Ms Fiona Wilson:

That is a great question. I do not have the answer to it. When I said we had enough facilities, in the city of Vancouver I would say we do, but across the province many remote communities do not have enough overdose prevention sites. Vancouver could reduce its capacity of overdose prevention sites as part of harm reduction measures.

Looking at our streets, there is no question that there is an increase in the number of people using in outdoor spaces. Quite frankly, that was one of the objectives of decriminalisation. There was a notion that when people use inside or indoors, they do so alone and are more likely to die. Unfortunately, what we saw in the wake of decriminalisation was quite a significant increase in the number of overdose deaths outdoors. That to me is an indication of people using outdoor spaces more often.

It is also overlaid with an increases in homelessness and other factors. It is not all about decriminalisation. We did not see an increase in the number of overdose deaths, but we saw an increase in deaths outdoors. The notion that if people are using outdoors they are inherently safer than if they are using inside is one that needs to be unpacked and untangled in the research, because we do not have research that determined that correlation. In British Columbia, there is a need for more harm reduction resources as well as other resources on the continuum of care to which I referred.