Court rules against Lethbridge advocates trying to stop ID requirements for SCS services

“As long as we criminalize people. we create barriers to accessing services when we ask people for their information. People also have had negative experiences with the health system, where again, they’re highly stigmatized and are often poorly treated. So there is mistrust of the health system and the health care number, of course, is the link to that very system that people mistrust.”

This, she says, would lead many to use drugs on the streets in unsafe environments and be unable to access life-saving support services.

In the court decision from Justice Paul Belzil in Edmonton, Kenton Puttick from the province’s Associate Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions said they were tasked with “creating standards for documenting clients and developing means of tracking the outcomes of referrals from supervised consumption service providers to other health and social services, including providers of addiction treatment and recovery-oriented services.”

Puttick was of the opinion that the collection of PHNs would be the “least intrusive means of collecting health information that would not create undue barriers to clients.”

Under the new rules, set to come into effect January 31, 2022, SCS employees would be required to ask clients for their PHN, but clients would not be turned away if they did not have a PHN, refused to provide one, or refused to get one.

However, Shulz says that point is not clearly written into the regulations, meaning it is up for interpretation.

“So, the statement that is being made does not align with what’s written, and whenever you create ambiguity, you leave room for interpretation, which means that different people will take different approaches.”

While the Supervised Consumption Site formerly run by ARCHES in Lethbridge no longer exists, the services are still being provided in the community.

The mobile Overdose Prevention Site (OPS), run by Alberta Health Services (AHS), opened outside of the Alpha House shelter in August 2020.

Since its inception, Thomas Mountain from AHS South Zone says the OPS has had a “soft practice” of requesting PHNs from clients. As of October 2021, approximately two-thirds of clients at Lethbridge’s OPS do not have a PHN of file.

“I am informed that as far as the Lethbridge OPS staff are aware, no client has ever walked away without receiving service due to being asked to share a PHN,” said Mountain in his affidavit.

Justice Belzil ruled against the applicants, saying “LOPS has not met the burden of demonstrating that the suspension of the challenged Regulation would provide a public benefit greater than the public interest provided for in the challenged Regulation. In the result, I conclude that the balance of convenience does not weigh in favour of granting the Interlocutory Injunction and accordingly, the application is dismissed.”

Following the decision, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Mike Ellis issued the following statement:

“I am pleased that this court decision has come forward and that this much-needed regulation can move forward. These quality standards were introduced with the intention to improve community safety in the areas surrounding supervised consumption sites, improve the quality of services that are being offered to people with addiction, and ensure that clients are better connected to the health-care system.

“We will not allow our communities to become chaotic and disorderly. We must ensure that while we treat addiction as a health-care issue we are also keeping communities safe and respecting law and order.

“That is exactly what these quality standards will do and why they are essential to safe and orderly provision of high-quality supervised consumption services as part of a recovery-oriented system of care.

“These services must be provided in a manner that is fair to the community, assertive in dealing with the illness of addiction and compassionate to the person who is struggling. Most importantly, recovery must always be recognized as an achievable goal and clients should be assertively encouraged to pursue it.”

Shulz, on the other hand, did not view the decision so positively. She is worried about the harm that it will cause.

“The interesting thing is that the judge agreed with us that these measures will cause irreparable harm, but it seems like this irreparable harm in the eyes of the judge is not sufficient to warn the injunction, whereas to us, the irreparable harm means that yet another family loses somebody they love. That is just entirely unacceptable.”

MSTH is reviewing all potential courses of action at this point and has not ruled out trying to appeal the judge’s decision.

The court decision can be read in its entirety here.

LNN has also reached out to the Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society for further comments.

by David Opinko

Court rules against Lethbridge advocates trying to stop ID requirements for SCS services

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