‘Open-Air Drug Use Cannot Be Tolerated’: Alberta Set to Take Firm Action

A peace officer cruises the streets close to the downtown area of Edmonton on June 15, 2022. The Canadian Press/Jason Franson

Alberta’s public safety minister is heading a new interagency task force to take action on drug use and homelessness in Edmonton. It aims to create a hybrid justice and health system, a model that could then spread to other cities in Alberta.

“I don’t think you need to walk more than a block to see someone using meth in the open air space,” Edmonton Police Chief Dale McFee said at the announcement of the initiative on Dec. 13. “That’s not acceptable. … So what you see here now is leadership, real leadership to say this is enough.”

The city should have a zero-tolerance policy toward drug use, he said, “not by using the justice system as the hammer, but using a multi-discipline approach.”

He and other members of the task force said this is the first time they’ve seen such strong interagency cooperation and readiness for action. “I’ve been around a long time, [and] this is the first time that I’ve seen the right ministers take the right approach, in my opinion, to actually drive change,” McFee said.

Health and Justice

The task force will coordinate police efforts with local and provincial agencies. With $187 million in funding, it will build a hybrid health and police hub as well as therapeutic living spaces for addiction recovery within prisons. It will also expand shelter and detox services.

“Open-air drug use cannot be tolerated,” said Mike Ellis, minister of public safety and emergency services. “The police have to be at the center of this,” he said.

“If crimes are being committed, then yes, those people do need to be arrested. Unfortunately, having an addiction doesn’t absolve you from criminal responsibility,” Ellis said. “But we also have a duty to make sure that when you have that addiction, that we’re there for you as a government.”

Ellis served as a police officer in Calgary. He said 20 years ago, his only option was to write someone a ticket or make an arrest. Now, police can help people by directing them into the services they need to keep them out of the justice system long-term.

Chief McFee said he expects to divert some 20 percent of the people who would normally enter the justice system and get them into the health care system. People will get the help they need, and the justice system will also function better, he said.

In the Shelters

Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services Jeremy Nixon spoke of his experience working in shelters. He recalled a man named Andrew who had made the decision to get help for his addiction, but there was no room for him at a detox center. He saw another young man enter the justice system and return to the shelter eight times.

“We need to do better for these people, these folks who get involved in the justice system, to make sure we can help them with appropriate transitions and we can help them to be able to escape the streets,” Nixon said.

He said he was happy to see Chief Isaac A. Laboucan-Avirom, Woodland Cree First Nation, on the task force. The indigenous population makes up a large portion of people in the justice system, and Nixon said he has witnessed the positive impact culturally appropriate community outreach can have on indigenous youth.

Other Measures

Task force members responded to media questions about their position on measures used in other regions to address these social problems.

Ellis and McFee said the province and Alberta’s police chiefs do not support the decriminalization of drugs. Harm-reduction measures are only one aspect of the holistic approach Alberta is taking, Ellis said. Harm-reduction measures there include evidence-based opioid treatment, he said.

Ellis said the province is considering in which cases people might be forced into addiction services. For example, he said, if you have a person who is overdosing regularly and who is a threat to himself and the community, that may warrant forced treatment.

The task force is an extension of the province’s earlier commitment to a recovery-based approach to addiction. On Nov. 18, Premier Danielle Smith addressed the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, saying, “The approach we are taking has reduced opioid deaths 51 percent year- over-year. We’ve reduced hospitalizations by 33 percent. We have reduced the number of ambulance visits by 39 percent and we’re going to continue doing it.”