City hotelier steps up in fight against meth

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This article was published 30/08/2018 (2758 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg hotel owner who has had two guests die from methamphetamine overdoses in recent months is seeking to crowd-source $1 million to treat addicts at a private detox centre.

Mike Bruneau said he has already sponsored two people, including a young woman addicted to meth, for treatment at the Aurora Recovery Centre, where a 30-day treatment program runs close to $20,000.

“Something has to be done here,” Bruneau said Thursday. “I’m going to sponsor people to go to the Aurora who don’t have money and, to prove my point, I’ll put my money where my mouth is and sponsor someone right off the bat.”

Bruneau once owned the Gimli-area Aurora property, as a lodge, and subsequently transformed it into an addictions centre before selling it to a St. Louis, Mo.-area investor, who took on the 70-bed facility in 2016.

“We are working now on establishing charitable organization status, which will allow us to raise money so we can send addicts to Aurora,” Bruneau said.

It’s not the first time he has stepped up to take a social justice campaign public.

Bruneau took in evacuees from Interlake First Nations displaced in the 2011 flood (at the then-Misty Lake Lodge). He blew the whistle after allegations of drug use and sexual abuse surfaced involving an agency contracted to handle accommodations for evacuees.

Left with an outstanding bill of $2.5 million, Bruneau filed a lawsuit against Ottawa that remains unsettled, he said.

Aurora Centre chief executive officer Paul Melnuk said in a phone interview Thursday he understands where Bruneau is coming from with the crowd-sourcing campaign.

Melnuk said running Aurora is a way to combine his business interests with his personal passion as a recovering addict. “We are a facility that treats addictions and mental health issues… Since we opened in 2016, about 14 per cent of our intake has (involved) meth.”

Bruneau owns about 14 hotels, many of them close to First Nations in Manitoba and Ontario, along with two hotels in Winnipeg associated with vulnerable populations and crime: the Westbrook Inn and King’s Hotel.

Twice in the last year, Bruneau said King’s tenants have died of meth overdoses.

“You don’t know how bad it is unless you see it… In the last year, I’d say it’s getting crazy, going really nuts,” he said.

Staff at King’s confirmed Thursday they routinely deal with behaviour they suspect is related to methamphetamine use.

Four months ago, a man in his 60s, once a certified plumber, had spiralled down to the point where he wasn’t seen for four or five consecutive days.

Staff at King’s grew concerned, and the hotel manager knocked on the man’s door. It was unlocked. The man was found dead, seated in a chair. The smell was overpowering.

“It horrified me. I had to block it out,” the manager said.

“He had the needle still stuck in his arm,” Bruneau said.

A couple months prior, another man was found dead in his room, also related to meth use.

Winnipeg police, addictions workers and politicians made the rising meth crisis a public issue. Violent crime has spiked in the city in the last year. While other regions of Canada are in the throes of an opioid epidemic, crystal meth has become the drug of choice in the province, the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba said in a recent report.

Meanwhile, wait lists for publicly funded options are limited — there’s a six-week wait for assessment before clients can sign up for treatment. A proposed private addictions centre in the St. James neighbourhood — to be named for the son of a well-known Canadian sports broadcaster — seems hung up on objections from neighbours opposed to an addictions facility in their backyard.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca