Mixed reaction to province's review of supervised consumption sites across Alberta

Reaction is mixed surrounding the findings of a review of supervised consumption sites released in Calgary on Thursday.

A committee appointed by the Alberta government looked into the effects of the sites on crime rates, social order, property values and businesses.

Alberta's associate minister of mental health and addictions Jason Luan said he's deeply troubled by the findings.

While some say the process was unfair, others are encouraged by the report.

Bonnie Larson, a family physician with the Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS), was protesting outside the MacDougall Centre on Thursday.

She said the panel in charge of collecting data did not pay attention to the organization.

"When folks stood up and said, 'Hey, I want to talk about the benefits of supervised consumption on harm reduction,' they said, 'We know about that already,'" Larson said.

In Lethbridge, where there have been concerns of needle debris and safety, Mayor Chris Spearman said there are still questions that need to be answered.

"If the supervised consumption site is shut down, what then happens with needle debris and needle distribution?" Spearman said. "Will there be more of that throughout the city? I think we need to have considered responses."

David Low runs the business improvement area in Victoria Park in Calgary, just blocks away from the Sheldon Chumir Health Centre consumption site.

"We've got to figure out a way to reset," Low said. "I say this a lot — reset the experiment, reset the conversations so that we can move forward." 

Low said he is encouraged by the idea of getting more information about how things have been working or not working. 

"This raises a lot more questions and how can we start digging into this, because the lack of really good data around this has been incredibly frustrating."

He said he approves of the province studying supervised consumption sites on a city-by-city basis.

"I was quite heartened by that approach, and not take a blanket, 'These things are terrible and we want to shut them down all over Alberta,'" he said. "I think every city … every site is different, and behaves differently. So Calgary is different than Lethbridge, than Edmonton."