Thank you so much, honourable member Goodridge.

That was one of many examples in which we were able to utilize waste water for benefits on a population level. While I share this information with the government as necessary, we're not necessarily working with each other. This is more a research project within the University of Calgary.

Essentially, we're just keeping track of what's going on in the waste water, both from a qualitative perspective, meaning if there's anything new coming in, and from a quantitative perspective, sharing if there are spikes. As mentioned, in 2023 we saw a spike in both carfentanil and xylazine—much higher than we've ever seen before—that coincided with this.

The way this translated was that we alerted the government to it. We alerted our frontline colleagues to the situation as well. In fact, the chief of staff for Premier Smith called us in to talk about the data. Again, one of the things we were able to do was alert the community at large about the situation and people who were using substances.

There were a couple of other instances in which this was beneficial. We were testing drugs at the same time as we were testing waste water, and what we noticed is that for a time, there was a lack of fentanyl in the drug supply, which is very dangerous. The police service in Calgary does their own direct testing and noticed that there were some concerns with the drug supply and there was missing fentanyl. They asked me if I had noticed the same thing. We did some tests and noticed it as well. The reason this is so concerning is that if all of a sudden within the drug supply there are missing drugs, people lose their tolerance towards opioids, and if they use opioids again, they might overdose.

This was a concern. We were able to triangulate the data with the police service and other services. For example, we have colleagues in Atlantic Canada from both the police force and the provider community. We shared this information with them, and they noticed a similar trend. However, what we couldn't figure out was why these two trends were isolated to Atlantic Canada and Alberta. The common thought was that maybe there was some sort of link between the organizational drug crime rings that operate in both areas.

I can share more examples of why it's useful, but I'll leave it at that.

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