Jason Kenney says his party would shift the provincial health agency’s focus toward drug treatment programs and would provide millions more for police as Alberta grapples with an opioid crisis that killed a record 746 people in 2018
. He made the announcement on Thursday in Calgary, which has been the epicentre of the opioid crisis in the province and has faced an accompanying surge in methamphetamine use.
NDP Leader Rachel Notley has campaigned on increasing health-care funding, which represents nearly half of Alberta’s government spending, to keep it in line with the province’s growing population. Albertans go to the polls on April 16. As part of their planned health reforms, the UCP promised to spend $100-million more over four years on a mental health and addictions policy that would open new opioid treatment centres, establish special courts that focus on drug cases outside Calgary and Edmonton, and set up a new provincial law-enforcement team focused on opioids.
Data from the Edmonton police and obtained by The Globe and Mail found that violent crime increased by 22 per cent around two supervised drug-use sites in the city in the four months after they opened. However, overall calls for service were down and the police force found there was insufficient evidence to determine whether the facilities were responsible for any increase or decrease in calls for service.
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