'I'm gobsmacked': Reactions to N.B. premier's pledge to halt approval of more safe injection sites

The head of New Brunswick’s only safe injection site said she’s very concerned after Premier Blaine Higgs pledged to not approve any more safe injection sites and to consult with communities about existing sites, if re-elected.

“I’m gobsmacked,” said Debby Warren, the executive director of Ensemble Greater Moncton, the province’s only site — noting it has health-care workers onsite to help if there’s an overdose and to connect clients with other services.

While Higgs did not promise to close Ensemble Greater Moncton, Warren fears what would happen if it was forced to shut.

“More people will die,” Warren said. “If it's closed, we just exacerbate it now that more people will be on the street. At least while we're open many individuals are at our place inside. But when you close us, where do they go?”

With a provincial election guaranteed in New Brunswick this fall, election pledges are beginning to be shared by party leaders.

Speaking at a Chamber of Commerce event in Saint John Monday, Higgs said that if re-elected, his government “will not be adding to the safe supply in supervised injection sites. I believe that is wrong. There is no such thing as safe heroin.”

When asked by reporters Monday night to explain what’s causing him to take this position, he cited “the history in B.C.”

“B.C. record is pretty bad with no real evidence of improvement,” said Higgs. “Why would we follow a model that B.C. has proven not to be successful?”

Higgs has also said if re-elected, his government would expand addiction treatment facilities and continue to bring forth compassionate intervention legislation that was paused in May.

Critics said it would’ve forced severely addicted people into treatment, whether they wanted it or not. A group of psychiatrists pushed back in a letter warning against forced treatment, saying it could do more harm than good.

New Brunswick's Liberal leader Susan Holt said Higgs is “not interested in data or evidence”, while Green Party MLA Megan Mitton accused Higgs of using harmful rhetoric.

Higgs’ pledge comes as a provincial election must happen on or before Oct. 21 and as the debate around safe injection sites appears to be becoming more divisive across the country.

Safe sites in Ontario

Ontario is shutting down 10 such sites that are 200 metres within schools or childcare centres — a move that comes following intense scrutiny of these sites after the shooting death of Caroline Huebner-Makurat who was struck by a stray bullet near a supervised consumption site last summer.

Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford has recently referred to the sites as “a failed policy,” while federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre referred to them as “drug dens” and vowed to defund them if the Conservatives win the next federal election.

“It's more than disheartening to hear such hyperbolic and politicized language,” said Nick Boyce, the policy director at the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. “It flies in the face of all the evidence. It flies in the face of all the dedicated hard work that people are doing on the front lines of the crisis.”

Boyce points out Canadians aren’t in dying safe injection sites, but are dying every day because of toxic unregulated drugs. He thinks the sites are needed but so too is more investment in housing and treatment.

“The reality is up to 22 Canadians are dying a day right now. And that's not because we've failed at harm reduction,” said Boyce. “It’s because we're not getting to the root cause of the issue. We’re not trying hard enough.”

Supervised consumption in Canada

According to data reported to Health Canada, there were 4,831,661 visits to Canadian supervised consumption sites between 2017 and May 2014. During that time, 58,444 overdoses took place at a site that did not result in death.

“To date, nobody has died of an overdose in a safe consumption site in Canada,” the Health Canada website reads.

“In all the years that they've been in operation across this country, there have been zero opioid overdose deaths at a safe consumption site because there are trained personnel there that can administer Narcan, that can call 9-1-1, that can save somebody’s life,” said Dr. Christopher Labos, a Montreal-based cardiologist and epidemiologist.

Julie Dingwell, the executive director of Avenue B Harm Reduction, said an overdose prevention site is needed in Saint John but they haven’t been able to find a location.

She wants to hear politicians vying to lead New Brunswick to work with her organization to help make this happen instead of preventing openings.

“We need to keep people alive,” Dingwell said. “Dead people can’t recover.”

Lori Williams, an associate professor in policy studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said Canada is experiencing a growing problem of addiction and toxic drug supply that can’t be easily solved.

“Quite often there are other associated activities that cause problems for neighbours of the safe injection sites. But of course, people dying from unsafe supply is also problematic,” Williams said.

She pointed out how some Canadian politicians appear to want to get rid of safe injection sites, while others want to move them to other neighbourhoods, adding how some politicians believe the solution is more treatment beds, even forced treatment or prohibition.

“You need both to keep people alive that are struggling on the one hand with addiction and on the other with unsafe supply,” she said.

"There isn't a simple solution. So, the real problem, in my view, is the selling of a simplistic solution for political reasons that might actually have worse consequences for communities and lives.”