Winnipeg could bypass province to establish supervised consumption site, councillor suggests
Province has previously rejected calls for site, but city council motion brings debate back into spotlight
With people openly injecting illegal drugs in Winnipeg bus shelters and a pandemic putting additional pressure on the city's shelter system for people who are homeless, a motion at Winnipeg's city hall has pushed the contentious issue of supervised drug consumption sites back into the limelight.
Couns. Sherri Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) and Cindy Gilroy (Daniel Mclntyre) tabled a motion at a council meeting on Thursday, calling on Winnipeg's public service to "report on the merits and feasibility of establishing a low barrier, supervised drug consumption site" in Winnipeg.
Health officials, addictions experts and crime statistics have pointed to a growing crisis of hard drug use and overdoses in Winnipeg, which some say has grown worse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rollins says the crisis is real, and believes the motion will kick-start efforts to get a supervised consumption running in the city.
"We have to be talking about harm reduction and the funding that we are not seeing in this city.… The time is now," Rollins told reporters during a break from the council meeting.
Communities in other provinces, including Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, have established consumption sites with provincial support, Rollins said.
Manitoba's Progressive Conservative government has been resistant to establish such a facility, but Rollins believes there is a path the city could take to establish a site without provincial participation.
"I think you're asking a constitutional question — should we bypass the province to get to the public health issues that we need to in Winnipeg through to the federal government? Not a normal trajectory for government, but this is where I am at personally," Rollins said.
That "trajectory," she said, could include partnering with First Nations governments to create a site.
Asked about the motion Thursday morning, Premier Brian Pallister was non-committal.
"Nothing works perfectly, so I wouldn't want it to be taken as an absolute statement that there may not be some value from such sites. I don't think that it's as high a priority as perhaps some others do," Pallister told reporters.
A consumption site is "a lower-priority investment than the tens of millions that we're investing in other preventative measures," the premier said.
A release Thursday morning from Audrey Gordon, the recently appointed provincial minister for mental health, wellness and recovery, said the PC government has provided over $47 million in funding for more than 27 mental health and addictions initiatives since October 2019.
Ideological view on sites: Bowman
Mayor Brian Bowman wouldn't unequivocally support the establishment of a site in Winnipeg, saying the city's public service needed to gather more data before making that decision.
"What I'm interested in is getting scientific information and data that can help inform us from a health perspective. And I would encourage provincial leaders who are responsible for the health of our residents to do the same," Bowman said.
He said the Progressive Conservative government was "absolutely" approaching the idea of a supervised consumption site from an ideological perspective, instead of using medical and scientific advice.
The motion from Rollins and Gilroy didn't enjoy complete endorsement from city council.
Coun. Jeff Browaty said the city would be straying too far from its mandate with such a site.
"I really don't support this kind of 'mission creep' to get into mental health services," the North Kildonan councillor said. "It's beyond the scope and jurisdiction of the city."
The idea has challenged another conservative-minded member of city council.
Coun. Scott Gillingham (St. James) says his thinking in the last few years has opened up to the idea of a consumption site, but agreed with Browaty that it isn't the city's responsibility to take on.
"The city doesn't have the mandate for health, nor do we have the financial resources for health," Gillingham said.
"It's a complex and polarizing issue. At the end of the day, it's about men and women that have an addiction. How do we compassionately help them?"