There’s a new push to have Calgary city council support the closure of the Sheldon Chumir health centre’s supervised consumption site.

A Notice of Motion coming for technical review to the Jan. 13 Executive Committee meeting from Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston will ask that Calgary city council support the closure of the Safeworks Supervised Consumption Site at the Beltline location.

Johnston’s motion had no context included, except to say that the site has a plan to be replaced by an opioid dependency program called “Treatment on Demand.” The motion claims that it’s modelled after the province’s Virtual Opioid Dependency Program.

The motion purports that there would be ongoing support and monitoring services, health, safety and risk reduction teaching, links to community pharmacists and other addictions treatment services and other health programs, among others.

Links would be provided via referral to the province’s Calgary Navigation and Support Centre.

Despite text messages and a phone call to Coun. Johnston, he did not acknowledge nor respond to requests for comment on this story.

As recently as December, the Government of Alberta said that plans are underway for the supervised consumption site’s closure in 2026. They said they would be transitioning to treatment and recovery services as has been done in Red Deer and in Edmonton.

When asked specifically about the so-called “Treatment on Demand” program that Johnston’s motion outlines, the province did not provide details.

“We welcome the City of Calgary’s upcoming motion to support the closure of the drug consumption site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre,” read an emailed statement from the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction.

“We look forward to working with both the City and Recovery Alberta in developing a plan to transition to other services and supports that are recovery‑oriented and help people reclaim their lives, rebuild relationships, and restore hope.”

‘A little bit of politics being played’: Coun. McLean

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean, who has supported calls to close down the Chumir supervised consumption location, acknowledged that the province is already shutting down the site.

“They’ve never needed us to tell them to do it. I mean, they just have to go ahead and do it,” McLean said.

“This is just, I think, a little bit of politics being played.”

McLean said he’s happy to see the site being closed.

“It’s just a really bad location for it with just the garbage, the social disorder that’s occurring at the Chumir right now,” he said.

Ward 8 Coun. Nathan Schmidt, who represents the area where the Sheldon Chumir is located, said that the closure of the safe consumption site will result in people dying.

“It’s that simple. The province has done little or nothing to provide adequate supports for public safety,” he said.

“They’re kicking the can down the road and it will move the problem to another block in another community. This is a knee-jerk move when what we really need is more robust services for Calgarians who are struggling, and more collaboration, both of which benefit our entire community.”

Though Calgary’s former police Chief said that the site posed a crime and social disorder problem for the immediate area, addictions experts have said that more of these locations dispersed around the city would limit the overall social disorder impact and provide more people with life-saving care.

The motion is the latest in an ongoing back-and-forth with the City of Calgary and the Government of Alberta in dodging the political aspects of closing down the site. Previously, the province wanted the City to OK a closure, but former Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that it wasn’t the city’s jurisdiction to make that decision, and a previous motion to do it failed at council.

This motion, if approved, would go to the Jan. 26, 2026, Regular Meeting of Council for debate and potential approval.