Move sex-offender program: Wildrose
MLA says it shouldn’t take up space in Alberta Hospital
The Wildrose opposition is calling on the province to move Alberta Hospital’s Phoenix Program, saying it gives special treatment to sex offenders and takes up space from other patients who need it, but the province’s health minister said Friday how and where the program is delivered should be left up to experts.
Wildrose MLA Shayne Saskiw criticized the government’s support for Phoenix, Alberta’s only in-patient sexoffender treatment program, saying convicted sex offenders shouldn’t be given special privileges or take up hospital beds when other patients need them. Rehabilitation is a “laudable goal,” Saskiw said, but it shouldn’t take place in a hospital.
“Sex offenders should have to spend their time after they’ve committed an offence in jail. Of course, at the same time, we want to see rehabilitation happen,” Saskiw said Friday.
Health Minister Fred Horne called Saskiw’s comments “misguided” and said the question of how sex offenders are rehabilitated is best left up to experts.
“The issue is what is the best treatment that we can provide sex offenders to make sure they don’t reoffend? I think that’s what Albertans are concerned about,” Horne said Friday from Toronto.
“As to the location of the program and how it’s delivered ... I would defer to the judgment of clinical experts to make that determination.”
The province’s health authority said this week it is currently in discussions with the solicitor general’s office about the potential to move the program out of the hospital and into a correctional facility. No decisions have been made, but the program won’t be shut down, said Mark Snaterse, executive director for addictions and mental health in the Edmonton region.
The Phoenix Program has operated from within Alberta Hospital since it was launched in the mid-1980s and is thought to be one of the only sex-offender treatment programs internationally operating inside a hospital setting.
It is Alberta’s only in-patient treatment program. Alberta Health Services administers it and spends roughly $2 million each year to operate it. The program can provide treatment for up to 18 convicted sex offenders at any given time.
Saskiw said he would rather see the government prioritize funding for victims of sexual abuse and pointed to the Little Warriors Be Brave Ranch — which was denied more than $600,000 in government funding this year — as an example.
“There has to be a balance between rehabilitation of offenders and providing the necessary support for those who have been victimized by sexual abuse,” Saskiw said.