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By Janet Eremenko, Critic for Mental Health and Addiction, and MLA for Calgary-Currie

Op-ed: Danielle Smith’s Recovery Model is failing Albertans by the thousands

Apr 13, 2024 | 11:11 AM

Just months ago, residents of Red Deer were invited to weigh in at a public council meeting regarding the city’s Overdose Prevention Site (OPS). OPS and Supervised Consumption Sites are frequently used examples of harm reduction, an approach to keep people who use drugs connected to health care and social services, and a way out of addiction. Despite the city’s ruling on the issue, the question seems to remain across the province: do we invest in recovery? Or do we invest in harm reduction?

The answer? Both.

Unfortunately for Albertans, however, this broad-spectrum approach to addressing mental health and addictions isn’t preferred by the current government. In fact, Alberta has become a beacon for recovery, over all other strategies.

Through the Alberta Recovery Model, the UCP government has promised 11 Recovery Communities (just two have been built, one of which is in Red Deer), has allocated $10 million for a crown corporation called the Centre of Recovery Excellence, and will now be operating ‘Recovery Alberta,’ the new organization delivering mental health and addiction services across the province that will replace AHS services by this Canada Day.

As innocuous as the Recovery Model sounds, Albertans should be worried about it for two reasons. First, there is big money in Recovery. Once finalized, the 11 Recovery Communities will cost more than $500 million to build and millions more per year to operate (the official number isn’t public).

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Further, Recovery Alberta, has an annual budget of $1.1 billion, making this junior ministry the 7th largest, by budget, in Danielle Smith’s cabinet.

The second and arguably most important reason we should all be concerned about the UCP’s Recovery Model is because of this figure: 1,706. That’s the number of people in Alberta who have died as a result of opioid use from January to November 2023. It amounts to 5 people per day. It’s the worst year on record, and yet the Minister has called the Alberta Recovery Model a terrific success.

Recovery can’t just be about addiction, their mandate is so much bigger than that. But recovery in the context of youth, or a person with severe mental illness, has simply not been thought out.

Had this government meaningfully consulted with social service providers and workers on the front line of harm reduction, we would have a holistic mental health and addictions strategy that prioritizes lives over ideology.

I listened to the perspectives on both sides of the debate in Red Deer, and am left with a fundamental question. Addiction and mental illness are not going anywhere. If we take away the health resources people on the margins of our communities so desperately need, where are they supposed to go?

Alberta’s current fixation on the recovery-only method is costing lives and under-resourcing solutions that are proven to work. In order to create a robust treatment system that addresses the terrifying number of deaths and supports all Albertans, we need options. Recovery as a one-size-fits all solution is not cutting it.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The views expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of rdnewsNOW or Pattison Media. Column suggestions and letters to the editor can be sent to news@rdnewsNOW.com.

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