Province commits $4 million for overdose response teams and 35 detox and pre-treatment beds in Calgary

Expanding access to detox and recovery in Calgary

Alberta’s government is investing in detox, recovery and dynamic overdose response services at the Drop-In Centre in Calgary.

Every Albertan struggling with addiction deserves the opportunity to pursue recovery. As part of building a recovery-oriented system of care, Alberta’s government is providing more than $4 million to the Calgary Drop-In Centre to create dynamic overdose response teams and establish 35 medical detox and pre-treatment beds, capable of supporting up to 1,000 Calgarians every year.

This partnership stems from the efforts led by the Calgary Public Safety and Community Response Task Force to improve public safety while treating addiction and mental health as healthcare issues.

“We’re continuing to treat mental health and addiction as health-care issues by building recovery-oriented systems of care to ensure every Albertan has the opportunity to pursue recovery. Whether it’s rapidly responding to an overdose, accessing medical detox or pre-treatment, the impact of this funding will be life-saving and life-changing for so many Albertans.”

Nicholas Milliken, Minister of Mental Health and Addiction

“Our government’s focus on addiction recovery and supports for those facing homelessness is bringing positive change for Calgary. The Calgary Drop-In Centre does incredible work to provide services for many individuals facing homelessness. With more access to addiction recovery treatment, more Albertans will be able to get the help they need to overcome their challenges.”

Jeremy Nixon, Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services, and chair, Calgary Public Safety and Community Response Task Force

With this funding, the Calgary Drop-In Centre will significantly increase its treatment capacity. This includes:

15 medical detox beds and 20 pre-treatment beds: Albertans struggling with addiction will be supported to safely withdraw from drugs or alcohol under medical supervision. They will also be provided with pre-treatment support to prevent relapse and better understand treatment options as they continue their pursuit of recovery.

Dynamic overdose response teams: To keep communities safe while treating addiction as a health-care issue, the Calgary Drop-In Centre will work in conjunction with local paramedics, first responders and community organizations to respond to overdoses both at the Drop-In Centre as well as in the community.

“People struggling with mental health and addiction deserve compassion and support, and at the Drop-In Centre they receive both. We’re pleased to work with Alberta’s government to deliver critical services to those in need and help more vulnerable people in our communities pursue recovery from addiction.”

Sandra Clarkson, executive director, Calgary Drop-In Centre

These additional medical detox and pre-treatment beds, capable of supporting up to 1,000 Calgarians every year, will be life-saving and life-changing for countless people in the years to come. All publicly funded detox, treatment and recovery spaces are free for Albertans, with no user fees.

Alberta’s government is continuing to build a recovery-oriented system of care, where everyone struggling with addiction and mental health challenges is supported in their pursuit of recovery. This includes initiatives like eliminating fees for residential addiction treatment, launching the Digital Overdose Response System (DORS) app and expanding access to opioid agonist treatment.

In December 2022, Alberta’s government established two new cabinet task forces to bring community partners together to address the issues of addiction, homelessness and public safety in Calgary and Edmonton. The two Public Safety and Community Response Task Forces are responsible for implementing $187 million in provincial funding to further build out a recovery-oriented system of addiction and mental health care. The initiatives being implemented are part of a fair, firm and compassionate approach to keeping communities safe while treating addiction and mental health as health-care issues.

Quick facts

Alberta’s government is providing $3.8 million per year, with $1.6 million for dynamic overdose response services and nearly $2.2 million to offer 15 detox and 20 pre-treatment beds, capable of supporting up to 1,000 Calgarians annually. There was also a one-time investment of about $450,000 for capital improvements.
Clients with opioid addiction will also be able to immediately start on evidence-based opioid treatment medications like suboxone and sublocade through Alberta’s Virtual Opioid Dependency Program.
Alberta spends more than $1 billion annually on addiction and mental health care and supports, including prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery.
Any Albertan struggling with addiction can contact 211 Alberta to connect with local services and virtual supports. 211 is free, confidential and available 24-7.
The Virtual Opioid Dependency Program provides same-day access to addiction medicine physicians and life-saving medications to Albertans across the province. Albertans can call 1-844-383-7688 seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

Government of Alberta

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

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Alberta awash in corporate welfare

Published on July 26, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

To understand Ottawa’s negative impact on Alberta’s economy and living standards, juxtapose two recent pieces of data.

First, in July the Trudeau government made three separate “economic development” spending announcements in Alberta, totalling more than $80 million and affecting 37 different projects related to the “green economy,” clean technology and agriculture. And second, as noted in a new essay by Fraser Institute senior fellow Kenneth Green, inflation-adjusted business investment (excluding residential structures) in Canada’s extraction sector (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) fell 51.2 per cent from 2014 to 2022.

The productivity gains that raise living standards and improve economic conditions rely on business investment. But business investment in Canada has declined over the past decade and total economic growth per person (inflation-adjusted) from Q3-2015 through to Q1-2024 has been less than 1 per cent versus robust growth of nearly 16 per cent in the United States over the same period.

