad or good, but a practical issue. How do we accomplish what we need to accomplish in the real world of these peoples' lives? We generally try not to get too philosophical about these terms and just try to see how we can make it work.

Á (1115)

There are certainly examples within AFM of both approaches. In our group programs for our residential clients, no, we don't accept them drinking or using drugs while they're in residence. So at least during that time we expect abstinence, and we certainly encourage them to consider abstinence as a longer-term plan.

At the same time, the AFM operates one of the two methadone clinics in Winnipeg, which is one of the most characteristic harm reduction strategies. So we try to address the issues in a practical way that makes sense, given where the clients are at.

We also acknowledge that despite our name, the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, not all people who come to us are addicted. Many of them are having troubles, but they're not addicted. In fact, sometimes they might even be using substances that have no addictive properties, but they have harms.

Addiction is perhaps one kind of harm that can lead to others, but substances like inhalants are extremely harmful without being addictive. LSD is not addictive. There are many substances that have no addictive properties. Codeine is highly addictive. Alcohol is quite addictive. There are debates about which one is more addictive, cannabis or alcohol. What we do is again focus on harm and try not to reduce the notion of harm down to addiction itself.

That's one of many factors that we need to address.

The AFM has been working actively with the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, which is essentially our federal counterpart in the sense of research and policy, on a number of projects, including the push for a national drug strategy.

We would envision at least two reasons that an effective strategy is needed in this country. The minor reason is if that kind of explicit strategy is thought out and in place, it creates a stronger basis for funding of research and programs and for partnerships with the provinces and communities in that area. It's a big reason, but of the two it's the minor reason.

The big reason is there is a great need for coordination across a wide range of sectors, both regionally as well as in terms of different stakeholders. And I think you've picked this up from the people you've talked to, certainly from the officers who were here this morning. We see this right down to the community level, right down to the neighbourhood level, as well as at the higher, more political level. As you've probably recognized, the people who are in the enforcement end of it have a very hard job. Their focus necessarily has to be on what I'll call supply reduction on entering the system.

Those of us who work in the health and social services area are interested in harm reduction, not because we want to be but because we have to be. We have to deal with the people who are dealing with the substances that are already on the street, including the legal ones. So from a health and social services point of view, we have to keep them alive, help them get better, help them deal with crises, and that sort of thing. So we have to deal with the harms, for what is there.

You have a focus on supply reduction over here and a focus on harm reduction over there. The two, at least as I have observed in my few years in the field, have a hard time sometimes connecting. There really is a need for them to connect, and not for either one of them to do all the work, or even just the two of those.

Where we see effective programs operating, what we see is that bridge occurring between supply reduction, harm reduction, between enforcement and health. The bridges are usually at a community-based level, through education, where parents, schools, neighbourhoods are involved, workplaces, churches, what have you. And they're involved at the education and the early intervention stages.

Á (1120)

Two key areas that I think are really underdeveloped in this country, as well as in the United States, are outreach, which is by its definition a community-based function, and continuing support, which is also necessarily community-based. Outreach is necessary when people are at such crisis that their contact with the system is going to be someone picking them up out of the gutter, or they wake up in the emergency ward in the morning or the drunk tank in jail. My colleagues will have picked them up and taken them somewhere.

A good example of this is Lynn Lake, which is unfortunately renowned as being probably the worst-case scenario in Manitoba for alcohol and substance abuse among first nations people. I did some observations in Lynn Lake, and one of the things that is quite remarkable is there no shortage of services in Lynn Lake relative to the population. Social services is up there, health is up there, we're up there--everybody's up there. They have a hospital, they have a nice RCMP detachment, and yet it takes about three seconds walking through town to recognize that there is a big problem there.

One of the issues is that in the rehab business, the job of counsellors is to sit in their office, like we are here, and wait for somebody to make an appointment, to say “Hello, I need help in getting off alcohol” or “dealing with my marijuana problem”. Unfortunately, people who are in extreme crisis aren't appointment makers, or they're not capable of making it, at least at that point. They're dealing with being homeless or other issues, or they're just so beaten down by the harm of the substance that they just can't make that step.

So outreach may come down to somebody going around with a van and picking them up and taking them somewhere safe, like a safe house, or taking them to where they may get counselling in the morning. It requires some kind of partnership between counsellors and police to get them into that situation, as opposed only to have the option of yet another day in the drunk tank or whatever.

Outreach tends to be highly underfunded. It's a dirty job and probably one of the key things that's missing in the system. That's probably equally true in the inner cities of Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary, Saskatoon, Toronto, and Montreal as it is in Lynn Lake. Again, you have very similar problems in Canadian inner cities and American inner cities to what we have in our remote communities.

The other thing that tends to be missing, we observed, is continuing support. Once you've done rehab with someone, they go back to their world. Unfortunately, their world is not necessarily one of support. In fact, it may have been one of the reasons why they got over-involved, if you will, in substances in the first place. Many of them have been ousted from their communities, and for various reasons they have no sense of community. They may be going back to abuse situations and so on. So sometimes rehab becomes very frustrating, certainly for the clients and for our counsellors as well, because it becomes a bit of a revolving door. You work with somebody and you think you have them on their feet, but they go back to their community and you hear they committed suicide two weeks later.

So that suggests there's a need for two things, I think. One is that we need to look at substance abuse in a social context, a community context, which involves some kind of partnership and linkages between police and counsellors and community and hospitals. We need to be able to see that as involving social factors, the context in which people live, and we have to address those somehow, if only minimally. That means some way of giving them continuing support after they've done the program, so to speak, and that's a real issue.

So in terms of weak points in what we call the continuum of care, outreach and ongoing support are the particularly key areas. That's unfortunate because without them people keep going back to the system and the situation generally gets worse, including entering into the corrections system probably at some point.

So I think, again, given the reality of what's needed out there, improvements can really be facilitated by having a good national strategy. And it would mean not just the funding, although everything takes money, but to provide some kind of linkage, some direction for coordination and integration between the different partners, including the police, the health care system, people doing addiction counselling, the schools, and the communities, to tighten up these gaps to make sure these functions are getting taken care of. Sometimes it may not even be a matter of more funding but just better integration, and we need to look at that; it hasn't been well looked at.

Á (1125)

I'm actually involved in early discussions with the city of Madison, Wisconsin, right now. They're one of the first communities that is sitting back, as a municipality, and saying, let's look at all of these players and see how they fit together, or don't fit together, because that's what our concern is. Then let's put all our assumptions aside and just look at how enforcement, rehab counselling, prevention, early intervention, and harm reduction all fit together, and see how we can make those parts fit together in a more effective way.

