Focused on opening safe consumption site: addictions minister

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As the search for the right spot for Manitoba’s first supervised consumption site continues, advocates gathered at the legislative building Friday to emphasize harm reduction work in the province is far from over.

Hundreds of Winnipeggers, some carrying photos of loved ones who have died, filled the legislature’s rotunda to mark International Overdose Awareness Day, formally observed Saturday. The day is held annually to remember those who have died from a drug overdose and to advocate for harm reduction practices worldwide.

Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said the provincial NDP is still working with the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre to decide where the promised supervised consumption site will be, but that the process is moving forward and more drug-checking machines will be installed in the province in the coming months.

Premier Wab Kinew said in April a supervised drug site would not be opened in Winnipeg this year but $2.5 million was promised for a facility in the spring budget with an eye on opening it in 2025.

The site is expected to be in or near downtown. Manitoba is the only province west of New Brunswick without a safe consumption site.

“We are focused on opening up our first supervised consumption site, that is our goal — right now, (it’s) really on getting that up and running, making sure it’s an integrated model, that we have all the supports that are needed in there,” Smith said Friday.

When the site is running, the work must continue, said Dr. Marcia Anderson, the vice-dean of Indigenous health, social justice and anti-racism at the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.

“One supervised consumption site, commitment to ongoing funding for (the mobile overdose prevention site) at Sunshine House, those are very important steps, but they are only the first steps. They are only the start,” she said, noting a safer supply drug program in the city must be a priority.

Drug-related deaths in Manitoba reached a near-record high of 53 in April, the most recent preliminary numbers provided by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner show. That is up from 29 in March and 33 in February. It is the highest monthly number since 57 deaths were reported in August 2021.

Meanwhile, carnations helped mark the unveiling of a showy mountain ash tree planted on the northwest site of the grounds in remembrance of people who have died or had their lives impacted by a drug overdose or poisoning.

For the first time in harm reduction advocate Arlene Last-Kolb’s memory, the International Overdose Awareness Day services were held inside of the legislative building’s rotunda on an invitation from the provincial government Friday, rather than on the building’s steps.

“(I’m) happy not to be having to stand on the steps to do what government should be doing,” Last-Kolb, who works with Moms Stop the Harm, said.

“To be invited in, this is historical.”

Smith noted her executive assistant’s daughter died of a drug poisoning several weeks ago. She was headed to the funeral after the morning’s ceremonies. She, herself, lost her father to a drug overdose 21 years ago.

The minister handed out certificates of recognition to several advocates in attendance, including Last-Kolb and members of the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network, thanking them for their work.

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“We came from a (Progressive Conservative) government for seven and a half years that didn’t take a harm reduction approach, folks really felt closed out, locked out, really not listened to,” she said.

Last-Kolb, who has been a constant face at protests, vigils and policy meetings since losing her son Jesse to a drug overdose in 2014, said she’s taking a step back from advocacy work.

She believes the progress she has pushed toward for a decade is finally on the right path in Manitoba.

“I think that we’ve achieved the change that we need to make.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.