Library of Parliament Legislative Summary of Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

The Library of Parliament has published an updated version of its legislative summary of Bill C-2: An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It relates to safe injection sites for intravenous drug users:

"Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (short title: Respect for Communities Act), was introduced in the House of Commons on 17 October 2013 by the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health. It was referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on 19 June 2014, and was reported back to the House of Commons without amendment on 18 November 2014. The bill passed third reading in the House of Commons on 23 March 2015 and received first reading in the Senate on 24 March 2015."

"Bill C-2 was previously introduced in the 1^st Session of the 41^st Parliament as Bill C-65, which died on the Order Paper when Parliament was prorogued on 13 September 2013. At the time, Bill C-65 was awaiting second reading in the House of Commons."


"Bill C-2’s most noteworthy clauses provide for amendments to section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). Section 56 deals with the conditions under which the Minister of Health may consider granting an exemption from the application of any provisions of the Act or its regulations for medical or scientific purposes or any other purpose in the public interest. The amendments to section 56 focus specifically on exemption requirements for the operation of supervised consumption sites in Canada. The term 'supervised consumption site' will be used throughout this paper when referring to the bill ... Other sources referred to in this paper, including the Supreme Court of Canada, instead use the term 'supervised injection site' or 'safe/safer injection site'."

Bill C-2, and its earlier incarnation as Bill C-65, were introduced in reaction to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Canada (Attorney General) v. PHS Community Services Society, 2011 SCC 44, [2011] 3 S.C.R. 134.

It is possible to follow the progress of the bill in Parliament on the LEGISinfo website.