{"id":550161,"date":"2026-03-21T01:09:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/550161\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:09:18","slug":"alberta-government-to-close-calgarys-only-supervised-drug-use-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/550161\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta government to close Calgary\u2019s only supervised drug-use site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

People wait to enter the Safeworks supervised drug-use site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in Calgary in 2021.Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

After five years of back-and-forth by the Alberta government on the fate of Calgary\u2019s only supervised drug-use site, the province announced that the service will close its doors this summer.<\/p>\n

Mike Ellis, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, said the Calgary site, in addition to a mobile unit in Lethbridge, will cease operations by the end of June. The Calgary Safeworks site, where people can inject drugs under medical supervision, has been open since October, 2017, inside a downtown hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can care deeply about people battling addiction and still believe that communities deserve to be safe,\u201d said Mr. Ellis, who was joined by Rick Wilson, Minister of Mental Health and Addiction. \u201cOur government refuses to pretend that one must come at the expense of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Wilson said the province has no plans to close Alberta\u2019s remaining sites in Edmonton and Grande Prairie. He noted the capital accounts for about 60 per cent of drug-related deaths in Alberta and \u201cwe need better insight into exactly what is happening.\u201d More than 600 people died in Edmonton last year.<\/p>\n

After some Toronto supervised drug-use sites forced to close, remaining services shoulder the fallout<\/a><\/p>\n

Supervised drug-use sites have become highly politicized in Canada, particularly among conservative-leaning governments that favour recovery-focused supports over harm reduction. Ontario earlier this week cut funding<\/a> for seven sites in the province.<\/p>\n

Advocates for drug-use sites say they are a critical resource that saves lives and provides pathways for people to access social services and treatment. But community residents and governments have expressed concern over social disorder and crime in the vicinity \u2013 a perspective that has taken centre stage in the debate across Canada.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wilson said funding for the Calgary site will be reinvested to expand addictions treatment, detox and other recovery supports, in addition to 24-hour outreach teams.<\/p>\n

The ministers highlighted a recent study, conducted by an Alberta Crown corporation, that found the closing of a Red Deer site did not lead to increased deaths, hospital visits or ambulance calls among former site users. The study and its authors have come under scrutiny<\/a> by academics who say the paper has limited supports for those claims.<\/p>\n

The United Conservative government has been critical of drug-use sites since it came to power in 2019. <\/p>\n

The UCP first announced it would shutter the Calgary site in 2021, arguing it was disruptive to the surrounding neighbourhood. But the closing was postponed owing to a number of issues, including that the province was unable<\/a> to find providers willing to house new sites to replace the downtown service.<\/p>\n

Opinion: The opioid crisis is hitting skilled Canadian tradespeople. Now\u2019s our chance to support them<\/a><\/p>\n

Health care staff at the Calgary site have responded to more than 8,000 overdoses since opening, the majority of which required lifesaving interventions such as naloxone and oxygen. There have been no deaths on site.<\/p>\n

There were 12,572 visits to Safeworks with 542 unique individuals and staff handled 160 adverse drug reactions in the third quarter of 2025, according to the latest provincial data. <\/p>\n

Kelly Deschamps has been accessing Safeworks for roughly four years. He has had staff reverse overdoses and also relies on the site for access to housing supports, sterile drug supplies and to get messages left for him with staff, as he doesn\u2019t have a cellphone.<\/p>\n

In an interview on Wednesday, he said he wants to stop using drugs but hasn\u2019t been able to yet. Mr. Deschamps is afraid of what will happen when the site closes, not just for himself but also for his friends, who will be at greater risk of overdose outside of Safeworks\u2019 walls.<\/p>\n

He said it will also push drug use more into the public eye. \u201cPeople don\u2019t want to see that. I worry about the kids especially,\u201d Mr. Deschamps said.<\/p>\n

The last days of Kitchener\u2019s supervised drug-use site<\/a><\/p>\n

City councillor Nathaniel Schmidt, whose ward houses the site, said he wants greater clarity from the province on what supports will be available when Safeworks closes. He is worried emergency services, including police and fire, which are already at \u201cmaximum capacity,\u201d will be further strained.<\/p>\n

Alberta has already shut down a number of sites, including in Edmonton, Red Deer and Lethbridge, as it forges ahead with its recovery-oriented drug policy. The province was sued in November, 2024, by Aaron Brown over the Red Deer closing, which Mr. Brown argues violates his Charter-protected rights. The legal challenge<\/a> is continuing.<\/p>\n

Lawyer Avnish Nanda, who represents Mr. Brown, said he expects the government will face additional challenges over the new closings, which he said will result in more deaths and grievous injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just defies what public-health experts, front-line responders and people who live with these conditions have been saying. In order for them to access recovery, they have to be alive,\u201d Mr. Nanda said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSupervised consumption services ensure they\u2019re alive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: People wait to enter the Safeworks supervised drug-use site at the Sheldon M.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48,1008],"class_list":{"0":"post-550161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-calgary","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-pleasemod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}