By Josh Hall | @Vancan19

shocked, but fight not over

Judge denies injunction against closure of Red Deer’s overdose prevention site

Mar 27, 2025 | 8:06 PM

Red Deer’s overdose prevention site will close its doors at the end of March 31, as planned, but its future is not yet wholly written.

The judge overseeing an application from a lawyer, on behalf of a local man who uses the OPS, has denied a temporary injunction against its closure.

The case, which was argued by lawyer Avnish Nanda on Constitutional grounds (citing sections 7, 12 and 15), was heard by Justice Chris Rickards in Court of King’s Bench on March 14 at the Red Deer Justice Centre. That came after a separate judge granted an injunction in February which ruled the OPS must return to its original 24/7 hours.

In Justice Rickards’ decision, he addresses each of the individual Charter claims made by the applicant, Aaron Brown.

Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights addresses the right to life liberty and security; Section 12 pertains to the right to not be punished by the state in a manner which is cruel and unusual; and Section 15 speaks of the right to be seen as equal before and under the law, and to receive equal protection without discrimination.

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Rickards did not find, based on the arguments presented March 14, that any of these sections are being breached by the provincial government ending funding for and therefore closing the overdose prevention site.

He also addressed the claim by Brown, via his lawyer, that he would suffer irreparable harm due to its closure.

“I cannot accept Brown’s argument that if OPS closes, he is going to be using his drugs in unsafe and dangerous settings where there is a high likelihood of overdose death and suffering grievous bodily injury,” Rickards wrote in section 105 of his decision.

“For the most part, he is not using OPS now and does not seem to have increased his likelihood of overdose death and suffering grievous bodily injury.”

Brown told the courts that his use of the OPS has gone down over recent months, claiming that was due to the facility sometimes being under-staffed.

Rickards concluded Brown’s actually been using the OPS roughly one per cent of the time, and is using at home with someone else present.

“There is no funding at this time for the continued operation of the OPS past March 31, 2025. An interlocutory (temporary) injunction granted today requiring the respondents to keep the OPS operating after March 31, 2025, will require the respondents to do a number of things,” Rickards said in section 48 of the decision.

“First, it will require HMK [the government] to either find new funds to fund the continued operation of OPS or to reallocate its budgets and take money away from other programs to direct it to this program. Secondly, it will require HMK to enter into new contracts including a new contract with the organization [Recovery Alberta] which would be operating OPS after March 31, 2025.”

The Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction provided rdnewsNOW with a statement in response to Rickards’ decision.

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READ MORE

• Judge’s decision pending in overdose prevention site injunction case
• Injunction granted to maintain hours at Red Deer OPS as lawyer tries to prevent shutdown
• Red Deer city council requests the province to remove OPS and replace it with other services

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“The decision to transition drug consumption services out of Red Deer was made after city council asked the province to do so and instead invest those dollars into services that focus on health, wellness, and recovery. We have been told for too long that communities need to sacrifice their safety to be compassionate to those suffering from addiction by adopting policies like unsafe supply and by opening drug consumption sites on every street corner. This is not the case. Our government is demonstrating that there is a way to be compassionate while also protecting the safety of Albertans and our communities,” Minister Dan Williams says.

“In Red Deer, we have brought online $3.4 million in new services including recovery coaches, increased detox capacity, the mobile rapid access addiction medicine clinic, and outreach teams connecting with people living in or around the shelter. Additionally, we have established a $1.2 million partnership with the Red Deer Dream Centre by publicly funding 20 addiction treatment beds, opened the 75-bed Red Deer Recovery Community, and opened the 11-bed therapeutic living unit at the Red Deer Remand Centre.”

Despite Justice Rickards’ denial of the temporary, roughly 15-week, injunction, which was only meant to take place before the scheduled closure in order for the case to get to full trial, will return to court June 26. Looking at all the merits of the application, a decision in the applicant’s favour following the trial, which could take months due to it being Charter-related, could overturn the government’s decision to end the OPS’ funding permanently.

Speaking to the decision against the injunction, Nanda, the applicant’s lawyer, told rdnewsNOW Thursday his side is shocked and disappointed.

“It’s funny that just eight weeks prior, with a different judge who heard lots of the same evidence … [and then] decided we had to restore hours to the site previously cut, that now we have this decision, which uses a different legal test, and uses a different conception of the medical condition which causes people to inject legal street-sourced opioids, and we get a much different outcome,” said Nanda.

“These drugs wreak havoc on people’s lives, and we are concerned with how many deaths will occur.”

Nanda also shared Thursday that he immediately filed an appeal with respect to Rickards’ Wednesday decision on the temporary injunction. The appeal will be heard in a Calgary courtroom on April 16, and regardless, will be back in a Red Deer courtroom for the aforementioned trial in June.

According to the Alberta Substance Use Surveillance System, last updated this month, there were 5,589 visits by 191 unique visitors to Red Deer’s OPS in Q3 2024. There was a near record low 41 adverse events responded to by staff.

In 2024, there were 31 drug poisoning deaths in Red Deer, the lowest one-year total since 2019.

The full decision from Judge Rickards can be read here.

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