Proposed Disraeli Freeway location for supervised consumption site off the table, Kinew says

Premier Wab Kinew said Wednesday that Manitoba’s first supervised consumption site won’t be opened at a previously proposed Disraeli Freeway location.

“We are looking at other locations,” Kinew said in response to a question asked at an unrelated RBC Convention Centre event, adding the government heard the concerns of community members who felt the site, announced last December, was too close to a daycare and a high school.

“When we listen to residents in one area and hear them say, ‘This is not the right fit for the neighbourhood,’ we take that seriously,” he said after addressing the Assembly of First Nations.

“We did a good faith consultation with the community. There’s clearly a desire to look at other locations. We’re doing that work now.”

Catherine Flynn, chair of the Point Douglas Residents Committee, welcomed the news because she said her neighbourhood is “pretty traumatized by crime and assaults and break-ins” and can’t handle more.

She said there was no room, in conversations with government officials, to have a nuanced discussion about the possibility that a site could increase crime — and that it didn’t appear substantive safety planning was being done for residents.

Flynn argued the debate has been unfairly presented in the media as a divide between people with a “not in my backyard” mindset and those wanting to alleviate suffering. The reality, she said, is that it’s not a polarized issue: it’s an “in-between issue.”

“Point Douglas is not a community without compassion. You have people in there who have family members with addictions, you have people in there who are recovered,” Flynn said. “You’re dealing with a community that has so much direct experience, on every level, with addictions.”

She said the consultation process was driven by the community, and not the government.

Last Friday at an International Overdose Awareness Day event, Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith was unable to provide a timeline for a site to begin operations, other than to say it would be before the end of the NDP government’s first term in 2027.

The remark was a significant departure from one she made in July, when she said the province was “on track” to open a facility by the end of the calendar year.

The NDP made the creation of a site one of its campaign planks in the weeks before the October 2023 provincial election.

Kinew said the sooner an acceptable location is found, the sooner a site can open. The facility would allow people to inject drugs, with staff on hand to respond to overdoses and guide people toward treatment and various other health and social services.

“Fundamentally what this is all about is saving lives. We have too many Manitobans dying from overdose. That’s a strain on families, that’s a strain on health care and the government services that we provide to everybody,” he said. “So this is one tool that we think we can use to help improve things.

“We are listening to the community around the location and so we’re taking a hard look at what the best fit will be so that we can open the door.”

He did not provide any alternative locations under consideration.

“The reason why we’re taking our time to get this right is we want that impact to be as positive as possible and to mitigate any of the unforeseen spinoff effects,” he said.

“One of the things we’ve said is that what happens outside of the supervised consumption site is probably as important as what happens inside.”

Kinew said the “outside” components will include safety patrols and Winnipeg Police Service involvement.

“Being able to ensure that we’re not going to see people descending on that area to prey on people — things like human trafficking — these are all important considerations,” he said.

The Progressive Conservatives have long opposed opening a supervised consumption site in Manitoba. Leader Obby Khan said the province must withdraw its application to the federal government to license a facility at the Disraeli location.

Kinew said that while that location won’t be used for supervised consumption, it will serve as a “navigation centre” — the first point of contact for “somebody getting out of a tent” as part of the province’s homelessness strategy.

“We’re going to be putting other health services (there) to help folks who are dealing with some pretty serious challenges in that area, so it’s still very much on the table in terms of being part of the overall strategy,” he said.

David Vrel, a Point Douglas resident who attended community consultations on the Disraeli location earlier this year and was critical of the decision to put it in the neighbourhood, said while he was happy to hear opponents’ concerns were heard, he said the plan for a facility needs to be scrapped entirely.

“Ultimately, I’m just glad that it’s being pushed off. Hopefully our leaders will determine that it’s a stupid idea all around,” he said.

He said while the local Point Douglas Residents Association held its own meetings to organize pushback against the proposed location, consultations held by the province were difficult for many people to attend.

“If they’re not going to go with this local location, then that’s great, because that’ll put it off for another year or two,” he said. “But if politicians are listening to us, they should come to a meeting with more of us, where they can actually accommodate all of us.”

Longtime advocate for addictions treatment Arlene Last-Kolb is concerned that the province’s decision to change its plans because of opposition to the proposed site will unjustly delay life-saving treatment for some.

“No matter where they go, they’re going to get this,” she said. “They’re going to have to go through all the town hall stuff, and they’re going to get the same kind of thing, where people aren’t going to want it.”

The site has to be central, close to where people using drugs are, she said.

“My concern, too, is that the government wants to do this, but they’ve said over and over again that they have to have all the resources to go with it. Well, that’s a hefty, hefty thing, right? Maybe that’s not ready,” she said.

“Maybe, I don’t know, does this buy more time? I don’t really know.”

— With files from Malak Abas, Marsha McLeod and Canadian Press

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.cca