What is happening in my province is heartbreaking. We have seen a government with a myopic focus on treatment. Trust me: treatment is important. We love treatment. We love recovery as families, but we have to make sure that people are well and alive.
Even within that treatment model, a recovery-oriented system of care has been in place for four and a half years, yet, as you outlined, we have some of the highest increases in the country.
I recently tried to get somebody into detox. You have to show up at detox three days in a row at 9 o'clock in the morning to get the person in. Explain to somebody using stimulants that they will get up early, go with me three days in a row, and maybe on day three I'll get them in.
The recovery community in Red Deer has a six-month waiting list. My dear friend, Esther Tailfeathers is from the Blood Tribe in southern Alberta, where the government closed the consumption site. Lethbridge now has a per capita rate that is three times that of other communities. It was the only site that had inhalation. More people have moved to inhalation, and we don't provide these services throughout.
In southern Alberta, in Lethbridge, the Blood Tribe was promised a recovery community three and a half years ago. They have one ceremonial shovel in the ground, but no building forward.
Not only is it a myopic focus on what is called “recovery”, but it's in name only. It is actually not available to people who need it, where the drug supply is getting more toxic, and you see it in the increases.
For me, the true measure of success of any policy approach is when my friends don't have to arrange funerals. That is a true measure of success. Our board chair, Traci Letts, is just planning the future funeral of her son. As long as this is going on, the model is not successful, and Alberta's model is failing us. When people push recovery without harm reduction, without addressing prevention—nobody's talking about prevention anymore.... I'm glad my fellow speakers have raised this point.