Based on our own research in Manitoba, we are becoming more and more convinced of the need to start earlier and earlier in our contact with young people in terms of prevention and early intervention. We know from surveys we've done with high school students--we did a survey with almost 5,000 high school students in Manitoba last year--that the average age for starting tobacco is 13. If they're going to smoke, they'll start about age 13, on average. They start experimenting with alcohol, on average, about six months later, at age thirteen and a half. Then they start experimenting with other substances, most typically marijuana, at about age 14.

So there's a window there, at least in terms of the normal curve, where this tends to happen. We have some who start earlier and some who start later, but certainly by the time they reach that age group, we need to be in there getting the messages across.

In terms of what messages we get across, that's a bit tricky. We know from the smoking situation that knowing about the risk doesn't do it. You go to a high school in Saskatoon here, and I guarantee on the lunch break there'll be 20 or so kids standing outside the door smoking, or just off the property if the school has strict rules against that. Most of them will probably be girls. They all know the risks of smoking. They knew them even before we put them on the packages, but they still do it. That suggests knowing the risks doesn't seem to be a factor, in itself.

Given the level of alcohol consumption among high school students, knowing that it's illegal doesn't quite seem to do it either. Virtually all high school students in Manitoba are below the age of consent and are drinking at above adult levels, on average. From our perspective, that's an illegal drug at that point. About 80% of Manitoba high school students have used alcohol in the last year. About 40% have used cannabis, and then the rates drop down to psilocybin use at about 15% and more exotic drug use at about 5% or less, just to put it in perspective.

We know a lot of them do it in the schoolyards, too, even though that's against the rules. So knowing it's against the rules or they might get caught and punished doesn't seem to quite make a difference. Again, I'm not trying to take a value position here; I'm just commenting, as a researcher, on what factors seem to be effective.

I think it's fair to say that young people--and a lot of my presentation is about youth today--know more about drugs than we think they do, but they don't know enough. They know that people drink alcohol to get high. They're not stupid. They see their parents do it; they watch it on TV. Why else do people drink? They drink to get high. For them, that's probably the same as any other substance.

Á (1130)

So in terms of sending a consistent message, we're already in big trouble. Alcohol is a psychoactive substance. That's why it's used. Well, there are a few of us who like that bottle of wine, or that Chablis or cognac, because it tastes so good, right? I know. But for the most part, people drink because it takes the edge off the day or whatever, and kids know that. So they probably, more so than the adult population, recognize alcohol as a drug. They also recognize that it is dealt with differently and it's a mixed message.

I'm not saying that's right or wrong; I'm only saying it's a fact that is going to shape how they interpret the messages they get from parents, from police, from people like me and you.

They don't know enough about the substances, though, because while on one hand they do know...they finally figured out that drinking and driving is probably kind of stupid, at least pretty risky. From surveys we've done, we've found that, massively, they think this is not a good thing to do. Unfortunately, about half of them, and I think this was mentioned earlier--I'll just reinforce it--think that toking and driving is safe. I mean, the awareness of risk is much less. This puts us in an interesting quandary in terms of how we, as public and public agencies, communicate. You get into the interesting thing where, probably, the Manitoba agency responsible for selling alcohol is reluctant to put up, along with its other ads, “Don't toke and drive”, because that would then equate alcohol with other drugs. In fact, it would be saying alcohol is a drug.

In effect, it would equate being intoxicated on cannabis with being intoxicated on alcohol. I think that in a bizarre, ironic, twisted way it actually keeps us from responding in a way that we need to. We need to have signs up in bars and schools and so on, and instead of only having the circle with the lines over the car keys and a glass of beer, we should show a joint. From a public safety point of view, that makes sense. However, we almost seem to be kept from doing that, because one line of thinking is that if we do that, then we're saying it's okay to use drugs. So it's a difficult situation.

I'll reinforce the point about what doesn't work. We know that “Just say no” doesn't work. Very thorough evaluations done in the United States seem to have come to that conclusion. What does work--and we've found this in our own experience and we've seen it practised in some American states, Wisconsin in particular--is that rather than going in and saying drugs are bad, or even alcohol and drugs are bad, they talk about lifestyles, what a good lifestyle is. And they deal with issues like getting pregnant too young can really put a damper on your lifestyle. They're dealing essentially with life issues, how the young person might address the challenges and the frustrations and the mess of being a young person in North America, with all the baggage that goes with it. Dealing with that in an integrated way, rather than just drugs by themselves, seems to work better from a prevention point of view. It seems to connect.

We try to do that in our youth programs. There are a number of places that are trying it. It's still in the experimental phase, but the evidence so far suggests that it's at least one direction we need to keep going in. I'm a researcher, so I never want to say this absolutely works, but that seems promising, and that's the direction we're looking at following.

Á (1135)

The Chair: I'm wondering if we could go to questions now.

Dr. David Brown: Sure.

The Chair: I'm not sure if you had a lot more points, but maybe there'll be an opportunity in questions.

Dr. David Brown: Sure, I'll fit it in.

The Chair: Ms. Skelton.

Ms. Carol Skelton: I would like some numbers. I'd like to know how many detox beds you have, youth beds, totally. Basically, you were saying the biggest problem in Manitoba is alcohol and cannabis.

Dr. David Brown: That's for youth.

Á (1140)

Ms. Carol Skelton: It's for youth. That is different from what we heard yesterday from Saskatchewan, in some ways.

I'd like to know the number of beds you have.

Dr. David Brown: AFM as an agency has, I think, three or four detox beds in what we call our primary care unit. That's for individuals who come to us who essentially need medical intervention in addition to counselling. We usually move them into counselling after that.

We don't try to operate as a detox unit primarily. Generally, we try to let the hospitals take that role. For adults in Winnipeg I think we have three detox beds. I'm not sure what we have in Brandon.

I should also point out that in terms of youth beds, there are other agencies in Manitoba, so there might be 10 or 15 other beds in Manitoba for youth in residence, but they're not detox beds.

Ms. Carol Skelton: So you basically let hospitals do the detox, then?

Dr. David Brown: Yes. We actually have an addiction physician we liaise with at the health centre in Winnipeg. When they come into emergency there, they deal with detox at that end.

Ms. Carol Skelton: I want to understand the Manitoba system of health care. Here we have health districts in Saskatchewan. Do you have one central agency, or are you divided into health districts?

Dr. David Brown: Manitoba is divided into health regions as well. I think we have five or six, and Winnipeg is one. The AFM is not part of that system because we're not directly under the umbrella of the health bureaucracy, although we report to the Minister of Health. We have offices throughout the province.

