Mr. Speaker, speaking to this bill was very important to me. As we have heard, it will save lives.

I also want to thank my colleagues who have already talked about the bill, since many of them shared some very emotional personal experiences.

When a loved one dies of cancer, it might be easier to talk about than when a family member dies of a drug overdose. Often we are more embarrassed to talk about that.

However, it is important to do so and to point out that this problem affects a lot of people, even people from good families who seem to be fine. This problem really affects everyone.

When I was 15, I lost a cousin. He died of a PCP overdose. PCP is commonly used in veterinary medicine, but unfortunately, it caused a lot of devastation around me when I was a teenager. It was a very difficult period in my life. Losing my cousin was very painful.

Since I do not know all the details, I cannot say whether such a bill would have saved his life, but I think that in situations like his, it is important that other people are not afraid to call an ambulance.

Unfortunately, young people, especially, are afraid they will get arrested or that their parents will find out what happened. They are very scared. Telling those young people that they have nothing to worry about in this type of situation could truly save lives. That is why it is important to pass this bill.

Another reason why it is important to pass the bill is that it would help health care professionals in identifying the substances involved. There are far more synthetic drugs on the market than ever and it is extremely complicated. The treatment is not necessarily the same every time. It depends on the drug the person used.

Someone on site needs to be able to quickly tell the ambulance attendants and the police what the person in distress consumed. That someone cannot be afraid to reveal that information, first hesitating and then finally after 15 minutes of interrogation saying that the person took something else.

The first responders have to be able to tell people that they have nothing to fear, that they will not be charged with anything, that they will be protected, and that they have to quickly say what the person consumed so that treatment can be administered as soon as possible.

There are various antidotes on the market for different substances, but those antidotes have to be administered very quickly in order to prevent unfortunate consequences.

This bill would also help health care professionals identify the substance, which is another important factor to consider in overdose cases. People must be able to respond quickly and need to know what medical treatment is required.

Another factor, which may be more specific to rural areas, is access to ambulance services. We all know that more and more parties are organized in isolated areas or places that are not necessarily accessible.

If an ambulance or the police cannot arrive on the scene promptly and there is an additional delay because people do not dare make that call, and then once responders arrive, people are reluctant to say what substances were consumed or what exactly happened, the response time increases tremendously.

Ensuring that someone will promptly call to report that an individual has overdosed and needs help and that the substance can be quickly identified will somewhat reduce the challenge faced by ambulance services in rural areas.

We cannot control or change the fact that some towns are further away from hospitals and ambulances than others. However, if we can at least reduce the response time, we can save lives.

As members know, I am a nurse. I decided to practise primarily in intensive care and emergency. That is really what I enjoy the most. I have seen cases of overdose, which, unfortunately, are often due to a mixture of substances.

It got so that I dreaded Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. For nurses, the night of Saint-Jean-Baptiste is really one of the worst nights to work. Every year, we have to intubate teenagers to save their lives at the last minute. Unfortunately, on big party days like that, teenagers are nervous and scared of getting caught, and they might leave someone who is a bit too drunk alone somewhere.

Often, it is someone else at the party who realizes there is a problem and ends up calling the ambulance. The person making the call has no idea what happened. They find an unconscious teenager somewhere, but they have no idea what caused the problem. They do not know if the teen just drank alcohol or consumed a mix of other substances. That makes treatment much more complicated. Having to intubate a 15-year-old without knowing whether it will save his or her life is not an easy thing to do.

As parents, we realize that our children could find themselves in this situation one day. We can try to control everything to ensure that our children have a good life and do not have problems. However, we know that one day or another, when they are not in our sights, something like this will happen. The situation is not really obvious.

Sometimes, our children have good friends who think about stepping in, but sometimes they are really too scared. Recently, my husband got a call and went to pick up one of his teenage cousins who had abused substances. In that case, it was just alcohol, but the young people were scared. They at least thought to call the young man's mother, but they did not call an ambulance. My husband's aunt did not really know what to do, and so she called my husband and asked him if he could go and help his cousin. That is what he did.

In this situation, the young people could have responded in a different way. They could have been scared, chosen to leave him in a room, and waited for him to sleep it off. Unfortunately, that might not have ended well.

It is absolutely crucial that we pass this kind of legislation in order to protect young people. Not only must we pass it, but we also need to make sure the public is aware. We need to make sure that the message gets out there to Canadians, so that people know that they no longer need to worry about being charged in the event of an overdose. That is very important. Even if we pass this bill, if people still think they can be arrested and get into trouble, we will be no further ahead.

What will need to happen, and it is up to us to do it, is to send a very clear message to all Canadians to make sure they know that they no longer need to be afraid to call an ambulance. It may seem pretty obvious, but not all young people follow what is happening on the federal political scene very closely, and they are unfortunately often disconnected from politics. Our greatest challenge will be to ensure that all young people have this information.

This is how we will save lives. We will save them not only by passing legislation, but also by ensuring that people are aware of our laws. I hope that what I am doing today will have a positive impact on the lives of young people, as well as on the nursing profession, and that we will be able to save lives, especially at parties, where the circumstances can be more difficult.

Christine Moore

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