Manitoba has seen an explosion of crystal meth use across the province and we need the Pallister government to address the crisis immediately, said Dougald Lamont, Manitoba Liberal Leader & MLA for St. Boniface.
"The Government needs to declare a Public Health Emergency, and create a "Meth Task Force" to deal with this crisis," said Lamont
A government appointed Director would run the task force and assemble a team that would work with all departments and levels of government to create a rapid response to this crisis, said Lamont.
"For over a year the government has known that there is a meth epidemic and that this epidemic is a crisis for our province - affecting the lives of individuals and families, increasing crime, and even increasing deaths from homicide and overdoses. Yet the provincial government has done little and the epidemic and crisis continues," said Manitoba Liberal Health Critic, Jon Gerrard.
Lamont said the money to fight the meth crisis is there; in fact this government is receiving $40-million a year for the next ten years from the federal government, dedicated to public mental health and home care. He also repeated his call for Cannabis revenue to be used to create new addictions services.
"Yet, in this year's budget this government spent $1-million less on mental health and addictions than the NDP did in 2014-15, four years ago, and they underspent funding to health authorities for community health services by $26.6-million," said Lamont.