Mom’s Stop The Harm hoping to change upcoming legislation on ID policy for SCS use

By KENDALL KING, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on January 28, 2022.

Moms Stop The Harm, a nationwide drug advocacy group, and the Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society are working together in hopes of changing upcoming provincial legislation that would require individuals accessing supervised consumption sites to provide personal health numbers.

“Supervised consumption services are something both the federal government and the provincial government can regulate,” Avnish Nanda, the Edmonton-based litigator representing MSTH and LOPS, told the News.

“The federal government has been regulating it for a long time. Alberta just decided last spring to start regulating the same services, but how they’re doing it is interesting,” Nanda said. “Alberta, in its regulatory legislation, announced it would be reinstating the same measures the federal government removed.”

Advocates like Hatter Kym Porter fear these barriers may discourage individuals from accessing supervised consumption sites.

“People who have been asked, ‘Would you continue to use the site if you were asked to provide this information’ said ‘no,’ they wouldn’t use the site,” Porter told the News. “Consequently, that would lead to irreparable harm with the toxic drug supply out there right now,”

The government proposes the collection of personal health numbers would help them connect illicit substance users with Alberta’s health-care network, but Porter and Nanda disagree.

“We aren’t arguing with wanting people to get help if they want the help; we’re arguing they can get the help without having to give their personal health numbers,” said Porter.

“Using substances like heroin, crystal meth, etc. is illegal,” said Nanda. “People don’t want to be outed as substance users. They don’t want to face that, so (private health number collection) is going to prevent people from accessing it. So, we sued, arguing it’s unconstitutional. It breaches the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Currently, the legislation requiring supervised consumption site users to show their ID is set to begin Jan. 31. The MSTH and LOPS submitted an injunction in August 2021 asking that date be extended until after the ruling was passed on their joint lawsuit. The injunction was heard in court in December, however was denied by a judge on Jan. 10. An emergency appeal was filed by MSTH and LOPS on Jan. 14 and was heard at the Court of Queen’s Bench on Thursday.

Nanda, Porter and other advocates from MSTH and LOPS are now awaiting a ruling on the appeal and hope it comes before Jan. 31.

“We’re dealing with unprecedented overdose deaths in Alberta,” said Nanda. “More than four Albertans each day are dying of preventable overdose deaths. It’s our position that people who are living in this situation where they are facing a high risk of death, that we should make the services that would allow them to continue to live as accessible as possible. Now what the Alberta government is putting barriers there, to discourage (them) â€¦ It’s placing these individuals at a greater risk of death and other harm.”

Porter, who lost her son Neil to a fentanyl overdose in 2016, wants to prevent further loss of life.

“If we save one person’s life, this toil on all of us has been worth it,” Porter said.