The Alberta government is shuttering drug consumption services in Calgary and Lethbridge.
Sites in both cities will close at the end of June, the province said Friday.
Deputy Premier Mike Ellis, the province’s minister of public safety and emergency services, said his government’s alternative measures are working, and community guidance and wants have been clear.
“You can care deeply about people battling addiction and still believe that communities deserve to be safe—a safe place to live and work,” he said.
“Our government refuses to pretend that one must come at the expense of the other.”
“People within the community have a right to walk down the street and not inhale second-hand crystal meth smoke or to walk down the street and not see somebody passed out,” he said.
Ellis said Alberta’s opioid overdose deaths have dropped “about 39 per cent” since 2023’s peak.
“This progress didn’t happen by chance,” he said.
“It happened because Alberta chose to invest in building a system of care that prioritizes treatment and prioritizes recovery.”
Ellis pointed to four of 11 planned recovery communities now being open, as well as five planned Indigenous recovery communities.
He also pointed to two compassionate intervention centres — one in Calgary and one in Edmonton.
More than 2,000 Albertans will be supported by these new spaces each year, Ellis said.
He said drug consumption sites were never meant to be a permanent measure.
‘Get well or die’
“We have the idea in this province right now that it’s get well or die, and that’s very concerning to me,” harm reduction advocate Danielle English told CTV News.
“We have devalued and dehumanized the lives of substance users. We don’t even talk to them and how it would be effective to support them.”
“We’ve tied morals to substance use, and they are not connected.”
University of Alberta School of Public Health professor Elaine Hyshka agreed.
The numbers are trending in the right direction, but she wants more change before pulling the plug on what she calls life-saving facilities.
“This doesn’t mean that drug use is going to go away,” Hyshka said.
“Drug use will continue in those communities. What it does mean is that people have less safe places to use, and they’ll have less access to emergency medical aid if they do overdose.”
Janet Eremenko, the Alberta NDP mental-health and addiction critic, said the shuttering of supervised consumption sites will increase risk to public safety.
“They (the UCP government) are moving drug use from supervised consumption sites to the street, to dark alleys, to doorsteps and local businesses,” she wrote.
“It will be less safe; for the people with addictions, for health care workers, and for the general public.”
Meanwhile, Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said the site’s closure “marks a significant transition” in how Calgary addresses addiction and community safety.
“I have cautious optimism that this transition, if implemented with the right supports, can increase access to treatment and recovery services,” Farkas wrote in a statement.
Other Alberta sites
Drug consumption services in Edmonton and Grande Prairie will remain open.
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Rick Wilson said there are currently no plans to close them, but they will eventually be shuttered.
“Edmonton will continue to be a top priority as we lean in even more,” he said.
“There’s a lot of work to do. Edmonton still accounts for about 60 per cent of opioid deaths in Alberta each month.”
