'Significant concerns': Province scraps plans for Drop-In Centre consumption site

Calgary Drop-In and Rehabilitation Centre. (File)

Alberta's associate minister of mental health and addiction confirms proposed plans for a supervised consumption site in Calgary's East Village have been halted.

Mike Ellis took to social media on Friday to announce that discussions between the provincial government and Drop-In Centre officials regarding the plans for an 'overdose prevention site' have ended.

"Over the past year Alberta's government has been working closely with the Calgary Drop-in Centre to establish a small-scale overdose prevention service to prevent deadly overdoses from occurring in and around the Drop-In Centre," read the social media posting.  "The Calgary Drop-In Centre, in partnership with Alberta's government, has listened to the community and heard the significant concerns of the surrounding communities and stakeholders.

"We have jointly determined not to proceed with this proposed overdose prevention site."

Ellis says the government would support the establishment of a 'medical detox and a dynamic outreach and overdose response in the community' should the Drop-In Centre elect to create one.

The provincial government announced plans in 2021 to close the Safeworks, a supervised consumption site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in the Beltline, in favour of two new replacement sites at locations deemed "more appropriate."

According to the province, Safeworks received an average of 4,580 visits each month but there were safety concerns from neighbouring residents and businesses.

Drop-In Centre officials confirmed to CTV News in July that the province had approached them and requested that they begin offering supervised consumption services.

Lori Sigurdson, NDP mental health and addictions critic, was quick to admonish the move.

"The UCP has blundered their way through the deadliest years on record for drug poisonings in Alberta," said Sigurdson in a statement. "Today, their abandonment of their own plans to move supervised consumption services from the Sheldon Chumir Centre to the Drop-In Centre shows Associate Minister Mike Ellis still has no coherent plan to address this lethal public health crisis.

"This sudden reversal leaves both frontline health care workers and the broader community in the dark about what the path forward is."

Sigurdson added that Ellis' indecisiveness places "intense pressure on Calgary first responders and emergency rooms, which are already in crisis due to UCP mismanagement." She says lengthy ambulance response times and emergency room wait times are being "driven in part by the UCP's inability to respond the drug poisoning crisis."