EDMONTON — This morning the provincial government celebrated the opening of a third Recovery Centre, this one in Gunn, Alberta. This is the latest announcement in the ongoing expansion of their so-called “Alberta Recovery Model.”
The site of the new recovery centre in Gunn formerly housed the publicly-run McCullough Centre, which supported homeless men by providing residential treatment and programming for addictions and mental health challenges. Early in their first mandate, the UCP government announced the sudden shuttering of the facility, including the lay off of its 63 employees, claiming they were doing so as a cost saving measure.
“The government is now bragging about expanding treatment spaces, but all they have actually done is shut down a public treatment centre, laid off all the workers, and now turned the infrastructure over to a private company to run the centre instead,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “What they are doing isn’t about expanding capacity for Albertans in need of support for substance or mental health issues, it’s about accelerating an ideological agenda of privatization through Recovery Alberta, and perpetuating the growth of the for-profit recovery industry.”
Friends of Medicare remains concerned about the government’s announcement of a new entity for mental health and addictions, a new crown corporation to validate their ‘Alberta recovery model’, and their ill-conceived promise to pass legislation allowing for forced treatment in the coming fall legislative session. The government’s agenda continues to siphon off our public health care dollars towards under-regulated, for-profit providers, and proliferate their government’s aggressive privatization agenda in our health care.
“Addictions care is health care, full stop. Albertans need to know that their mental health and addictions services are being delivered as part of our public health care system, not contracted out to the lowest bidder seeking to profit off of Albertans struggling as a result of this drug toxicity crisis,” said Gallaway. “We must ensure that these health care services are being publicly delivered, with the full transparency and accountability that Albertans and their families deserve.”
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