The Alberta government is planning to set up an addiction recovery centre for youth by renovating half of the Edmonton Young Offender Centre in north Edmonton.
The $23-million Northern Alberta Youth Recovery Centre is scheduled to open in mid-2026. It will add 105 recovery beds to the 70 Alberta already has to treat youth with addictions. The facility is expected to treat up to 300 young people a year.
The site will have space for children and youth who are forced into treatment via orders under the Protection of Children Abusing Drugs Act or PChAD.
Although the centre shares the site with a corrections centre for youth, the province said it will be completely separate and have no shared living areas thanks to the renovations.
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Dan Williams defended this move when asked about the optics of putting a recovery centre for youth next to a corrections centre and whether the province considered building a standalone facility somewhere else.
“I have a mandate letter that requires I care for those who are in addiction and I need to do that as swiftly as I can,” Williams said.
“Delaying that for optics because somebody might have the wrong impression after $23 million is spent to very quickly renovate a facility I think is misguided.”
Calgary-Currie MLA Janet Eremenko, the NDP critic for mental health and addictions, is encouraged the government is setting up a treatment facility for children and youth — but is concerned about having it on the same site as a corrections centre.
“It raises some big questions about how trauma-informed the actual practice is,” Eremenko told reporters at the Alberta legislature.
“[The youth] haven’t necessarily committed any crimes. They’re dealing with mental illness, they’re dealing with trauma, they’re dealing with addictions and to associate that inherently with corrections is misguided.”
Williams said he doesn’t yet know who will run the youth recovery centre. He said the newly established Recovery Alberta could take it on, but that hasn’t been finalized.