Ms. Carol Skelton: So each health district would have their own treatment plans, then, or are you mandated to look after relations in the whole province?

Dr. David Brown: What would happen is when they're ready to be referred for rehabilitation by a health professional, a social worker, or what have you, they would be referred to us, and that's when we would come into the system. We tend not to be heavily involved in the detox end of it.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Are there private companies, individuals, or groups carrying on alcohol or drug treatment programs in Manitoba?

Dr. David Brown: If you mean “private” in the sense of non-governmental, non-profit operations, yes, there are a few.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Do you have a number by any chance? Are we talking here about the Salvation Army, for example?

Dr. David Brown: Yes. In Winnipeg alone, at some level you could have 10 or 20 small agencies that are doing things in different ways. They may be very short-term, maybe just overnight, or some of them may be doing more intensive rehab.

In terms of beds, in Winnipeg or that area of the province there are maybe another 10 beds for youth in addition to the ones we have.

Ms. Carol Skelton: How about first nations?

Dr. David Brown: We've been involved in a partnership study with Manitoba Health. What we found in reviewing the need for these beds for youth is that the demand for these beds comes primarily from first nations people. That's going to increase because that population is increasing and their rate of risk is much higher. The primary issue doesn't seem to be so much the number of beds as finding better ways to intervene. That comes back to the issue of outreach and continuing care after rehab.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Basically, the outreach and the continuing care are your big concerns in Manitoba, are they?

Dr. David Brown: I think so. If I were to point to weak links in the chain, I would point to those, yes.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Do you get support from your provincial politicians in Manitoba? Are they pretty supportive of your whole organization?

Dr. David Brown: I'd say so. We continue to get fairly stable funding, which is more than some others get, I think.

Ms. Carol Skelton: As to the federal government's drug strategy program, have you used it, and what do you think of it?

Dr. David Brown: My involvement with the Canadian drug strategy program is through my interaction with colleagues from different provinces and CCSA in Ottawa. My general sense from discussions with them is that they don't perceive Canada has a national drug strategy, period. I wish I could say otherwise, but that seems to be the--

Á (1145)

The Chair: There are a lot of activities but no strategy, necessarily.

Dr. David Brown: Yes, that's what I hear when I talk to people about it.

Ms. Carol Skelton: We're just verifying that.

We had one person who testified yesterday. He stressed research. I find it very interesting that this was one thing he really wanted: more research. Do you have some numbers for us? Did you bring numbers for us?

Dr. David Brown: No, but I can get you numbers. I'll get you a copy of our reports, if you want.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Yes, that would give us the kind of usage going on in the province. This was what he was concerned about. He wanted to know what kinds of drugs were being used. So if you could do it....

On prescriptions, do you have a way of knowing which doctors in your province are prescribing a lot of Ritalin or things like that?

Dr. David Brown: We don't as AFM, but there is a research centre attached to the university that is funded by Manitoba Health that has...I think Manitoba is the only province that allows its university researchers access to its health database. It does so under very strict conditions, because of privacy issues, obviously, but we do have an arrangement. I'll give you the name. It's the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and Evaluation. They do very good works, and they would be able to pull that out. They've actually been very useful in that regard.

I would underscore the need for research, too, and I think probably where we need it is in the area, again, of youth. You have a number of provincial estimates going on through schools at the level of youth, but what we need, I think, is a national picture where we're using similar measures and we're getting kids who aren't just currently in high school but also those who may have left.

We also just finished a quite in-depth survey with the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba on kinds of use of substances, including alcohol, misuse of prescription drugs, inhalants, and all the illicit ones. We have a sample of about 700, and we asked them not just prevalence rates but why they use alcohol when they use it, and when they don't use it, why they don't.

But the survey also had a lot of questions about what harms they have actually experienced from different substances, and then also about their perceptions of the relative risks between alcohol and cannabis. It's one of the first studies that has really gotten into this level of detail, and we're just analysing the data now.

The Chair: Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Skelton.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Thank you, Madam Chair. I regret to announce that I am starting a cold, so my energy level is a bit low. But you shouldn't be too concerned: I've taken Tylenol. That doesn't make me a drug user, but I took two.

[English]

The Chair: He has self-medicated.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I would like to ask you two questions. First, why do you use the word “foundation”? In my legal understanding of non-profit organizations, a foundation does not usually provide direct services to the public, but instead works to raise funds. So that's the first question to clarify that ambiguity: why do you say “Addictions Foundation of Manitoba”?

[English]

Dr. David Brown: Yes, that's probably lost in the dust of history. But I think what happened is that 20 years ago the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba primarily served the role of essentially coordinating a number of smaller community agencies that were actually delivering direct care, not providing it itself. That may be the basis, but I'm not sure.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: All right. So, contrary to what your name suggests, the primary purpose of your organization is not to conduct research on addictions, on the way they develop or on the various psychosocial mechanisms. That's not your organization's principal activity, is it? You first offer detox services and rehabilitation services. You moreover used the term “rehabilitation” a number of times yourself. Am I right in saying that?

[English]

Dr. David Brown: By far our primary function is in the area of education, prevention, and rehabilitation. Research is a relatively small part of our budget and our staffing.

Just for clarification, we also work with people who aren't dealing with addictions, but also other harms from substances.

Á (1150)

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: All right.

We've been here in Saskatoon for two days. In that time, we have met some 15 to 20 witnesses.

In your mind, is there a correlation, a statistical link between the availability of recreational equipment such as gymnasiums, tennis courts and community equipment for young people in a community and the possibility that youths will engage in drug-taking? Do you make that connection? Ultimately I'm trying to identify personal determinants that lead youths to use drugs.

Since the committee has been travelling, it has gone to various places. It went to my riding of Hochelaga--Maisonneuve, which is a poorer constituency. It also went to Burlington, which is a city where the community is upper middle class. There are nevertheless drug problems there as well. The committee also met researchers, particularly from Memorial University of Newfoundland, who hypothesized that there might be a link between an absence of community infrastructures for youths--let's call it that--and drug use. Police officers also offer that explanation.

If we try to get a grip on this phenomenon, do you agree with this explanation as it applies to Manitoba?

[English]

Dr. David Brown: I don't know of any experiments where some facilities were introduced and nothing else, and then a changed occurred. What I would be concerned about, given my experience with communities generally and youth, is that just putting a facility in itself may not make that much of a difference if there is a sense of futility about the future.

For example, I'm not sure that putting in a gym on a native community in the north is going to make much of a difference. There is probably much more that is going to have to be done. It may make some difference. Probably the more important thing you would have to do along with that, or besides that, is to create a stronger sense of community itself, so that young people feel they are part of something and that there is a future.

