After more than an hour of debate on Wednesday, Calgary city council ultimately voted against weighing in on what should become of the supervised consumption site (SCS) at the Sheldon Chumir Health Centre.
City council vigorously debated a motion brought forward by Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean on whether it should call on the provincial government to close the site, following a public back-and-forth earlier this month between city hall and the province. Council amended the motion to drop the reference to its closure, and to request data and engagement on its operations.
The motion was defeated 9-5 with councillors Gian-Carlo Carra, Richard Pootmans, Evan Spencer, Jasmine Mian and Sean Chu voting for, and councillors McLean, Courtney Walcott, Jennifer Wyness, Raj Dhaliwal, Kourtney Penner, Terry Wong, Sonya Sharp and Andre Chabot, as well as Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek, voting against.
The Chumir’s SCS was opened roughly seven years ago. Supporters of the facility tout it as providing a life-saving service, while opponents blame the site for public drug use and increased calls to police in the area.
During Wednesday’s debate, several councillors reiterated that the site falls solely under provincial jurisdiction.
McLean said it’s up to the province to decide on a path forward for an alternative to its service. But he also argued the current site isn’t tenable, adding the city is in no position to tell the province how to run health care and addiction treatment, and he doesn’t believe the site should remain in its current location.
He said the people using the SCS create social disorder in the Beltline neighbourhood where the site stands.
After council adjourned, McLean said he was disappointed and angry that his motion was shot down after being amended.
“We wasted a lot of time,” he said. “I put a lot of effort in working with all of my colleagues, we thought we had a resolution and a compromise over the last couple weeks, and then it all fell apart.”
Wyness said Calgary is in a situation where there is no single solution to its problems and called on the province to take the lead rather than having council weigh in.
Mian amended McLean’s motion to ask the province to provide more information about the SCS and alternative plans to address drug addiction in the city before council could be reasonably asked to weigh in. Her amendment also removed the motion’s request element to the province to close the SCS.
She said it’s the province’s job to make a decision about the fate of the SCS, and asking council to offer a yes or no opinion on whether to close the site is ultimately redundant.
“We are entirely being baited into a political position that we shouldn’t be in,” Mian said.
Mian added that asking the province to close the SCS at Chumir outright without an alternative plan in place wouldn’t help concerns around social disorder in the Beltline.
Walcott argued during the debate Calgary has several problems with homelessness, drug addiction and mental health issues. He said opponents of the SCS use it as a scapegoat and point to it as the cause of those issues, instead of identifying those problems as byproducts of flaws in the health-care system.
Walcott said outside council chambers after the meeting adjourned that he was happy with the way council voted.
“The reality is it’s not our business … I’m really grateful that we’re in a place where people will still have an opportunity to have their lives saved without council intervening in provincial matters,” he said.
Gondek said during debate that she doesn’t think city council should be weighing in on a decision that is firmly not in its jurisdiction.
“We shouldn’t be voting on any of this … it is not our responsibility to weigh in on provincial matters at all,” Gondek said.
“This is garbage, the whole thing is garbage. We should not be having this debate, it is not our jurisdiction,” she added. “And if we don’t push back against this provincial government to do their job themselves, they’ll never do it.”
Gondek previously expressed her desire to see an alternative plan in place before the potential shuttering of the Chumir site, however she maintained that it is not within the city’s purview to offer its opinion on the fate of the SCS.
“If you close it down without having anything else to offer, all of those people will be forced onto the street, creating trauma for themselves, creating crisis situations for themselves, as well as the community,” Gondek said outside council chambers Tuesday.
Calgarians rallied to keep the SCS at Sheldon Chumir
On Tuesday morning, roughly 70 SCS supporters gathered outside city hall to call on council to defend the site.
Sydney Boa, an organizer of Tuesday’s rally who’s also a member of the local harm reduction advocacy group Street Cats, doesn’t want to see the site shut down. She added that a new SCS would need to open its doors before the current site closes, to prevent a gap in service.
Boa said the site’s clients view the SCS as a safe space where they’re cared for, and where staff know them and their medical needs.
“It’s just a community and a place of belonging for a lot of people who otherwise have nowhere else to go,” Boa said.
Rather than closing the Chumir site, Boa said she’d like to see more sites opened in different quadrants of the city, and additional services such as inhalation capacity, which she argued would contribute to curbing public drug use.
Harm reduction advocates, health care professionals and community members gathered at Calgary City Hall Tuesday morning as council prepares to vote on a motion asking the province to shut down the SCS at Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.
Addictions medicine and internal medicine specialist Kate Colizza, who attended Tuesday’s rally, said the site has become a scapegoat for social disorder problems that are being seen around the city and country, and that closing the site without additional supports or a transition plan in place will lead to more overdose deaths and further disorder.
“Closing this site is going to cause immeasurable harm and actually worsen some of those concerns,” Colizza said, who argued that low-barrier mental health supports and more investment in affordable housing is needed.
Addiction medicine physician Meera Grover, another rally attendee, said it’s important for her to be able to recommend her patients access the SCS.
“This is the gold standard of care for people with substance use disorders who are in active use,” Grover said.