The future of a supervised consumption site (SCS) at the Sheldon Chumir Health Centre will come down to a vote at city council, despite the mayor saying this is provincial jurisdiction.

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek made the comments after Alberta’s Minister of Mental Health and Addiction, Dan Williams, said last week that the City of Calgary should decide how to proceed with the location.

Back in 2019, then-Calgary city councillor Evan Woolley suggested that action needed to be taken around the Sheldon Chumir site, given a suspected rise in social disorder incidents related to supervised drug consumption in the area.

In 2021, Calgary city council and the province recognized that the current Sheldon Chumir location wasn’t working as intended.  In 2022, the province said it was working with both Alpha House and the Calgary Drop-In Centre to provide smaller overdose prevention sites.

Since that time, nothing has happened, and the site has remained open.

After Williams’ comments last week, Mayor Gondek sent the province a letter referencing their 2022 plan to combine addiction treatment with supervised consumption sites.

“Since 2022, Calgarians have been waiting for the Government of Alberta to offer additional or alternate solutions, given that health and addictions are provincial responsibilities,” the mayor wrote in her letter to the minister.

“In the interest of Calgarians, it is critical to understand your solution prior to your closure of the site at Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.”

In a letter back to the Office of Councillors dated Oct. 2 and posted to social media Wednesday afternoon, Minister Williams said that he has an obligation to ask Calgary city council for its position on the removal of the Sheldon Chumir site.

“Given the impact on Calgarians, it is important for the entire City Council, not just the mayor, to weigh in via a vote on whether Council would like to see the Sheldon Chumir site closed and transitioned into recovery-oriented addiction care,” he wrote.

“I am glad to hear you have scheduled such a vote.”

That vote comes after a Notice of Motion was added to Wednesday’s Executive Committee meeting from Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean.

Not our jurisdiction, said Mayor Gondek

Mayor Gondek told reporters on Wednesday that the province is responsible for shutting down healthcare services, not the City of Calgary.  She said she’s not even sure why they’re asking for her – or city council’s – approval, particularly when they’ve already indicated their desire for a different option.

“We have no jurisdiction over health services provided in provincially run healthcare facilities,” Mayor Gondek said.  

“City Council does not weigh in on health-related decisions or mental-health-related decisions or addictions treatment. That is wholly in the purview of the provincial government.”

Mayor Gondek said that experts have told them that having only one site that doesn’t reach everybody in other parts of Calgary doesn’t really work. Others have said that it shouldn’t be in that particular neighbourhood.

“There’s all kinds of ideas and impressions about why it doesn’t work, but honestly, this is the province’s responsibility,” she said.

“Explain to us what’s not working, why it’s not working, and what (the province is) going to do differently.

In Williams’ letter, he said that if the city favours an option that was originally suggested by the province back in 2022 of multiple sites, it would require the City to come back with a proposal, including the sites, because the zoning of those locations is a municipal jurisdiction.

“Given the lack of community support, any proposal to expand with new drug consumption sites is not an option I am willing to seriously consider as Minister of Mental Health and Addiction,” he wrote.

Calls for the SCS closure

Coun. McLean said he gets regular calls and emails about trouble around the Sheldon Chumir Health Centre.

“Dozens of emails and phone calls… you simply have to walk around there,” McLean told reporters on Wednesday.

“There’s been a lot of assaults. The statistics show that crime has increased dramatically around that. The last thing I want to see is something horrific, like a stabbing or a shooting or a death happen. It’s just not safe, and people, I think, agree with me on that.”

McLean said he believes he and the mayor agree that the province should be involved in providing a solution for the situation, but he doesn’t agree with providing people drugs. He said he supports the province’s recovery-focused plan.

Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott, whose area covers the Sheldon Chumir, said that statistically speaking, there hasn’t been an increase in social disorder in the area – during the months of July, August and September. He provided that data, compiled from CPS community crime stats, to reporters.

He said open drug use in public fuels safety concerns, not private drug use. He called the issue “bull.”

“Everything in the story that they’re trying to create, it’s a false one,” he said.

“The province has been attempting to dismantle the supervised consumption site for years, slowly defunding it, reducing hours, reducing booths, refusing to change from injection to inhalation. Then, they finally got it to a place where they think they have community support. Now they’re going to try and push for it.”

Walcott said he’s heard a balance of concerns and compassion from residents. He believes that’s why it’s been difficult for the province to close the Chumir.

“I think the reason why they can’t close it is because, despite what everybody says, public opinion is not uniform,” Walcott said.

“People do not want to see their neighbours die on the street. People do not want to see the opioid crisis spill out even further into their community.”

Walcott said that this should never have been about centralized care and that these services should have been provided across the city.

“The whole project has been to drive drug use back into people’s basements or back onto the street where they can be criminalized,” Walcott said.  

“That is something that we have to have a serious conversation about, not a general conversation about one particular site.”

Minister Williams said that instead of expanding the drug sites, they’re providing Albertans with the option of pursuing recovery.  They have invested more money into detox and pre-treatment beds at the Calgary Drop-In Centre and supported overdose response teams in other parts of Calgary.