Calgary city councillors decided they wouldn’t partake in a game of political hot potato, leaving the province to decide whether Sheldon Chumir Health Centre’s supervised consumption site should be closed.

Councillors spent the better part of an afternoon debating two key issues around the contentious mental health and addictions program: Safety and jurisdiction.

It was all in part to a Notice of Motion from Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean that asked the City of Calgary to green-light the province’s shutdown of the supervised consumption site located at 12 Avenue and 4 Street SW in the Beltline.

McLean has long argued that the Chumir location isn’t ideal due to its proximity to both businesses and residential. He cited safety issues in the area as a reason for the closure.

“I think we can all agree this isn’t about whether you agree with safe consumption or safe supply,” he told reporters.

“This is about whether this facility is actually doing what’s required, and if it’s safe and if it belongs in a residential and highly populated business area. So that’s what’s before us.”

McLean came back with a slightly massaged motion that recognized this was provincial jurisdiction and the province should work closer with the city on safety in the area and ensure that patients still get the highest standard of care.

The Ward 13 councillor said that while he understood that health was provincial jurisdiction, public safety was a city responsibility. To that end, he said the city should participate in the decision to close the site to improve safety in the area around it.

“I think I’ve been pretty clear with the media and social media that to me on different interviews that I’ve done that this is still all to me about safety, that the residents don’t want to cross the street to go to the hospital because it’s not safe,” he said.

Sheldon Chumir closure won’t make the problem go away

On Tuesday, roughly 50 people rallied outside Calgary’s Municipal Plaza in favour of the Sheldon Chumir supervised consumption site remaining open.

Sydney Boa, a harm reduction advocate and organizer for the event said that thousands of lives have been saved via the consumption site. It also saves the healthcare and emergency response system millions annually.

Boa said it’s a fallacy that crime will decrease with the closure of the Sheldon Chumir site. In fact, she said it’s likely to have the opposite effect.

“I think the idea of the closure is a concern for public drug use, street-level crime, and that will increase with this closure. It will not go away. It will increase,” she said.

“The issue is that they’re uncomfortable seeing people struggle, and it’s a lot easier to go about your day when you don’t have to see that. So, they just want it to go away. The issue is it doesn’t go away, it just moves elsewhere. It’s just displacement.”

Boa said that what’s being done currently to curb social disorder isn’t really working. Access to housing and community services, and involvement from mental health and medical professionals is what’s required.

“Police are not trained adequately to be responding to folks who use drugs, folks living on the street, folks who are criminalized. We need more funding to the services that care and that help and that prove to work,” Boa said.

More information needed: Coun. Mian

Ultimately, Coun. McLean was outfoxed by Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian who pitched an amendment to the motion that effectively deleted his motion and replaced it with one that sought a range of information that would be needed before council could consider a decision on the matter.

It included the number of unique users, overdoses per year since the 2017 opening, users of alternative service, calls from EMS, fire, etc, the status of the province’s recovery-oriented care facilities, client support if the location was closed, and how city services would be supported if the centre was closed.

It’s information and stakeholder engagement Mian said the province would already have to undertake within their own guidelines around supervised consumption sites.

“I think that many on council feel that the wording with your original is challenging because it jumps to a solution without a lot of information, actually any information for us to really respond to,” she said.

“I think as governors, we have to understand what’s going on, what potential solutions would be, and we’re also not the only ones at the table that would need to be consulted.”

Mian said once they have the proper information, council could pursue a decision. She suggested perhaps after engagement council could see the need for an expanded service, changes to the service, or even no service at all.

“I think what’s challenging about the notice of motion as it is written, is just that it presumes already the solution, which is that it needs to close,” she said.  

“Maybe that’s the right thing to do, but we would have so many questions and qualifiers and things that would need to be discussed before we could ever get there.

This amendment was approved 8-6.

Sheldon Chumir closure not our decision to make: Mayor Gondek

What transpired next, was encouragement to vote down Mian’s amended motion – even by Mian herself. That would then create a non-decision by council. That would put the ball back in the province’s court.

That’s exactly where Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek and other councillors felt it should be. She encouraged Coun. McLean to withdraw his original Notice of Motion.

“The problem is there’s members of council that don’t want to weigh in on closing the site because that is not our purview,” she said.

“I can understand why you want to do it. I know you want to send a clear signal that we are looking out for Calgarians. I get it. But ultimately this puts us all in a very political position, and I think everyone here is of the same mind. We need to make mental health and addictions better and stronger in terms of the system, but that system is not ours to manage.”

Councillors then voted against Mian’s amended notice of motion, rendering a non-decision on the matter of Sheldon Chumir closure.