 Thank you so much for honoring us with your presence here this week, Sidelia, and thanks very much to Trevor Stratton at the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network for introducing us to Sidelia and making us friends over the last number of months. On behalf of our team at Harm Reduction International, I'd like to welcome you all to this 25th International Harm Reduction Conference. I'd like to extend a special welcome to all the representatives of the local, national, regional and international networks of people who use drugs and sex workers who are here with us this week. I would like to extend a welcome to Minister Lucie Charlebois from the Government of Quebec and also the Canadian Minister of Health, Jane Philpot. Thank them for joining us today at our conference. I'd like to welcome the team from our conference partner, AIDQ, who've helped us so much in organizing this event, and a special thanks to the other key local partners who've helped us out so much. Cactus, the Quebec Alliance of People Who Use Drugs and the Quebec Ministry of Health. And most of all, I'd like to thank you all of you delegates. I know many of you have traveled great distances, often with great difficulty to make it here to this event today. In 1990 in Liverpool, 400 people came together for the very first International Harm Reduction Conference. This week at our 25th event, we'll welcome more than a thousand people from over 70 countries who'll come together to continue to build the global harm reduction movement. On the occasion of this 25th anniversary event, I'd like to pay a special tribute to Harm Reduction International's founder, Pat O'Hare, who's been with us through every one of those conferences along the way. And I know, Pat, as happy as I am that this is the very first time, I think, in the history of the conference that it's actually sold out. The last time we came together was in October 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, and I know that some of our partners from the Malaysian AIDS Council and the Malaysian Ministry of Health are joining us here again this week, and you're very welcome. Could you show the photo, please? The photo behind me was taken during that conference in Kuala Lumpur, and I think it draws an important connection between that conference and this one. Because the Kuala Lumpur conference fell on the date of the last Canadian federal election. Some of you might remember that on election day, all the Canadian delegates were glued to our phones and our laptops constantly refreshing to see the votes coming up, desperately hoping that we would finally see the defeat of the Conservative government of then Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Now, the Harper government was an obsessive and cruel opponent of harm reduction. You probably remember their long war against insight, Canada's first safe-injecting facility, trying to shut it down and in the process denying life-saving harm reduction services to thousands of people living in the downtown Lower East Side of Vancouver. It was a government that epitomized ideologically driven rather than evidence-driven policies. It worked to suppress scientific research that might result in undermining its agenda, even banning in some cases government scientists from speaking to the media. There are particularly active, suppressing environmental and climate change science, whose evidence might further hinder exploitation of mining and oil interests, particularly on indigenous territories. The Harper government also waged war against civil society organizations in this country. NGOs were closed down almost overnight by having their funding withdrawn. Many others were subjected to politically motivated audits and financial investigations designed to destroy them. Environmental groups, women's groups, international development groups, human rights groups, even our dear friends at the Canadian HIV AIDS Legal Network were subjected to such financial attacks for daring to speak out against the government's reactionary agenda. Now, there have been very few times in my life where I felt I had been part of a poetic moment, but that day in KL was one of them. Because the final election results actually came in at the very moment that our comrade Liz Evans was on stage speaking in the plenary session. Of course, Liz was one of the founding directors of INSIGHT, and it helped lead the successful defensive INSIGHT in the Canadian court system. She and other INSIGHT leaders had been tarred by the right-wing press as part of a campaign to shut down INSIGHT. And that morning in Kuala Lumpur in front of hundreds of harm reductionists from around the world, Liz got to announce from the stage the defeat of the odious Harper regime. And the crowd erupted, not because they were all Canadians, far from it. But as harm reductionists internationally, we knew that that defeat for Stephen Harper's government was a victory for harm reduction. Not just here in Canada, but also in the international arena where the government had played a fairly insidious role. Now, Liz's announcement of the defeat of the Harper government was a very special moment, and later that day all the Canadians at the conference gathered together to take this picture. We borrowed a giant syringe that belonged to the Malaysian AIDS Council and sent it around the world on social media. Many of you in that picture are here