The overwhelming sentiment during yesterday’s debate in Council Chambers on the Sheldon Chumir supervised consumption site was clear: healthcare and addiction treatment are provincial jurisdiction. Calgary City Council refused to play games with critical healthcare issues, like supervised consumption and broader programs to address harm reduction, detox, treatment and recovery.
I appreciate Councillor McLean for bringing forward his notice of motion in response to Minister Dan Williams asking Council to weigh in on the possible closure of the Sheldon Chumir supervised consumption site. In doing so, he created space for discussion on the safety concerns we all have and sharpened our focus as a Council. I worked with Councillor McLean to bring a revised version to Council yesterday, and the result was an important and robust discussion where we ultimately decided we were simply not in a position to respond to the Minister. City Council and the public lack the information that has been promised for years from the Government of Alberta.
Despite the decision, I believe action is needed by the provincial government as the safety of Calgarians is threatened by their lack of initiative. This must be a partnership and conversation with Council, as well as residents and businesses in the area.
In 2020, then Premier Jason Kenney announced that their government had concerns about the location of the Sheldon Chumir site, and expressed a desire for a more complete model of care that could be in multiple locations with more opportunity for detox and treatment. The conversations about two different sites went on for over two years, with no real recommendations or action.
Now, with a new minister who doesn’t want to make his own decision, Calgary City Council is being asked to make the call on whether the Chumir site should close. This is well outside our responsibilities as local elected officials, and it is a decision that must be understood for all its consequences, including ensuring the safety of all Calgarians.
If you close the supervised consumption site with no alternative, people will face crisis situations and death in the street instead of in a healthcare facility. Those who use drugs will die in their homes and on our streets. Families will lose loved ones, and communities will not be any better off. Transit locations and public facilities will see more people congregating there because they know peace or transit officers can respond to overdoses.
While the provincial government has taken no action, my Council colleagues and I have been dealing with the symptoms of their failure to respond to the mental health and addictions crisis. Council has invested an additional $15+ million towards transit safety and downtown safety initiatives. We are actively dealing with serious situations while they continue to try to pin blame on us for their own inaction.
The only way to determine if the Sheldon Chumir site is effective is to present the facts, to demonstrate how many lives have been saved, what the impact to the surrounding community has been, and what alternatives exist. None of this has been provided, and impacted parties in Calgary have had no engagement.
Any proposed closure of this supervised consumption site must come with certainty that alternatives will be provided to address not only prevention of death from overdose, but also options for detox, treatment, recovery and wrap-around supports. Without these added measures, we as a Council will continue to struggle to ensure the safety of Calgarians.
Minister Williams has work to do on presenting the case for an improved model of care that fully addresses the complexity of providing harm reduction, treatment and recovery options to Albertans. Calgary City Council remains ready to participate in such discussions, but we will not be made the scapegoat on an issue that belongs squarely with the provincial government.