Supervised consumption site at Chumir centre on chopping block again

Opioid deaths are starting to fall, but the province is continuing its move to overhaul addiction treatment and close safe consumption sites.

The Safeworks supervised consumption site located inside the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre is once again facing closure, and this time the Alberta government says it intends the shutdown to be permanent.

For 31-year-old Rebecca, a drug user waiting outside the facility Monday, the site has been a lifeline.

“Have they saved your life?” she was asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Really, absolutely, yeah.”

Rebecca has been living without stable housing for six months.

She says the Safeworks harm reduction site provides overdose prevention, basic supplies and outreach she would not otherwise have access to.

“They don’t just (offer safe drug supplies), but they come around—they drive around the community to the homeless hot spots. They hand out things like gloves, hand warmers, food, water,” she said.

As governments debate the future of supervised consumption sites, new data show overdose deaths are falling both nationally and in Alberta.

Health Canada data show 7,997 people died from opioid toxicity across Canada in 2023, the highest annual total on record.

Preliminary figures indicate deaths declined in 2024 and continued trending downward into 2025, although officials caution the numbers can fluctuate month to month.

Nationally, Health Canada estimates opioid-related deaths fell by roughly 17 per cent in 2024 compared with 2023.

Alberta has seen a similar trend.

Provincial data show opioid-related deaths dropped from approximately 18,709 in 2023 to about 1,180 in 2024.

The Alberta government says monthly overdose deaths in Calgary have remained at or below pre-pandemic levels since spring 2024.

Public health experts point to several factors behind the decline, including changes in the illicit drug supply, wider access to naloxone and shifts in how drugs are consumed.

Rebecca says naloxone is now widely carried by those living on the street.

“Pretty much everyone you know carries it,” she said.

“I’ve had to use it on people a couple of times.”

Experts also say more people are moving away from injecting drugs and toward smoking them, which carries a lower risk of fatal overdose.

Rebecca says supervised consumption sites remain critical for her and her friends, particularly for those who inject drugs.

“I do know many friends who, when (Safeworks) was closed, and they went into the park, and they tried to inject on their own, and they missed a vein, and now they have an injury,” she said.

“So Safeworks and places like it save lives, absolutely, 100 per cent, no doubt about it.”

Despite the decline in overdose deaths, the Safeworks site has faced political pressure for years.

The Alberta government now says it intends to close the facility in 2026, citing concerns about public disorder around the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.

CPS data shows that in a 400-metre radius surrounding the centre, there were 1,869 calls for service related to public disorder in 2025, compared with 18,853 calls in the rest of the city centre, which police say comprises the communities of Beltline, Chinatown, Downtown Commercial Core, Downtown East Village, Downtown West End and Eau Claire.

The province also plans to shift to a different model of delivering addictions care, including a Virtual Opioid Dependency Program (VODP).

Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston hopes to speed up the province’s plans by bringing a notice of motion to Calgary city council’s executive committee on Tuesday calling for the city to support the closure.

“We had an experiment with the Sheldon Chumir centre, and it clearly didn’t work,” Johnston said.

“And so what we want to do is work with (the province) and get these people the help they need.”

Johnston said health-care decisions should be left to the province.

“We’re not health-care professionals. Health care is a provincial priority, a provincial jurisdiction,” he said.

The province first indicated in 2021 that it wanted to close the site but said it needed support from the City of Calgary.

Previous councils repeatedly sought additional studies, delaying a final decision.

In December, Alberta said it would move ahead with closing the site in 2026.

In a statement, the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction welcomed the decline in overdose deaths but urged caution.

“It is good to see opioid-related death numbers decline; however, we know these numbers fluctuate from month to month,” the ministry said.

The ministry said supervised consumption sites were never intended to be permanent.

“We cannot continue to perpetuate addiction. Drug consumption sites were designed as short-term measures; they were not meant to be permanent,” it said.

Opposition politicians say the decline cannot be credited to provincial policy alone.

“It is a great thing that deaths from drug poisoning are going down, but that’s happening all over the place,” NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said.

“It’s certainly not anything that is directly related to the Alberta model.”

NDP mental-health and addictions critic Janet Eremenko said the crisis remains severe.

“We’re still upward of six people a day that are passing away here in Alberta alone,” she said.

“If we are dramatically underreporting and failing to fully understand the scope of the issue, we’re not going to be able to implement solutions.”

City council will debate Johnston’s motion Tuesday as Alberta prepares to move ahead with closing the Safeworks harm reduction site.