I'm not sure that's the experience of first nations people in many remote, very poor communities. That is of course where we see inhalant use running out of hand, which is not at all addictive, but is extremely harmful, extremely toxic.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I definitely didn't want to suggest either that we could resolve the matter with three basketball nets, but, in my opinion, the idea of creating a link between various infrastructures, be they gymnasiums, arenas, games rooms or leaders, means sending youths a social message. The idea is to let them know that there is a place for them and that this phase they are going through, the ages of 12, 13 or 14, concerns us as adults. As a member, I believe that. Every year, I go around to the schools and I say to myself that young people's interest in politics will never be greater than the interest I have in them. That's also a social message. That leads me to ask another question.

In my adolescence in the 1970s, and as was the case in any other community, I saw certain young people suffering from existential anxiety. I'm trying to understand whether this big problem of being young is different today from what it was then.

When I was a teenager, and that was probably similar for you, Madam Chair, even though you are a few years older than I, as everyone knows, the job market...

An hon. member: [Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Please calm down, Madam Chair! So, at that time, in the 1970s and 1980s, there was not a great deal of hope about the job market. It was tight, and it was said that the young people who were in the school system at the time were achieving poor results. We were often called illiterate and youths did not have a very positive social image.

When I think of the youths I know today, I get the impression that things have changed somewhat. For example, they are said to be much more alert and their mastery of information technologies stimulates them and makes them more knowledgeable. But if you had to describe young people's existential anxiety, what could you tell us about it?

Á (1155)

[English]

Dr. David Brown: You're talking about substances and other lifestyle characteristics, not thinking of youth in a monolithic sense. When we talk to youth in Winnipeg about their use of drugs, or use of drugs among their peers, they often say, “Well, everybody drinks, half of us use pot sometimes, and then there are those other ones, a much smaller group who”--and they'll actually make this point--“use drugs.” By that they're referring to heroin, sniff, and all of that stuff.

So I think the question needs to be focused, not just in terms of youth generally but in terms of the experiences, circumstances, or characteristics of those different subgroups. There seem to be certain subgroups of youth out there, and I think we need to focus on them. Unfortunately, that's where we need to do more research--on the nature of youth and where they're coming from.

Youth, generally, is a frustrating time of life, and probably always was. There are probably more pressures on them now, in some respects, and fewer pressures on others. But on understanding the problem as it relates to substances, I think we need to focus on the most dangerous substances that seem to be out there.

Whether intervening...let's say we developed infrastructure in the community. Alcohol or cannabis use might not drop, but it might have an effect on those other drugs. That is the question, and I'm not sure what the answer would be. That's something we need to look at.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I don't have any more questions.

[English]

The Chair: I don't necessarily disagree that we need a national drug strategy and some coordination. What would concern me would be a bureaucracy that wouldn't actually deliver front-line services or ensure that front-line services were directed.

I hear you that we need to have coordination, but you represent one small province. You don't have any coordination in the province. Then you're talking about a really small community that has even less coordination. So I think if we're going to try to coordinate on a national level and they can't even get their act together when they're all in the same restaurant for coffee in the afternoon, how are we supposed to tell the nation to get its act together?

Normally, you look to examples in smaller communities of how to get that coordinated from the beginning and up. What are the other components we should be ensuring that will effectively deliver coordination?

Dr. David Brown: I share your concerns about a large bureaucracy that doesn't do anything. We have some of those provincially as well. It's quite a waste of resources that could be used elsewhere.

I'm a bit torn on sort of the macro federal coordination level and the need to act locally, because I'm also convinced that a difference will be made through local action.

Probably the need at a larger level, as I've suggested, is for more general leadership in terms of a direction to take the country on positions about substances and linking together agencies, and maybe some coordination with the provinces and then also funding to enable some of the stuff to happen where that's appropriate.

I can give you a very concrete example, though, of where I think the federal government has really missed the mark and could probably quite easily do something: the NNADAP program. I think one of the real crises that's only just begun is in the native communities, in terms of prevention and early intervention, where Health Canada set up the NNADAP program. What you have is one or two people in various native communities throughout the country where funding is provided, but in a sense no infrastructure is provided. There is no network and no provision for a network between NNADAP workers. They don't know what each other is doing. They're probably minimally trained.

When Health Canada is asked to assist in that, aside from the usual jurisdictional issues, generally they step back and say, “We gave you the money to fund the workers; it's your problem”. I can appreciate, perhaps, where they're coming from, given issues to do with self-determination and all that. But in the meantime, there are real crises going on in these communities, and the NNADAP program in that regard is very weak in its ability to respond to where the crisis may be the worst in the country. That's a federal initiative that could definitely be re-examined at the very least, and certainly strengthened, if only to network them together and make sure they have the skills and information they need to do their job. It's just not there.

Â (1200)

The Chair: We actually were in one centre where they were complaining that they all now have to have a certain standard of quality. It was interesting because on the one hand it seems pretty obvious that you should have a certain standard, and we had people yesterday saying they wanted standards, and ironically there were complaints where they were asking for some standardized education stuff. That's perhaps partly because there may be some serious gaps and some great workers that might not be able to measure up, but they do deliver good service and good training.

Dr. David Brown: Yes. I think it's very uneven across the communities.

The Chair: Yes.

I think you've been clear too in terms of suggesting that we need some national messages that could be reinforced across a municipal and provincial system and across the education system and what have you, in terms of lifestyle and an integrated message. There does seem to be a dearth of that. It's been more focused on drinking issues and tobacco use.

It seems stressful to me that, as you just identified, the tobacco-alcohol-other drugs continuum happens pretty quickly for a lot of kids. Some stop there and some go further, but it's the same decision-making tree. The kids who can delay those actions until they're a little more equipped could make different decisions. Certainly when you get really young kids sniffing and doing all kinds of other things, they're really damaging their bodies, so it's of greater concern.

You surveyed 5,000 high school students. I missed exactly the number of students who get drug education from.... I thought you said 1,400 young people. Or is that contact in terms of counselling and things?

Dr. David Brown: That's early intervention counselling in the schools. That's about 1,400 throughout the province.

The Chair: Oh, okay. And that was mostly high school focused?

Dr. David Brown: Yes.

The Chair: Which, again, is too late.

Dr. David Brown: Then it's too late.

The Chair: Well, I mean it's good for those kids, but....

Dr. David Brown: It's needed there. Actually, it's needed there for early intervention and rehab, but it's too late for prevention because they've probably already made those decisions. What we need to do is get into the junior high schools, sometimes called the middle-year schools, because that's where the average age falls. We're now trying to do some pilot work on that. We have one project in Brandon, Manitoba, where we're actually trying to do, on a trial basis, a prevention project with some middle-year schools.

