Addictions and mental health minister says Alberta recovery model 'proving results'

Dan Williams, minister of addiction and mental health, discusses the province’s recent $23 million investment in a youth addiction recovery centre with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: A more than doubling of space for youth, and you're getting thumbs up. We even just heard that from the opposition. So why this shared site? Is it unused space? Does it scale back operations for the youth corrections facility?

Dan Williams: No, right now, there is capacity within that facility, so we're taking part of it, we're doing a full renovation. It's $23 million being invested on it. So this is changing it from something that was focused on corrections to now something focused on health care and healing. Healing in health care for youth, in particular, who are suffering from this deadly disease of addiction.

Those $23 million are going to be bringing over 105 new spaces. That means approximately 300 families a year get to have their family members, who are trapped in this deadly disease of addiction, now get access to life-saving treatment and recovery.

MH: How do you respond to concerns there might be a perceived association between addictions treatment, addictions recovery, and corrections? Even the possibility of stigma where the youth themselves are concerned by being in that proximity.

DW: I'm a minister of health. I'm not a minister of justice or public safety. We're putting $23 million in to make sure that this is an appropriate healing and recovery-oriented place. The real question that needs to be asked is, those critics, would they prefer that we wait another two more years for those 300 families a year to get access to healing?

I'm concerned about optics generally, but I'm more concerned about whether or not someone dies from a deadly overdose. We're not talking about adults here. We're talking about children under the age of 18. I could not think of anything more valuable to expedite quickly. I could not think of a better reason to spend government dollars. $23 million is a terrific use to get immediate turnaround beds that otherwise would take many, many more years. So fair question, but I'd ask the critics, what would they have those 300 families do in the meantime?

MH: There was mention during your news conference that you're not yet sure who might run the facility. What are your options?

DW: Alberta's addiction continuum of care, when it comes to treatment, has got a number of providers. Much of the space for addiction treatment is done by not-for-profits and third parties.

Before the government was in the addiction treatment space over the last decade, before we knew recovery was the one path out of the addiction crisis, there were many, many private operators that were working. These private operators are not-for-profits, for example, like Fresh Start in Calgary, a number here in Edmonton, as well as across the province. So that's an option.

I'm very happy to have Recovery Alberta, the newly established arm that used to be AHS, that deals with mental health and addiction, to work in the space as well. That's my leading candidate but whoever it is that operates this needs to buy in, not just in principle, but right down to the very culture of every individual in the idea of recovery.

The idea that every Albertan, especially our youth who are vulnerable, deserve an opportunity at recovery, because the alternative to recovery is, I think, unconscionable and too difficult to imagine for us.

When you talk about a deadly disease of addiction, and the nature of addiction on the streets, which many of these young children tragically face, there are only two ends that it can come out as. It either ends in treatment, recovery, in that second lease on life to be a brother and a sister or a daughter or son again, or it ends up, given enough time, in death. And I don't want to see that happen to our children.

MH: If you lean more often to a privatized delivery of services, where does that leave your public services? The professionals who you as a government employ in the delivery of addiction recovery period and how does that fit into the Recovery Alberta model. What does that say about your employees?

DW: We have lots of employees through Recovery Alberta, which again, that's not a private operation, that's a Crown corporation that is effectively what used to be AHS.

MH: But if you're bringing privatized elements into that overall operation, where does your staff come into it?

DW: I need to clarify that staff in Recovery Alberta is public staff, and they are my leading candidate right now. I will say, if they're not interested in the Alberta recovery model, then we'll have to look at others. If they're opposed the idea of recovery for youth, then we'll have to look at that if that's what I'm hearing publicly from commentary, from union representation.

But that being said, if it ends up being a third party, a not-for-profit say, then we see that already across the province, I'm going to look for the best possible care for the youth. That's my priority. My job is to make sure children who are suffering get access to addiction treatment, and anybody that wants to partner with me on that is a part of my coalition.

MH: There's been discussion that you'll introduce compassionate intervention legislation next year. What are you weighing as you fit the pieces of that puzzle together?

DW: We can see on the streets of Edmonton, whether it's an Oilers game, you're going to the Ice District downtown, or you're in Calgary, or you name it somewhere across this province, even in small communities like Peace River, where I'm from, that the public and tragic nature of addiction is on full display, and we need to have a societal response to that.

Part of that means there's a small group of people that overdose and are a danger to themselves or others regularly. We had one individual who overdosed 186 times last year. Now, an overdose is where you have cerebral hypoxia, where you're one breath away from death. I don't want that 187th time for that individual to result in death.

This compassionate intervention legislation says if someone is a danger to themselves or others, as a result of their addiction or drug use, then we as a society are going to intervene and we're going to provide an opportunity for that individual to have the opportunity at recovery and health care and healing.

MH: As you build toward more recovery facilities, as you build out the Recovery Alberta infrastructure, the model itself. What do you have as a target for success? How do you gauge whether or not you're being successful in the path that you're taking?

DW: We need to build a full continuum of care, and we need to be able to take measurements all the way along and we don't just want the latent indicators, as the analysis say. We don't just want to look at overdoses and overdose deaths, we want to look at how people are progressing in the recovery capital.

Are they improving the quality of life? Are they building relationships again? Are they a mother and a brother rather than just being somebody suffering from addiction? Are they living a full life as an Albertan? That's my metric.

Happily, what we've seen over the last five months is continued and precipitous decrease in overdose deaths. Now these numbers go up and down all the time. I'm happy to say I'm optimistically, cautiously optimistic, about progress we're making.

If we look at just August we see a 42-per cent decrease, if we look at the month before, in July, we saw 42-per cent decrease year over year. The two months before, that was 52-per cent decrease and 49-per cent in April, year over year.

Compare this with other jurisdictions, even next door, British Columbia, we're seeing four and five times higher rates of decrease of death from overdose opioids in Alberta than there. We have an integrated drug market, we have much of the same problems in terms of access, but the Alberta recovery model is not facilitating addiction, it's not continuing with unsafe supply, it's not putting drug consumption sites in every corner.

Instead, we're investing $23 million to more than 150-per cent increase youth treatment, and we're doing that with 11 recovery communities, and we're partnering with Indigenous partners. We have a different assumption than the BC model does, and it's proving results.