today. Now, the Harper years were difficult ones for many activists and people and communities here in Canada. And less than two years after the defeat of that government, we see how much progress on harm reduction issues has been made. From advances in safe injecting sites to advances around prescription heroin to even pending legislation on cannabis reform. There's been a sea change in many aspects of the government's position on harm reduction at home and its engagement in UN fora. And there are lessons here, because the reason for that progress is not simply a changing government, although that's obviously important. It's because community groups, drug user and sex worker networks, civil society organizations, researchers, lawyers, journalists and many, many others fought the Harper government tooth and nail over those ten years. Defending our space and our principles in the media, in the courts and in the streets. Defending our space in the public discourse and indeed expanding that space through the strength of our arguments and the righteousness of our cause. So because of that work, when the last government fell, the political space existed for a new government with new ideas to move into that space and begin to initiate some of the policy change we wanted to see. Of course, even here in Canada, despite progress, we want to see more. We want to see the decriminalization of possession of personal use for all drugs. We want to see needle and syringe exchange programs implemented in prisons. We want to see the legal and administrative barriers removed that inhibit provinces and municipalities from open safe injecting sites. And of course, we will continue to advocate on those and many other crucial issues here in Canada. But the lesson of the last 18 months is an important one for all of us who live and work in countries where right-wing governments use the war on drugs as a tool to consolidate power. From executions of drug offenders in Indonesia over the last couple of years, to the horrific crimes currently being perpetrated by the Duterte regime in the Philippines, to the ongoing HIV and overdose epidemics in Russia driven by deliberate government policy and neglect, government attacks against progressive and international Central European University in Hungary, to that egomaniacal game show host who currently sits in the White House peddling racism and xenophobia, reigniting the war on drugs and glibly stripping healthcare away from millions of people. As we gather in Montreal this week, we can look back and draw some strength from the activism that our Canadian colleagues managed during those difficult years here, as it shows clearly the crucial need for opposition to these types of policies and the need to defend the harm reduction in human rights cause and help to create the space for policy change. We all know too well that around the world the war on drugs remains a politically expedient and easy tool to deflect public's attention from wider issues. It creates easy enemies in the public eye. And we know that as harm reductionists and drug policy reformers of networks of people who use drugs, our job is to challenge the war on drugs at every turn and the countless preventable deaths that result from it. The message of the international drug control regime sends to millions of people around the world is as stark as it is clear. That message is they don't care if people live or die. The harm reduction philosophy stands in complete opposition to that status quo. Harm reduction says we do care if people live or die. And more importantly, it says that we want people to live. We believe in the inherent dignity and rights of all people. And we don't accept that abstinence from drug use is a prerequisite to the existence of dignity in human rights. The theme of this year's conference is at the heart of the response. And to me there's one thing more than any other that lies at the heart of our movement. And that is that fundamental belief in the dignity and rights of all people. And that's so important because around the world we see the rights and dignity of people being under renewed attack. Attacks that include but are certainly not limited to those perpetrated in the name of the drug war. In these times solidarity has to be more than a slogan. And we have to help each other, listen and learn from each other, support each other and defend each other. Because in defending each other we defend ourselves. I'm extremely proud to be part of our global harm reduction movement. Because despite our setbacks and our struggles we know that we're on the right side of history. I've said before that the harm reduction movement is like a big family. Sometimes we squabble and we argue. Sometimes we don't see each other or talk to each other for long periods of time. But every so often we come together at events like this, whether they're national or international. And to me they feel a bit like a family reunion. We reconnect, we embrace, we celebrate, we talk about the work ahead. So again I welcome all of you to this very special 25th International Harm Reduction Family Reunion. I look forward to reconnecting with all of you, celebrating our movement and helping to build our solidarity as we move forward in often difficult times. I'd like to thank you very much and I'd like to introduce our partner Lisa Massakot to the director of AIDQ here in Montreal. Thank you so much.