Brandon not the place to pilot a safe-injection site

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/12/2023 (740 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I think the solutions for the challenges that Brandon is seeing, when it comes to addictions and mental health and homelessness, are more about making sure the sobering centre that’s been announced multiple times actually gets brought online. It’s bringing in some more creative approaches to housing and ensuring that there’s a next step for people to get off of the street, or out of a tent. And that we ensure that there’s the appropriate level of mental health services for Brandon, but also for the Westman region.”

— Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew

Winnipeg may well get a safe-injection site in the next few years under the NDP government of Wab Kinew. But one in Brandon? That’s off the table.

In his year-end interview with The Brandon Sun on Thursday, Kinew splashed cold water on any efforts to bring a safe-injection site to this city, essentially following through with a promise he made in 2018.

A Canadian Press story that year had reported comments made by Kinew in which he said that if the New Democrats were in power, he would set up a safe-consumption site in Winnipeg, a detox centre in Brandon, and “50 new treatment beds to help battle the growing use of meth and other drugs.”

So while the news may not be fully surprising, it is telling — the premier has firmly closed the door on such a facility opening here. Certainly for the time being.

That doesn’t mean the NDP don’t support the creation of one, but the premier has stated that his party believes it would do more good in Winnipeg. He may well be right.

Thus far, Manitoba has been the only province west of the Maritimes without a supervised consumption site. Unlike the previous Progressive Conservative government, which saw no value in a safe-consumption site, Winnipeg will be the test case for a provincially sanctioned one to get off the ground in this province.

Former premier Heather Stefanson was on record favouring a “recovery approach” to treating addictions, arguing that her government’s rejection of such a facility was based on evidence not ideology.

Perhaps now with a change in government we’ll be better able to ascertain the benefits and drawbacks of a safe-consumption site in our province.

The reality is that we do have a rather prolific meth and addictions problem on the streets of Brandon — and per capita it’s every bit as difficult and deadly as that of Winnipeg’s.

Police and RCMP continue working to get drug traffickers off our streets. Meth, heroin and other drugs have continued to hit the local headlines this year.

Just this month, Brandon Police Service announced the results of a seven-month drug investigation called Project Belittle that led to the arrest of five people and more than $160,000 worth of drugs taken off Brandon streets.

Will a sobering centre — when it’s finally completed — along with more mental health resources be enough to address the problems here in Brandon and the region we serve? It’s a debatable point, one that can only be proven with more and better evidence. Let’s hope it’s the right bet.

More to the point, the idea of having a safe-injection site here in Brandon has never been fully embraced by local politicians or the electorate. Last November, Mayor Jeff Fawcett told the Sun that a safe-injection site wasn’t at the top of his to-do list, and that he wasn’t going to press the issue with the provincial government — which at the time was run by Heather Stefanson.

“We’re moving forward with a whole bunch of things that are very positive, so [there’s] no point in sort of pitting ourselves against one another on something that isn’t happening immediately anyway,” Fawcett said at the time.

There may in fact be some wisdom in holding back a bit. This community has seen firsthand the difficulty that the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation has had in finding neighbourhood acceptance in various parts of Brandon’s core for an overnight drop-in centre. This week, the BNRC suspended its efforts to find a location for the project, citing an inability to come to agreement with potential partners, but also hinting at the poor reception the proposed centre was given as the organization shopped around for a location.

And that was just for a come-and-go walk-in shelter to help people get in out of the cold during the harsh winter that we normally experience. Finding a suitable location for a safe-injection site would be even more problematic.

Winnipeg may be willing to pilot a Manitoba-based safe-consumption site, but the premier is correct in that it needs to be done carefully and thoughtfully. If the Winnipeg model shows potential, then perhaps it might be an idea worth revisiting for our community down the road.