EDMONTON — Yesterday, in what felt like a desperate ploy to change the channel on the ongoing scandal around surgical procurement allegations, the Premier and the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions pre-empted Budget 2025 with a press conference announcing a massive spending plan of $180 million toward building two “Compassionate Intervention Centres.”
“What we saw yesterday was a hastily planned press conference ahead of this week’s budget with a promise to spend almost two hundred million dollars, with almost no further details. Albertans watching were left with more questions than answers on this major spending announcement,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “Will these new centres be run as part of our public health care system? Our corrections system? By a private operator? What will the procurement processes be? Who will build them? Own them? Work in them? What programming will be offered? These are fundamental questions and Albertans deserve answers.”
The government also committed to move forward with their concerning plan for forced treatment legislation in the upcoming legislative session, removing the patient’s right to consent and allowing for involuntary confinement against an individual’s will. Throughout the press conference, the Minister used intentionally torqued rhetoric attacking any critics, rather than addressing legitimate concerns about the serious infringement on the rights of Albertans and the lack of evidence supporting legislation of this type. Notably absent from the press conference were any health care professionals in support of this harmful approach.
“This plan is anything but compassionate. The government is stubbornly moving forward with this ideological legislation despite a lack of evidence to support forced treatment. In fact, there is evidence to show this approach could very well result in further harm and more fatalities,” said Gallaway. “While at the same time, we regularly hear stories from Albertans who voluntarily seek out mental health or addictions support, but can’t find it or are told they’ll have to wait. The real issue we need to tackle is a lack of access to timely care, not a push to further criminalize those who use drugs.”
Throughout the press conference, the Minister in charge of Recovery Alberta once again made bold claims about the success of the so-called Alberta Recovery Model without providing any evidence to back them up. Yet only 3 of 11 the government’s announced recovery centres have even opened — well short of the promised new spaces — and there remains no meaningful plan for housing or long-term supports. Meanwhile, addictions counsellors in Alberta remain an unregulated profession lacking robust oversight.
“We should be providing addictions care to Albertans, overseen by regulated health professionals, within the public health care system. Instead, at every turn, our government has been signing contract after contract with private and for-profit providers. We have no reason to expect these two new promised centres will be any different,” said Gallaway. “The combination of forced treatment legislation, along with the potential for these new facilities to be in private hands, shows this government is more interested in creating a profitable market for private recovery businesses than providing compassionate, evidence-based addictions care to Albertans.”
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