Tory request to curb mobile drug site ‘regressive’

The operators of Manitoba’s only mobile overdose prevention centre decried the Progressive Conservatives as “fear-mongering” after the party’s leader wrote a letter urging Ottawa to deny its application to continue providing services Thursday.

Sunshine House’s Mobile Overdose Prevention Site — an RV that included a space for people to use drugs around staff members trained in harm reduction — was totalled in a hit-and-run July 2. It featured a machine that can test drugs for dangerous additives and free harm-reduction supplies.

The Salvation Army gave the organization a decommissioned ambulance to use, but Sunshine House is in the process of re-applying for the federal exemption that allows them to operate.

Tory Leader Obby Khan and PC housing, addictions and homelessness critic Carrie Hiebert said in a news release Thursday they wrote a letter urging federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel to deny that application.

Khan pointed to publicly available data showing there were fewer calls to the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service about overdoses and fewer naloxone administrations by paramedics while the van was out of commission in July than there was in June. He suggested that shows “the van is contributing to the number of overdoses” on city streets.

“We’re just looking at putting the brakes on this,” Hiebert told the Free Press Thursday.

Data sets published by the city show the WFPS administered naloxone 466 times to 264 patients in July, compared with 619 naloxone administrations and 340 patients in June.

Hiebert said she and her colleagues are calling for an extended pause to allow for more data-gathering and analysis over the coming months. The MLA for Morden-Winkler also warned restoring services with a decommissioned ambulance could confuse users and members of the public alike about the staff and resources on board.

“We need to look at how (this program is) affecting treatment and recovery. That should be our No. 1 goal, always — treatment and recovery,” she said.

Levi Foy, Sunshine House’s executive director, dismissed the comments as “cheap political points to demonize drug users.”

The WFPS gave out a particularly high number of naloxone doses in May — 598 — and the next month. The last time there were more than 600 naloxone doses administered in a month was December 2023.

The high numbers could mean there was enough naloxone distribution in the community in July, and people might have been more aware of that and less reliant on emergency services, Foy said.

“It’s naive, and it’s fear mongering to say that our services are contributing to overdose deaths when it’s clear our data doesn’t support that,” Foy said.

“Anecdotally, the service providers who we partner with all the time, they also will say that when we’re not able to operate our services, that they see a spike in responses.”

The RV required an exemption under section 56.1 of the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to operate.

Summer typically has higher than usual overdose numbers. The average number of naloxone administrations from January to April 2025 was 260.

Not all naloxone and other harm reduction is reported to the WFPS, Foy noted.

“It’s a very regressive and hateful kind of approach to take to this because at the end of the day, if you take this service off, and then we see a spike, then what’s your solution?” Foy said.

While the vehicle is out of service, Sunshine House staff are still providing most services near its Logan Avenue building, including handing out harm-reduction supplies and and drug-checking strips.

In its most recent annual report, the van recorded more than 26,000 visits from Oct. 28, 2022 to Oct. 31, 2023. There were 7,086 visits to consume drugs, which resulted in 20 overdose incidents, four trips to the hospital and no deaths.

There were 81 deaths related to substance use in Manitoba in the first two months of 2025, the most recent data available show. Preliminary data show there were 570 deaths related to substance use in 2024.

— with files from Maggie Macintosh

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca