The future of a mobile supervised drug consumption site in Calgary is unclear as the United Conservative Party government launches a review of current and proposed sites.
“We're awaiting information about timelines and their process for review and how they’ll involve the organizations in the review process,” said Leslie Hill, executive director of HIV Community Link.
Hill says funding for the mobile site was secured by the previous government, and after two years of working on the project, the van was scheduled to hit the streets in a few months, pending approval from Health Canada.
"We've designed and manufactured a vehicle, we worked with the community to understand the context in the communities where we want to be located based on the evidence as to where overdoses are occurring."
“There are lots of people dying and we are still in the middle of a crisis in our community.”
Jason Luan, associate minister of mental health and addictions, told CTV News that concerns regarding supervised consumption sites came up throughout the election campaign.
“You need to sit back and take an objective look. What works, what didn't work. If we are going to roll forward, what's the best way of going forward?” asked Luan.
Luan wouldn’t speculate on if funding will be pulled from any of the sites and there’s no timeline for when the review process will be complete.