For Canada’s extraction sector, as Green documents, federal policies—new fuel regulations, extended review processes on major infrastructure projects, an effective ban on oil shipments on British Columbia’s northern coast, a hard greenhouse gas emissions cap targeting oil and gas, and other regulatory initiatives—are largely to blame for the massive decline in investment.

Meanwhile, as Ottawa impedes private investment, its latest bundle of economic development announcements underscores its strategy to have government take the lead in allocating economic resources, whether for infrastructure and public institutions or for corporate welfare to private companies.

Consider these federally-subsidized projects.

A gas cloud imaging company received $4.1 million from taxpayers to expand marketing, operations and product development. The Battery Metals Association of Canada received $850,000 to “support growth of the battery metals sector in Western Canada by enhancing collaboration and education stakeholders.” A food manufacturer in Lethbridge received $5.2 million to increase production of plant-based protein products. Ermineskin Cree Nation received nearly $400,000 for a feasibility study for a new solar farm. The Town of Coronation received almost $900,000 to renovate and retrofit two buildings into a business incubator. The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada received $400,000 for marketing and other support to help boost clean technology product exports. And so on.

When the Trudeau government announced all this corporate welfare and spending, it naturally claimed it create economic growth and good jobs. But corporate welfare doesn’t create growth and good jobs, it only directs resources (including labour) to subsidized sectors and businesses and away from sectors and businesses that must be more heavily taxed to support the subsidies. The effect of government initiatives that reduce private investment and replace it with government spending is a net economic loss.

As 20th-century business and economics journalist Henry Hazlitt put it, the case for government directing investment (instead of the private sector) relies on politicians and bureaucrats—who did not earn the money and to whom the money does not belong—investing that money wisely and with almost perfect foresight. Of course, that’s preposterous.

Alas, this replacement of private-sector investment with public spending is happening not only in Alberta but across Canada today due to the Trudeau government’s fiscal policies. Lower productivity and lower living standards, the data show, are the unhappy results.

Author:

Matthew Lau

Adjunct Scholar, Fraser Institute

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‘Fireworks’ As Defence Opens Case In Coutts Two Trial

Published on July 25, 2024

Todayville

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Ray McGinnis

Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial for conspiracy to commit murder and firearms charges in relation to the Coutts Blockade into mid-February 2022. In opening her case before a Lethbridge, AB, jury on July 11, Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns stated “This is a political, criminal trial that is un Canadian.” She told the jury, “You will be shocked, and at the very least, disappointed with how Canada’s own RCMP conducted themselves during and after the Coutts protest,” as she summarized officers’ testimony during presentation of the Crown’s case. Burns also contended that “the conduct of Alberta’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government are entwined with the RCMP.” The arrests of the Coutts Four on the night of February 13 and noon hour of February 14, were key events in a decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, and the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, to advise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. Chief Justice Paul Rouleau, in submitting his Public Order Emergency Commission Report to Parliament on February 17, 2023, also cited events at the Coutts Blockade as key to his conclusion that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act.

Justice David Labrenz cautioned attorney Burns regarding her language, after Crown prosecutor Stephen Johnson objected to some of the language in the opening statement of Olienick’s counsel. Futher discussion about the appropriateness of attorney Burns’ statement to the jury is behind a publication ban, as discussions occurred without the jury present.

Justice Labrenz told the jury on July 12, “I would remind you that the presumption of innocence means that both the accused are cloaked with that presumption, unless the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charge(s).” He further clarified what should result if the jurors were uncertain about which narrative to believe: the account by the Crown, or the account from the accused lawyers. Labrenz stated that such ambivalence must lead to an acquittal; As such a degree of uncertainty regarding which case to trust in does not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for a conviction.”

On July 15, 2024, a Lethbridge jury heard evidence from a former employer of Olienicks’ named Brian Lambert. He stated that he had tasked Olienick run his sandstone quarry and mining business. He was a business partner with Olienick. In that capacity, Olienick made use of what Lambert referred to as “little firecrackers,” to quarry the sandstone and reduce it in size. Reducing the size of the stone renders it manageable to get refined and repurposed so it could be sold to buyers of stone for other uses (building construction, patio stones, etc.) Lambert explained that the “firecrackers” were “explosive devices” packaged within tubing and pipes that could also be used for plumbing. He detailed how “You make them out of ordinary plumbing pipe and use some kind of propellant like shotgun powder…” Lambert explained that the length of the pipe “…depended on how big a hole or how large a piece of stone you were going to crack. The one I saw was about six inches long … maybe an inch in diameter.”

One of Olienick’s charges is “unlawful possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.” The principal evidence offered up by RCMP to the Crown is what the officers depicted as “pipe bombs” which they obtained at the residence of Anthony Olienick in Claresholm, Alberta, about a two-hour drive from Coutts. Officers entered his home after he was arrested the night of February 13, 2022. Lambert’s testimony offers a plausible common use for the “firecrackers” the RCMP referred to as “pipe bombs.” Lambert added, these “firecrackers” have a firecracker fuse, and in the world of “explosive” they are “no big deal.”

Fellow accused, Chris Carbert, is does not face the additional charge of unlawful possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose. This is the first full week of the case for the defence. The trial began on June 6 when the Crown began presenting its case.

Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy who recently attended several days of testimony at the Coutts Two trial.