Select supervised drug consumption sites in southern Alberta have officially been ordered to close by this summer.

During a media availability held March 20 at downtown’s Memorial Park Library, Deputy Premier Mike Ellis announced that Calgary’s Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre and the Lethbridge Shelter supervised drug consumption sites will be closing on June 30. 

Ellis said that the supervised consumption sites (SCS) opened in 2023 when Alberta was seeing high rates of overdoses, and that the facilities were supposed to be temporary. Since then, he said that the province has seen a 39 per cent decrease in drug-related overdose deaths. 

According to a news release from the Government of Alberta, there are currently five SCSs operating in the province, and with the Edmonton and Red Deer sites having already closed last year, these two are the near-final steps in eliminating them, save the Grand Prairie location.

Minister of Mental Health and Addiction Rick Wilson and CEO of Recovery Alberta Kerry Bales joined Ellis at the Friday afternoon availability. Wilson said that a lot has changed in the past three years. 

“Drug consumption services were introduced during a very different time and was meant to be as a short-term measure to an emergency crisis: Keeping someone alive in a moment that matters,” he said. 

“But that cannot be where the journey ends. People need more than survival — they need hope, they need treatment, and they need a path to recover, and a better life.”

Wilson said that Calgary’s SCS funding will be reinvested to expand Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM) services. For Sheldon Chumir, this means improving opioid dependency services and on-site intake support provided by a registered nurse. 

Additionally, diverting funding toward RAAM will extend intake operating hours at the Renfrew Recovery Centre and increase its capacity from 30 to 40 beds. More downtown outreach teams will also grow in numbers to support responding to overdose calls in the area. 

Similar efforts will be taken in Lethbridge, including more on-site response personnel, withdrawal beds, and the development of a new clinic dedicated to RAAM services, these being same-day counselling and case management. 

These changes come in tandem with the province’s recent framework switch for dealing with mental health and addiction, which has traded SCSs to instead focus on recovery.

Swapping safe consumption for recovery services

Ellis explained that, since the Alberta Recovery Model was implemented in 2019, the province has increased the number of addiction treatment beds by 55 per cent through public funding. For the most part, these beds have taken shape as recovery communities. 

“Through our internationally recognized recovery model, we have significantly expanded treatment capacity,” he said. 

“We have removed financial barriers to care, invested in detox and stabilization treatments, and established new recovery-oriented services, and it is working here.”

Out of the 11 recovery communities being built, four have already opened, including one in Calgary’s Forest Lawn, which opened last August. Once all of them are complete, the recovery communities will go to support over 2,000 Albertans. 

Bales said that the full transition from SCS to recovery services has already happened in Red Deer, and that they have seen a significant decrease in the use of illicit substances and overdoses since. 

“This work reflects our commitment to a recovery-oriented system of care where services are responsive and personalized,” he said. 

In Calgary, specifically, the Sheldon Chumir consumption site has been noted to attract undesirable behaviour to the area. However, since the closure was first proposed, scholars have argued that harm reduction services are necessary and that more of them are needed. 

Wilson dismissed the calls for keeping supervised consumption sites, saying that he considered them to be contributing to the province’s overdose rates. He said that recovery communities are Alberta’s best bet at tackling this. 

“I don’t want to keep people in this cycle of addiction,” said Wilson. 

“I want to get them into recovery as quickly as we can, because helping them inject drugs is not helping people, that’s actually putting poison into their arms.”

Ellis, a former Calgary Police Service sergeant, acknowledged the complaints of drug-related activity downtown and said that the decision to close the site came with both this and empathy for those experiencing addiction in mind. 

“Albertans have been clear with us that they want compassion for people struggling with addiction,” he said.

“You can care deeply about people battling addiction and still believe that communities deserve to be a safe place to live and work. Our government refuses to pretend that one must come at that expense.”

The Alberta NDP’s Janet Eremenko said Friday that the problem with addictions isn’t from supervised consumption sites, but the province’s failure on housing and long-term supports for mental health.

“It’s concerning that Danielle Smith and this UCP government believe closing supervised consumption sites will improve public safety,” Eremenko said in a prepared statement.

“They have had years to develop a better system to save lives and help people recover. They have not. Instead, they are moving drug use from supervised consumption sites to the street, to dark alleys, to doorsteps and to local businesses. It will be less safe: for people with addictions, for health care workers, and for the general public.”