Local physician Dr. Thara Kumar speaks at public hearing in Red Deer city council chambers regarding the Overdose Prevention Site on Thursday. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

Doctors, engineers, business owners, use

Red Deerians share opinions on fate of Overdose Prevention Site over nine-hour public hearing

Feb 16, 2024 | 12:15 AM

Over 30 people spoke at Thursday’s non-statutory public hearing regarding Red Deer’s Overdose Prevention Site (OPS).

The nine-hour hearing attracted media attention from across the province as reporters filled council chambers and was extended to Friday for council to debate and resolve the motion.

Council was supposed to consider the Notice of Motion relating to the OPS on January 22, originally put forward by Councillor Vesna Higham in December 2023. The motion requests the Government of Alberta to formalize an orderly transition of the existing OPS out of Red Deer by the end of 2024 and, to provide in its place, greater harm reduction options within the community that focus on health, wellness, and recovery. It also requests the provincial government provide grant funding to provide continuous police presence for the area in the meantime to prevent crimes and increase frontline supports for mental health and addictions.

As members of the public overflowed chambers that day, council decided to instead hold a non-statutory public hearing first.

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Opposing the motion, local physician Dr. Thara Kumar said the OPS has reduced the spread of HIV, the strain on Emergency Services by responding to over 1,200 calls per year and has prevented roughly 2,000 needles a month from ending up on the streets.

She says since June 1, 2023, the OPS has made 2,569 referrals to social and health services, detox, addiction treatment, and counselling. She adds the OPS provides transportation to services, telephones, and helps clients get identification.

Finally, she states the OPS should be removed from its trailer to a brick-and-mortar Safe Consumption Site (SCS), where individuals can stay following drug use rather than immediately heading into the community, and can smoke drugs on the property, a rising trend that clients are currently not allowed to do at the OPS.

“It is interesting to me that coming to the OPS is an extra step for individuals. The people who come to the OPS are making a conscious choice to come there and use in a space where they are minimizing their own risk of health issues and minimizing the impact of their drug use on the rest of the community,” she said. “To me, that’s a responsible choice in a setting of drug use.”

She adds the OPS should remain open since all beds are currently full in Red Deer treatment centres.

She says it is a misconception that increasing services are the cause of increasing drug use in a community but acknowledges there is a correlation.

On the other side, local engineer Elizabeth Wilson voiced support for the motion, questioning the legal liability of the OPS in allowing those who are high on illegal drugs to be released back into the community, deeming them a danger to themselves and to others, particularly if they hold weapons. She said she would not let someone drunk leave her home without proper supervision.

Higham referenced a current class-action lawsuit against a Toronto Supervised Injection Site following a fatal shooting of a local mother caught in a gun fight between two drug dealers at the location.

Statements were read from current users of the OPS and mothers who lost children to overdoses, in opposition of the motion. Some former users also spoke, with one stating specific supports for youth facing addiction should be increased. Resident Meagan Ophus said that she began using drugs due to intergenerational trauma and sexual assault as a youth, adding the OPS saved her life various times until she was ready to seek treatment.

Members of the downtown business community in favour of the motion shared the challenges they have faced by the social disorders surrounding the OPS, including loitering, drug use on the property, loss of tenants, public defecation, vandalism, and more.

Tracy Chabot shared that she has had to phone EMS several times for individuals so high they were falling into dumpsters, carrying dangerous torches and propane tanks that have caused numerous fires at and near her building, have become aggressive when confronted during acts of vandalism, and has been unable to sell her building for over two years because of the negative environment.

READ: Downtown business owner says City ‘whitewashing’ plight of nearby businesses from social disorder

“There is a camaraderie among drug addicts. They are not helping one another out of addiction; they are assisting one another to remain addicted and provide a support group to continue in that addiction,” she said.

Councillor Kraymer Barnstable expressed concern at some comments made that people in support of the motion do not care.

“I don’t believe that the individuals that want this removed are people that don’t care; they just have a different way of looking at what care means to them,” he said.

Social worker Ian Vaughn went as far as saying that removing the OPS would be “civic manslaughter” and other statements that Mayor Ken Johnston deemed were out of order. He said people can’t reach recovery if they are dead and communities like Lethbridge haven’t been aided by the closure of their SCS.

READ: New study focuses on impacts of Lethbridge’s Supervised Consumption Site closure

Kath Hoffman, Executive Director for the Safe Harbour Society that runs the homeless shelter across the OPS, also stressed the entire community’s focus on solutions.

“The businesses are not objecting to a health service for these people. That’s not what they said. They said, ‘we want help with this mess,’ and that’s what we need to do,” she said. However, she added that removing the OPS would be going backwards and the proposed motion does not include a similar service to the much-needed OPS.

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