Community consultations should include answers

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/02/2025 (213 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The two main objectives of community consultations is to gather feedback from members of the public and to provide answers to their questions.

Done properly, community consultations should be open to everyone, including the news media, and should include a free flow of questions and answers.

It’s curious, then, that the Manitoba government’s community consultations on a proposed supervised drug site in Point Douglas does not appear to be following those criteria.

Last Thursday, for the second week in a row, Addictions Minister Bernadette Smith and her consultation team held public meetings on a proposed supervised consumption site at 200 Disraeli Fwy. in Point Douglas.

While the meetings were largely open to the public, reporters were banned from attending and questions about community safety around the proposed site (which would be the first in Manitoba) were either discouraged or not answered, according to some who attended the meeting.

“We didn’t walk away with any questions answered,” said Audrey Kohinsky, one of about 150 people who attended the event. “There was nothing to do with what they (are) going to do if the crime rate skyrockets. They just didn’t address it at all, they just shut it down.”

That is the antithesis of what community consultations are supposed to be about. Instead of listening to people’s concerns and answering their questions, it appears government officials spent most of their time trying to communicate their own message.

One attendee said the meeting felt “performative.”

This newspaper would have liked to give readers a more complete report of what transpired at the meeting. But because the news media was banned from attending, that was not possible. It appears government was more concerned with controlling the message than consulting with the public.

There is no doubt that supervised consumption sites are needed in Manitoba. They not only save lives by intervening when drug users overdose, they connect people with addictions treatment options and health-care services. They also provide users with harm reduction supplies, such as clean pipes and needles to reduce the spread of infectious disease.

Health Canada reports that there has not been a single overdose death at any of the supervised consumption sites across the country.

Meanwhile, the number of overdose deaths in Manitoba continues to grow at an alarming rate. There were 400 suspected overdoses or drug poisonings from Jan. 1, 2024 to Aug. 31, 2024, according to preliminary data provided by the chief medical examiner. There were a record 467 deaths in 2022 and 445 deaths in 2023.

The need to provide drug users with a place to consume drugs under the supervision of health-care staff is unquestionable. The opportunity to help those who want to recover by connecting them with treatment services is invaluable.

But there are also legitimate questions about safety around supervised consumption sites that must be answered. Will they attract drug dealers to those communities and will there be a commensurate increase in crime? Will neighbourhoods see an increase in discarded drug paraphernalia, such as used syringes?

People have a right to express those concerns and to ask questions about them. Government has a duty to respond. There are reasonable answers to those questions and there are steps government and law enforcement can take to address those risks.

Those questions should be answered in open forums and the media should be allowed to report on them to ensure those who cannot attend stay informed.

Hiding behind scripted meetings disguised as “community consultation” does nothing to advance the cause of supervised consumption sites.