The Chair We've even heard from people that in the younger years they're already picking up the messages, and especially when they're inconsistent: don't smoke, but watch Mom and Dad get high on alcohol. And they're making those decisions about whether, as we were hearing last night, not to endure any kind of sadness or pain but just to fix the problem--

Dr. David Brown: To self-medicate.

The Chair: --and self-medicate. Those decisions are happening and are reinforced throughout our communities as we medicate as a nation. You're going to have at least three people today tell you to take Sudafed or something, and yet in the old days you just weathered your cold until you got better.

I'm not sure if I had any other questions. I did have one thing. You mentioned that kids get the message on drinking and driving, that it's a problem. Is it a problem because it's against the law, or is it a problem because you understand you might kill somebody or yourself?

Â (1205)

Dr. David Brown: I don't know. That's something we need to look at. We actually just learned this. It was one of those serendipity effects in research. We had been asking them about drinking and driving for a few years, because we do the survey every few years. This year we put in for the first time smoking pot and driving. We looked at the results and said, “Whoa, that's a big difference”. Now we need to try to understand it.

The Chair: Yes, I've heard from 20-somethings that it's the fact that the police officer doesn't have a way to test you, so you still get to have a good time at the party, but you don't get a record.

Have you guys any questions? Nothing specific?

I think Ms. Skelton was identifying that you're still seeing the progression from alcohol to drugs. In this province they seem to be seeing marijuana before alcohol, and that involved some availability issues.

Since we forgot to ask, what do you say about people who are interested in having the decriminalization of marijuana, that small amounts of marijuana would be...? In effect, most police forces are fining people or not dealing with charges for small amounts of marijuana, but actually making it more permissive.

Dr. David Brown: Well, I'll have to answer this in two ways. First I'll wear my AFM hat. We are in favour of the cautious use of marijuana for medical purposes and we should continue to research doing it. We're uncertain about the implications of wide-open decriminalization.

The Chair: Right.

Dr. David Brown: Now I'll put on my other hat. I guess the questions I would raise are, one, we don't know what would happen. I mentioned earlier that the rate for Manitoba students is actually fairly high. As many students who smoke cigarettes smoke marijuana. They're different students in many cases, but one's legal and one isn't. Would the rate go up if we take the legal prohibition off, and therefore would the overall public harm increase?

It's hard to say, and to be quite honest I'm very reluctant about comparing countries on these things, because Sweden and Europe are two very different cultures in some respects in these things, so we can't use those.... I mean, they give us a good guess, but it's hard to say. I would be concerned about it.

I think we also have to keep in mind that the stuff on the street now is much stronger than when I was younger. I think we need to take that step carefully. I think we also need to do it in a way where we build a better integration between enforcement, community education, and health. If we do that, at least we make sure there's a safety net there for the harms that might emerge. There are already harms from cannabis, and we don't have a good enough safety net for it--or from alcohol, for that matter, let alone the other drugs. So I think we need to do it, but if we move that way, we should certainly do so cautiously and really monitor what we're doing.

The Chair: Thank you, and thank you also for identifying or reinforcing the message that harm reduction and abstinence are not in conflict, because there seem to be some people in the country who are trying to suggest they are. To me the ultimate harm reduction for some people would definitely be abstinence, so that should be part of it.

Thank you very much for taking the time to come all the way to see us and for the effort that you put into your presentation. On behalf of all the people who are on this committee, thank you very much for the work you do. We wish you lots of good luck with that. If you have anything in the future, you can e-mail the clerk and she'll make sure that everything you read is in both official languages.

Dr. David Brown: Certainly. I'll actually make sure those research reports I referred to are sent to you.

The Chair: And the figures that are there?

Dr. David Brown: Yes. And thanks for this opportunity.

The Chair: Okay, great.

We have one more witness.

Â (1210)

Ms. Carol Skelton: Madam Chair, I'd like to give our researchers a paper that came from my constituency.

We didn't know whether you were coming back into Saskatoon after the last time it was cancelled, and so we went ahead and had a group meeting in my riding office.

I'd like to give you the report that came from that, if that's fine. It's not in both official languages. It's just an added piece of paper.

The Chair: That's okay. We'll get it translated.

The other thing is we also received a paper from Patrick Hauser, an individual who sent a written brief to the committee, which is terrific as well.

Mr. Taylor, thank you very much for requesting to come and appear before us today. You probably want to give yourself a more thorough introduction, but you are with Western Safety and Disability Management.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor (Western Safety and Disability Management): Good morning. I'm a person who had the misfortune to be injured several years ago at work. I went back and took training on intervention on injuries and on getting people back into productive work after injury.

As well, with my business, I write occupational health and safety programs for industrial employers in northern B.C., northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba, and Thunder Bay, Ontario. So I see many different communities and I see many different people through the communities.

I'd like to deal with a couple of issues. The first issue is the non-medical use of drugs. Sadly, I think we've missed something. I think we have to look at the non-medical use of drugs and alcohol in combination, especially in adults. The largest problem we have on industrial sites, especially in our northern communities and across all three western provinces, is the effects of the non-medical use of drugs and alcohol on workplace performance, number one, and on occupational accidents and injuries.

Lifestyle is likely directly related to 30% to 40% of all industrial accidents, whether it's people abusing alcohol the night before and not being in shape to work the next morning or people using cannabis or narcotics while they're on job sites.

I work with about 45 different companies across western Canada, and I write drug and alcohol policies for these companies. They range from city employers of 300 people, where we have a zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol--where the first time has an impact: you lose your job--to companies in the north, especially northern Saskatchewan.

In one company in La Ronge, for example, the possession of narcotics on the work site gets you sent home for the day. Consumption of narcotics on the work site gets you sent home for the day. For the second offence you'll get sent home for three days; for the third offence you'll get sent home for a week.

The reason we've had to go to that extreme is because if I sent home or fired everybody who was using drugs or alcohol, I wouldn't have a workforce.

We have 125 employees, and out of 125, I have 5 people who don't smoke or drink or use drugs.

The problem is horrific, and it is horrific for many reasons. The first thing is that there's a total lack of education as to what the effects are, the long-term effects of drug and alcohol abuse. These are people in their twenties, thirties, and forties. It doesn't matter; regardless of age, the alcohol and drug consumption doesn't change. It doesn't lessen as they get older. In fact, it likely affects them more and more as they get older, because you see less and less cognitive activity in their minds as they get to be 50 years old because they have abused their minds to the point where they are no longer useful or functional.

We have people on one sawmill site in northern Saskatchewan who are told where they can walk, what they can do, where they can't go, and what they're not allowed to touch. That's pretty sad testimony, but by the same token, I have to give the employer credit, because the employer is accommodating people with disabilities. Their disability is that they're drug and alcohol-addicted.

For my industrial sites, last year I was involved in five fatality investigations, and two of the five were directly related to drug and alcohol consumption. Two of the others were suicides or suicide-type accidents that happened after people who were alcoholics had decided that something else had gone wrong, I believe. The impact on the accident rate is terrific. There's a very significant cost to the communities.

The second thing I find as I go across...I've actually had the very great pleasure of meeting a lot of wonderful people who work with young people. I do education on diabetes issues with northern school boards in northern Saskatchewan. In the La Ronge school district, as an example, if your grandparents live to be 75 years old, there's about a one in five chance they'll lose a limb to diabetes. This is lifestyle. It's all Type 2 diabetes, and it's because of lifestyle.

As Dr. Brown was saying, we're teaching the wrong message. We have to teach lifestyle. We have to start teaching lifestyle at 7 and stop at 77. We cannot stop teaching lifestyle for any age or for any reason.

I've been invited into the school districts in northern Saskatchewan, in some of them to talk about lifestyle and about adult onset diabetes, or Type 2 diabetes. Because of that, I've been fortunate to make friends with some very interesting people, one of whom is the chief councillor for the La Ronge school district.

La Ronge is a very interesting community. It's a town with, I imagine, a trading population of about 10,000, of which about 6,000 are treaty Indians. About 2,500 are non-native government workers and service workers, and there are approximately 2,000 Métis people.

In La Ronge right now, approximately 25% of all children entering the school system are either FAS, FAE, FDS, or FDE--fetal alcohol and fetal drug syndromes, in effect. There is no budget to deal with this problem. If you think we have a drug and alcohol problem today, wait 15 years and we're going to burn in hell.

Where's the right side of this? Who is responsible for taking the lead to deal with this problem? To me, this agent, this organization, this committee, is one of the groups of people who have to start addressing this issue. It has to be dealt at a national organization level, because the bad news is, whether you're in Labrador, remote Newfoundland, northern Quebec, the Northwest Territories, or northern Saskatchewan, it is the same bloody problem every place, and nobody wants to face up to it.

Everybody is abdicating the responsibility, because, you see, we're not teaching the 12-year-old, 13-year-old, and 14-year-old girls about lifestyle. The teaching has to start at about seven, eight, or nine. Why can't we talk to those little kids at school about lifestyle? We have to.

The other thing with that as well is that we have become a nation of whiners who think a pill is going to fix us. We have doctors who hand out pills indiscriminately. We have people who take pills if they can't wake up in the morning, and if they can't sleep at night they take another pill.

Â (1215)

Why do we think our kids are going to know better than we do? Why do we think our kids are going to remain drug free?

The example I use is my mother-in-law, who had a very significant heart attack in about 1968. She had two teenage kids at home, my wife and her brother. She would sit with a big bowl of pills. She took them every day for her heart condition, stomach, back pain, and this, that, and the other thing. She would tell the kids not to abuse drugs, while she was taking them by the handful.

What has happened is we have abdicated our responsibility to our children by taking a pill every time we have a pain. What do we do?

Maybe we have to grow up. I think the medical professionals are as much of a problem, or more of a problem, in a lot of this as anyone else in the world. They get paid $45 for you to walk in and get handed a prescription. The prescription doesn't fix you. All it does is help your mind. We've become a nation of people who think the doctor is going to fix us with a pill.

I'm kind of an oddity. I was crushed in a forestry accident on September 19, 1997. I've had 7,000 stitches and 15 surgeries. I haven't take a painkiller since the three days after my original accident. I figure I have a badly enough screwed-up body that I don't need to screw it up with drugs. I don't know.

I work right now at the University Hospital in Saskatoon on pain management for people with very severe trauma. We teach them Buddhist methods of controlling pain, using your mind, heart, and soul, rather than using a pill. Does it work? I don't know. The last three surgeries I've had I haven't had anaesthetic. I don't know if it works or not, but it seems to have helped me.

We have to make people aware. We have to start educating them. We have to start taking the message out to the little kids. We have to start asking parents, if they're going to roll joints at the table, why the hell would they expect their kids aren't going to smoke joints? If you're going to abuse alcohol, why are you going to tell your kids they can't have a drink?

My oldest brother is a psychologist who works for the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation. He adopted a young aboriginal boy who has FAS. Many years later, my brother turned to me one day and asked if I thought he did a good job raising his son. This boy has had a horrific life because of FAS. He has been in and out of custody. He has been in and out of rehab centres. He has been in and out of “dry-out”. He has problems and knows it. Everyone knows what caused the problems.

I turned to my brother and told him he did as good a job as could be expected, all things considered. We were a normal Saskatchewan family, where mom and dad would have a drink and take the kids on hockey or basketball road trips. When the kids were on the school bus coming back from a hockey game, sometimes there were parents who would throw a couple of dozen beer on the back of the bus with a 15-year-old.

Now you have an alcoholic child who has FAS. Is it his fault? I don't know. I cannot judge.

It's the concern I bring to the committee. We have to deal with education. Education has to start at the youngest age rather than the oldest age.

We have to deal with the price. The price we're paying by sitting on the sidelines, waiting for others to get off their butts and do it, is that we're all going to suffer. We have too many children who are being flushed down the toilet.

When I hear talk of beds.... My oldest son went to university in North Dakota. The University of North Dakota in Grand Forks has 12 beds in a drug treatment centre at a university for students--not for people off the streets; this is to deal with the students.

They have the same student population at the University of Saskatchewan. How many beds are in Saskatoon for drug treatment in the city? Are there 12?

Â (1220)

The Chair: There are a lot.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: Good. How many are there for the university kids?

There are none dedicated to universities. There are none in Alberta. The University of Alberta and the University of Calgary have none. Yet these are the people, when you go to the agricultural school functions, the engineering school functions, and the university functions, with a huge problem.

We're not dealing with it. We're not educating our university students. We're not educating the parents. We're only sticking our heads in the sand.

The Chair: Thank you.

I'll allow a couple of questions, if it's okay with you.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: You'll have to forgive me because I don't have the use of my right hand and I'm deaf in my left ear. Does that make sense? There is justice in this world, but....

Voices: Oh, oh!

Â (1225)

The Chair: Ms. Skelton.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Alex, I want to thank you for coming forward today. I know you, and I know of your conviction and dedication to our young people and to what you so fully believe in.

