Since the implementation of Alberta’s recovery model, fatal overdoses have fallen by more than 40 percent from their 2023 peak, when 2,051 Albertans were killed, primarily by fentanyl. Proponents of the model have seized on this decline as proof that a sobriety-centred approach is working and, by extension, that harm reduction was a failure.

What they tend to leave out in their back-patting is that the decline is part of a broader, continent-wide trend largely attributed to lower concentrations of fentanyl in the drug supply — and that Alberta remains on the extreme end of Canada’s opioid crisis, rivaling only British Columbia for the highest rate of fatal drug poisonings. The death toll remains four times the number of car crash victims and, more tellingly, triple the number of overdose victims from only a decade prior.

In Edmonton’s inner city, where I’ve worked in social services for the past decade, thousands of unhoused residents continue to bear the brunt of that reality.

Because the victims are largely invisible to those in power, the UCP has no problem systematically ripping apart the public health resources that are their first line of defence.

It’s indisputable that a toxic supply of unregulated drugs is killing our most vulnerable friends and neighbours on a scale that would be intolerable were the primary victims from more prosperous backgrounds. But because the victims are largely invisible to those in power, the UCP has no problem systematically ripping apart the public health resources that are their first line of defence.

Ministries are cutting back on the distribution of naloxone and safe use supplies. Both the Red Deer overdose prevention site and the Royal Alexandra Hospital supervised consumption site in Edmonton were closed last year and, in the coming months, Lethbridge and Calgary sites will suffer the same fate. Grande Prairie and Edmonton will soon be the only places left in the province where people who use drugs can do so under the care of trained professionals capable of reversing overdoses and providing pathways to social services — unless this government decides to shutter their sites as well.

These decisions are counterproductive and dangerous. Study after study from various jurisdictions has found they reduce deaths, disease transmission, emergency service costs and even needle debris without contributing to crime or other types of social disorder. A 2024 study of Toronto safe consumption sites found that these services reduced fatalities in neighbourhoods with high opioid use by over 60 percent.

In an effort to counter this mountain of settled science and justify their ideologically driven policies, the UCP created the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence, which published a paper in March claiming that closing an “Alberta Overdose Prevention Site led to no increase in overdose deaths and an increase in life-saving treatment.” An investigation by Drug Data Decoded found that two of its authors were UCP donors.

The study relies on matching people’s health card numbers to emergency room, EMS, and mortality records. On paper, that sounds straightforward. In practice, it isn’t. People who use these services often avoid being identified. Once personal health numbers became mandatory in 2020, there were reports of fake or shared numbers being used, a sign the policy may have been driving people away from straightforward access to care. A recent investigation by Drug Data Decoded alleges that researchers knew of serious flaws in the service-usage data used to justify supervised consumption site closures, but did not disclose them in their analysis.

The CoRE report is a piece of dishonest analysis seemingly tailored for a provincial government seeking any justification for dismantling life-saving services.

But six years into power, this government is no longer content to simply dismantle essential health infrastructure. It is now replacing a health-oriented system with punitive confinement, effectively rebranding the criminalization of addiction as an innovative solution to the drug crisis.

For proof of this carceral turn, look no further than the UCP’s Compassionate Intervention Act. Passed last summer and set to be fully implemented this year, the legislation empowers law enforcement to apply for an apprehension order against any Albertan they believe has used drugs in a way that has “negatively impacted” their life. Those applications are reviewed not by an addictions specialist or a judge, but by a state-appointed lawyer. Once an order is issued, police can detain that person for up to three days without charge, during which they must appear before a non-judicial “expert” panel comprised of one lawyer, one doctor and one member of the public. If the panel rules against them, they can be confined to a “recovery” facility for up to six months, with the option to extend.

It is a strange form of “compassion” that drives the UCP’s attempts to detain its way out of this drug crisis.

While proponents frame forced treatment as a lifeline thrown only as a last resort, the data suggests the opposite: it’s more like pulling the buoy away just as someone starts to drown.

These kinds of coercive interventions are nothing new. They have a long history that has been a subject of detailed study by academics from various fields, including research from Iran’s forced treatment system that found these programs have “success rates” lower than four percent.

In fact, coercive programs can heighten risk of fatal drug poisonings by a factor of two, according to a 2016 study in Massachusetts. After forced treatment, people often return to doses that their recently detoxed bodies can no longer safely handle. As a result, they face elevated risks of overdosing upon release. While proponents frame forced treatment as a lifeline thrown only as a last resort, the data suggests the opposite: it’s more like pulling the buoy away just as someone starts to drown.

Policing a society to sobriety has not worked in the past and believing this time will be different is the height of ideological hubris. Of course, there’s more than ideology at work here. There is also money.

The province spent $180 million on involuntary treatment centres and much more on related recovery initiatives. In November 2025, Alberta NDP MLA for Calgary-Currie Janet Eremenko questioned the deputy minister of mental health and addictions about procurement practices, about why it awarded contracts to a three-week-old company to operate a treatment centre, beating out organizations with decades of experience. As reported by Drug Data Decoded in 2024 and noted more recently by Eremenko, the company’s owner had prior professional ties to the premier’s then chief of staff, Marshall Smith, including employing him as Director of Corporate Development and Community Relations at a B.C. treatment facility.

The UCP’s drug policy is not the innovative, common-sense solution it makes itself out to be. It relies on discredited, coercive modalities that redirect public money toward private healthcare providers — some of which have documented ties to government insiders.

I’ve spent my career working with adults and families facing addiction, poverty and homelessness across this country — in shelters, supportive housing, detoxes and supervised consumption sites. I’ve reversed overdoses on and off the clock and studied this crisis both on the ground and in the literature. While Alberta’s recovery model may benefit individuals ready to change, it will not end the opioid epidemic. History shows prohibition doesn’t stop substance use and police cannot win drug wars.

Danielle Smith’s twin policies of attacking essential health care for people who use drugs and tasking police with solving addiction through confinement are Dickensian throwbacks poised to make a bad situation worse.

Editor's Note: James Hardwick is the pen name of a senior staff member at an Alberta inner-city service organization. Forward Weekly has verified the author's identity and professional background, and is satisfied that he has the experience and firsthand knowledge to write authoritatively about the issues discussed in this essay.