Party leaders spar over opioid crisis
CALGARY While NDP Leader Rachel Notley proclaimed Thursday that safe drug-use sites “have saved hundreds of lives,” her UCP counterpart Jason Kenney said that as premier, he’d launch a study to determine if current sites are situated properly to meet their goal of harm reduction without causing crime and social disorder in surrounding neighbourhoods.
Speaking at a downtown Calgary hotel Thursday where he announced the United Conservative Party’s health-care platform, Kenney said there hasn’t been enough emphasis placed on treatment and addiction recovery when it comes to the role of safe consumption sites.
“We do think local communities need to be properly consulted. Three of these sites were put into one square kilometre in Edmonton’s Chinatown without any proper consultation. It’s had devastating effects for the local residents, including Chinese-Canadian seniors and businesses,” Kenney said. “We need to find the right balance.”
A UCP government would also conduct “a social economic impact assessment of prospective future sites,” and work with local municipalities, police and residents “to see if there are better potential locations for existing sites that could provide the service without creating a serious crime problem.”
“Given the impact we have seen in the Beltline here, for example, prudence requires the government move very carefully and not just throw up sites for the sake of it,” said Kenney, referring to the Safeworks Harm Reduction Program site in Calgary, located inside the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.
A January report showed that a 250-metre zone near the site has become ground zero for drug, violent and property crimes in Calgary’s downtown.
“We need to be very careful about them,” Kenney said.
Earlier in the day, Notley told Calgary reporters that when it comes to solving the rise in opioid use, “the answer is not to somehow walk away from safe injection sites.”
“That is how you reduce deaths from the opioid crisis, and we have saved hundreds of lives through the safe consumption sites,” the NDP leader said. “Cancelling safe consumption sites will make the opioid crisis worse. You cannot address those significant challenges by freezing health-care funding and cancelling these programs.”
Kenney on Thursday outlined numerous commitments to stop Alberta’s “growing opioid addiction crisis,” which he attributed to long surgery wait times under the NDP government, leading to painkiller prescriptions that “turn into a debilitating addiction in too many cases.”
Kenney said he’d appoint an associate minister of health focused solely on mental health and addictions in his government. He’d also expand support for opioid treatment centres, add additional detox beds and mobile detox programs in the province, and fund a “virtual opioid dependency program” through a $10-million investment.
The UCP leader promised to form a dedicated opioid enforcement unit through a $2.5-million annual investment for extra police resources, which would aim to disrupt opioid manufacturing and dealing. He said he’d expand drug treatment courts, setting up new ones outside of Calgary and Edmonton, through a $5-million per year investment. He said the UCP would see what more can be done to reduce opioid prescriptions.
Kenney’s government would call on the federal government to restore Harper-era mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug traffickers, he promised Thursday.