I'd like you to give us some more numbers on how alcohol and drug abuse is affecting the businesses you deal with. You talked about a sawmill. Do you have any other examples for us?

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: Not with drugs and alcohol strictly, but I'll give you numbers with regard to a legal drug, and that's tobacco. In Canada the average smoker loses eight days of work a year more than the average non-smoker for medical reasons. The average alcoholic loses about 15 days if he's a smoker. So if you figure 15 days for every alcoholic smoker in Canada, and there are around 1.5 million people with an alcohol abuse problem, what's the effect on our short- and long-term disability programs, our Workers' Compensation Boards, and our sick pay programs?

The City of Saskatoon has an absence management program in place that has been bankrupt for the last two years, because no matter how much money they take from their employees--it's an employee-paid program--more employees miss, so they can never get to the point where they're able to actually build up a war chest to pay for people missing work.

So what's the cost? The cost is horrific. The average workplace accident in Saskatchewan this year will involve missing about 22.9 days. If you figure that 10% of them are caused by lifestyle, that means there would be 1,300 lost-time accidents this year at 22.9 days each in Saskatchewan. Is it a problem? I think in Saskatchewan it's likely a $250 million problem when you figure lost productivity, lost wages, and lost opportunities for employers.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Yesterday I asked our treatment people whether they had noticed larger numbers of rural people coming in because of the farm situation in Saskatchewan now. One person said yes. It was with regard to detox and the rate of suicide. Do you find there is a high suicide rate in the north because of the situation or because of the addictions? Is there a way of connecting them?

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: I have a more frightening one in the north. Since the softwood lumber issue flared up, the Lawrence sawmill has gone from 125 employees to 70. So they've lost about half of their workforce. Of the ones that were laid off, four have been convicted of murder.

The Chair: Did the murders happen before or after?

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: Since. They've all happened in the last 10 months.

The Chair: They were charged with murder then.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: No, they're all done.

The Chair: Justice is swift.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: They don't have money for a lawyer. Having money for a lawyer is a perfect world, and our justice system doesn't--

The Chair: We don't have to go into all that.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: These are poor native men who abuse drugs and alcohol on a daily basis and get mad. Now they're out of work, so they can't afford their drugs and alcohol. The wives speak up to them, because the men take their unemployment cheque and go to the bar, the casino, or somewhere else. They blow up, and somebody ends up dead, and it's not the men.

Drug and alcohol consumption during economic times like this will likely be twice as bad as it is at any other time. That's the downside.

The Chair: Mr. Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I think your message is clear. It's consistent with what we've heard today.

Ultimately, if I've understood correctly, you would like the federal government to contribute to this education and prevention effort. In light of the testimony you have given, that wish is obviously very logical. I would just like to inform you that, a few months ago, in the House of Commons, a member from Manitoba introduced a motion requiring liquor retailers to state, somewhat as is the case for cigarettes, the links between alcohol use by pregnant women and fetal alcohol syndrome. So that was ultimately a minor educational act that was unanimously passed. At least that's how I remember it. Sorry, allow me to correct myself: there was no vote, but all parties agreed on the motion. We'll see how events turn out. I remember the disturbing figures on fetal alcohol syndrome that you provided us for certain communities.

In one working session at the start of our work, we met officials from the Department of Indian Affairs. At that time, I believe I understood that there were quite a lot of resources intended for Aboriginal communities, particularly on the fetal alcoholism question. But clearly, based on your testimony today, we are led to understand that the Department of Indian Affairs is not meeting the expectations we are ultimately entitled to have of it.

Â (1230)

[English]

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: I don't think it's because Indian Affairs is not doing its job. Children with FAS and FAE all end up going through special needs education programs. In the last five years you've seen education budgets for special needs programs in, for example, Ontario and Alberta disappear. They're gone. There is no budget.

When you have a child who needs a quarter time or half time student-teacher ratio, the cost of four students with special needs might be equivalent to one full-time student without special needs. What happens in remote school districts is that nobody is going to run their budgets up.

At La Ronge they have about 75 to 80 children coming into the school system--or kindergarten--a year. This means that while their school population is still rapidly growing, they have had to increase their staffing to include a minimum of five special needs people a year. There are no resources allocated for special needs education for FAS and FAE.

The problem is horrific in the north. I don't think the problem is likely any less horrific in poorer areas of any large city.

The Chair: Are there a lot of people with your kind of consulting skills out there, albeit maybe not having had to endure the same kind of pain?

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: In Saskatchewan?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: I'm the only person who's been through the system with the training I've taken.

After my accident, a very good friend of mine said to me, “You know, Alex, sometimes you get handed a bag of lemons. You have two choices: you can cry about lemons or, if you don't like them, you can make lemonade”.

The Chair: I think you've made lemonade. I think you own a whole franchise at this point. I don't think anyone should have to get there the way you have. But boy, oh boy, do you ever have a business opportunity here.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: The sad part is that government agencies won't pay you to work. There's not a government agency in Saskatchewan or Canada that will pay me to work for them. I work for about 45 different employers, private companies, or organizations.

One of the problems we have is that many organizations have abdicated their responsibilities as well. As an example, the one I'm most familiar with working with is Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation. But I have taken part in five review committees of workers' compensation boards across Canada in the last two years. Between you and I, there are not a lot of people from the injured workers' side who actually want to talk to people like you on the committee. They're afraid of people in suits. They are generally the unwashed majority, rather than people who would want to get in and fight.

We have to make sure that any organization we work with, or we set up to deal with on the non-medical use of drugs, etc., does not become like workers' compensation boards.

Essentially, what they've done--I'm very familiar with this board here and with the one in Alberta--is organize themselves on a pure Amway pyramid scheme, where you have one chief executive officer and three vice-presidents, and each vice-president has three directors, and each director has three senior managers, and each senior manager has three team leaders, and each team leader has three.... You know, when you draw that out for them at a meeting and ask, “Who do you guys think you are--Amway?”.... What they're doing is ensuring their deniability. Nobody is ever going to become accountable for anything.

One of the things we do with any group we work with or set up to deal with non-medical uses of drugs is make sure there's accountability somewhere. If there's not accountability, we're dead.

Â (1235)

The Chair: One of the things I thought was terrific about your message on lifestyle was that you're not only dealing with accident prevention and choices that will affect whether or not you get Type 2 diabetes and what have you, and whether you use drugs, but making that whole linkage to young people particularly, to all workers, being more aware of their surroundings.

