Photo by Alex McCuaig - Kym Porter, with Moms Stop the Harm, speaks out about the upcoming provincial SCS panel visiting the city on Tuesday.

By Alex McCuaig

SCS consultation

SCS panel to visit Medicine Hat on Tuesday

Sep 2, 2019 | 2:36 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – The provincial government’s supervised consumption review panel will be in the city Tuesday evening but a local advocate in favour of the service says the panel’s objective falls short.

“I did express a concern initially when the panel was announced that there is no one on the panel that has worked in a supervised consumption site, there is no one currently using a supervised consumption site,” said Kym Porter, with Moms Stop the Harm. “I think those are two key areas that have been missed in setting up people on that panel.”

In the news conference last month announcing the panel, Jason Luan, associate minister of mental health and addictions, said there was a “wealth of information supporting the merits of supervised consumption sites.” And the review, headed by former Edmonton police chief Rod Knecht, would focus on the effects of the sites on area businesses, social disorder and crime rates.

Porter says that is not good enough, saying it doesn’t take into account the 34 deaths from opioid overdoses in the city which have taken place since the province begun collecting records in July 2016.

Porter’s son, Neil Balmer, was one of those deaths after dying in 2016 from a fentanyl overdose.

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“I think it is a mistake not to take into account the benefits of supervised consumption and that the panel is not looking at that,” said Porter. “I think that we have to be careful when we just look at the socioeconomic effects because I believe we are leaving out the needs of those who will use those sites.”

She added that when business needs are put ahead of those struggling with addiction, homelessness and poverty, “that is stigmatizing and discouraging. However, I appreciate those concerns and that people live in that neighbourhood and have some fears as to what this will look like.”

But, Porter added, the location of the proposed Medicine Hat site was chosen because there is already a number of people who would access the site in that area.

“And so any affects of from that have already been felt,” she said. “So what that panel in Medicine Hat will be measuring is fear.”

The panel will be hearing from the public on Tuesday at the HomeStay Inn from 5 to 9 p.m.