I'm still surprised when I meet, for example, a high school student who comes in to help out in my office and is about to bonk their head on a case of shelves because they haven't thought to move the box from underneath their feet, or whatever it is, and I think, wow, as a nation we really need to be more proactive in saying look around, and teaching people to look around and make active decisions as opposed to allowing circumstances to occur.

I think the message on drugs or all substances and their use would nicely incorporate with safety messages--messages about whether or not you choose to become involved in young offenders' incidents as a youth, and making better choices about careers and everything else.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: One thing we don't talk about is that 40% of workplace accidents happen in people's first 200 days of work, and likely 20% of fatalities happen within people's first 200 days of work after they finish school. Our school system is not doing a good job of preparing our young people for the world. It starts very high and it goes all the way to the bitter end.

The Chair: You'll be happy to know that in Ontario, anyway, because of some very horrifying accidents where we lost some young people, there is a pretty big move on trying to start the education process--largely by a father who lost a son.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: I actually have the permission of W5 to use the video from the one of the young fellow who was caught in the cookie-dough machine.

The Chair: Yes, that's the Ellis boy, actually.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: You know, you watch it with people--and I actually make people who have been injured watch it.... The thing is, the education....

For those of you who haven't seen it, a 17-year-old boy was working for friends of his parents who owned a cookie manufacturing company. He was cleaning out a cookie dough roller, which is basically a giant cement mixer. As he was reaching in, he hit the off/on switch with his knee and got pulled into this machine. He went around in it for about 45 minutes before he was found dead. Is this not a terrible price to pay for education?

The Chair: If we could teach people to make better decisions right across, whether it's using substances or informing themselves--

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: I'll give you an example of one I'm really happy with.

I work with about 16 ironwork shops and metalwork shops across northern Saskatchewan and northern Alberta. I have reduced the number of smokers in my shops by 50% in two years.

Do you want to know how I do it?

The Chair: Yes, I would like to know.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: You see, my arm is pulled off at the wrist and at the elbow and at the shoulder. The only question my wife was asked when I got to the emergency room at St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon was, “Does your husband smoke?” That's the only question. With evulsive amputation injuries, which is what mine was--mine was a crush amputation injury where I went through a set of high-speed rollers right up to my earlobe on my right ear--if you're a non-smoker and you don't drink and you live a fairly clean lifestyle, there is about a 20% chance of re-attachment with recovered use. If you're a smoker--if you smoke two cigarettes a day--there has not been an attempt to re-attach a limb in 30 years, because the success rate was zero.

So when I work with machinists, we talk to them: “Here's the bitter, sad story, boys. If you don't want to lose a limb, stop smoking; if you don't smoke and you get caught in your machine, there's a chance they're going to put it back on. Don't smoke.”

The Chair: My other question for you is just in terms of companies you deal with. Even the employee health program and the member of Parliament health program, which is the same program at the federal level, are not necessarily big on alternative pain management processes. It seems stressful to me that they'll pay for as many prescription drugs as you can write scrips for, but they won't pay for massage or acupuncture or some of the things that are in fact working, whether it be Buddhist training in pain management or whatever. They don't seem to get the connection. It's a bit of a personal crusade of mine.

I wonder if the companies you're working for are incorporating those programs. Do they encourage and pay for smoking cessation programs?

Â (1240)

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: In the companies I work for, we have anti-smoking campaigns; we have anti-drinking campaigns.

To show you how open-minded we are, three weeks ago we had a young fellow who was injured at work in Regina and ended up with what's called a double inguinal hernia, which means he blew out both sides of the insides of his legs. The waiting list for inguinal hernia surgery in Saskatchewan right now is 13 months. Three days after the accident, I had him in Havre, Montana, to the Northern Montana Hospital. Five days after the accident he was fixed. He'll be back at work in five more weeks. Leaving him at home on medication does not make a hell of a lot of sense.

Problems are best dealt with fresh. The best time to teach pain management is on the day the pain starts, or actually before. I work with people with back injuries now where we actually set them up, usually within two or three days of the accident, and we teach them relaxation methods, pain control methods. I actually use the Buddhist method for pain control.

The Chair: Do they pay for you to run courses on site?

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: The companies do. The Workers' Compensation Board doesn't believe it happens.

The Chair: The companies do. That's what I mean.

We hear you. Thank you.

Do you have one more question?

Ms. Carol Skelton: Yes, I have one more. Just a minute, I just lost it. Keep talking.

The Chair: Let me start the thank yous.

On behalf of all the committee members, this has been one of the more unusual presentations because no one with your profile of work experience and life experience, and the choices you are making, has come before us, so it's been really terrific. We thank you for coming today and hearing some of the testimony, and also for encouraging us to hear you. We wish you lots of luck with the work you do and in your life. Thank you.

Ms. Carol Skelton: It came back.

Alex, you mentioned that someone has to assume the responsibility for this because you said no one was accepting the responsibility for lifestyle training and stuff. Is it up to the federal government to legislate the provinces? I just listened to Manitoba here, and there were a lot of things that I saw were different from our own province of Saskatchewan. Do you think the federal government should legislate that there be certain standards across the provinces?

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: I think the standards have to be established across the country. I think the people we have to educate to take responsibility are the people. When you have a person who takes pills to wake them up in the morning and to put them to sleep at night, we've lost. And that's a legal drug.

About four weeks after my accident.... I spent 26 days in the hospital after my accident, which was kind of funny because it was the 75th anniversary of St. Paul's Hospital that year, and 75 years ago, 50% of the patients spent more than 26 days in the hospital.

In the year I had my accident, by the time I got out of the hospital, the only people who were in there longer than I was were the people who were dead or dying. And in the end they threw me out of the hospital while I was still awaiting five more surgeries because they found out that I was riding an exercise bike 35 miles a day and I wasn't supposed to do that. They said if I was in good enough shape to paddle for four or five hours days, I should likely not be at the hospital.

But you see, endorphins are a wonderful thing. You don't need drugs to release them; you need activity to release them. Endorphins are the natural pain fighters, and to not release them means you have to deal with the pain.

Â (1245)

The Chair: Wow. What a great last message.

Thank you very much. You get to have our “thank you” to all the people of Saskatchewan for hosting us for the last couple of days.

Mr. H. Alex Taylor: I'm really glad to have had the chance to be here. One of the things I do is I actually make presentations at a lot of different functions and to a lot of different groups, because to me, if we don't take the messages we know out there, who's going to?

The Chair: And I can assure you all of us will be talking about you for a long time and getting the message out.

Thanks, take care, and we'll adjourn.

And thanks to the great team behind us who have made the last four days wonderful. Thank you to our interpreters, and to Lise and Eugene.

The meeting is adjourned.