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Alberta

Province commits $4 million for overdose response teams and 35 detox and pre-treatment beds in Calgary

Published

2 years ago

6 minute read

Expanding access to detox and recovery in Calgary

Alberta’s government is investing in detox, recovery and dynamic overdose response services at the Drop-In Centre in Calgary.

Every Albertan struggling with addiction deserves the opportunity to pursue recovery. As part of building a recovery-oriented system of care, Alberta’s government is providing more than $4 million to the Calgary Drop-In Centre to create dynamic overdose response teams and establish 35 medical detox and pre-treatment beds, capable of supporting up to 1,000 Calgarians every year.

This partnership stems from the efforts led by the Calgary Public Safety and Community Response Task Force to improve public safety while treating addiction and mental health as healthcare issues.

“We’re continuing to treat mental health and addiction as health-care issues by building recovery-oriented systems of care to ensure every Albertan has the opportunity to pursue recovery. Whether it’s rapidly responding to an overdose, accessing medical detox or pre-treatment, the impact of this funding will be life-saving and life-changing for so many Albertans.”

Nicholas Milliken, Minister of Mental Health and Addiction

“Our government’s focus on addiction recovery and supports for those facing homelessness is bringing positive change for Calgary. The Calgary Drop-In Centre does incredible work to provide services for many individuals facing homelessness. With more access to addiction recovery treatment, more Albertans will be able to get the help they need to overcome their challenges.”

Jeremy Nixon, Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services, and chair, Calgary Public Safety and Community Response Task Force

With this funding, the Calgary Drop-In Centre will significantly increase its treatment capacity. This includes:

  • 15 medical detox beds and 20 pre-treatment beds: Albertans struggling with addiction will be supported to safely withdraw from drugs or alcohol under medical supervision. They will also be provided with pre-treatment support to prevent relapse and better understand treatment options as they continue their pursuit of recovery.
  • Dynamic overdose response teams: To keep communities safe while treating addiction as a health-care issue, the Calgary Drop-In Centre will work in conjunction with local paramedics, first responders and community organizations to respond to overdoses both at the Drop-In Centre as well as in the community.

“People struggling with mental health and addiction deserve compassion and support, and at the Drop-In Centre they receive both. We’re pleased to work with Alberta’s government to deliver critical services to those in need and help more vulnerable people in our communities pursue recovery from addiction.”

Sandra Clarkson, executive director, Calgary Drop-In Centre

These additional medical detox and pre-treatment beds, capable of supporting up to 1,000 Calgarians every year, will be life-saving and life-changing for countless people in the years to come. All publicly funded detox, treatment and recovery spaces are free for Albertans, with no user fees.

Alberta’s government is continuing to build a recovery-oriented system of care, where everyone struggling with addiction and mental health challenges is supported in their pursuit of recovery. This includes initiatives like eliminating fees for residential addiction treatment, launching the Digital Overdose Response System (DORS) app and expanding access to opioid agonist treatment.

In December 2022, Alberta’s government established two new cabinet task forces to bring community partners together to address the issues of addiction, homelessness and public safety in Calgary and Edmonton. The two Public Safety and Community Response Task Forces are responsible for implementing $187 million in provincial funding to further build out a recovery-oriented system of addiction and mental health care. The initiatives being implemented are part of a fair, firm and compassionate approach to keeping communities safe while treating addiction and mental health as health-care issues.

Quick facts

  • Alberta’s government is providing $3.8 million per year, with $1.6 million for dynamic overdose response services and nearly $2.2 million to offer 15 detox and 20 pre-treatment beds, capable of supporting up to 1,000 Calgarians annually. There was also a one-time investment of about $450,000 for capital improvements.
  • Clients with opioid addiction will also be able to immediately start on evidence-based opioid treatment medications like suboxone and sublocade through Alberta’s Virtual Opioid Dependency Program.
  • Alberta spends more than $1 billion annually on addiction and mental health care and supports, including prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery.
  • Any Albertan struggling with addiction can contact 211 Alberta to connect with local services and virtual supports. 211 is free, confidential and available 24-7.
  • The Virtual Opioid Dependency Program provides same-day access to addiction medicine physicians and life-saving medications to Albertans across the province. Albertans can call 1-844-383-7688 seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
Related Topics:

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

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Is Canada’s Federation Fair?

Published on April 6, 2025

By

The Audit David Clinton

Contrasting the principle of equalization with the execution

Quebec – as an example – happens to be sitting on its own significant untapped oil and gas reserves. Those potential opportunities include the Utica Shale formation, the Anticosti Island basin, and the Gaspé Peninsula (along with some offshore potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

So Quebec is effectively being paid billions of dollars a year to not exploit their natural resources. That places their ostensibly principled stand against energy resource exploitation in a very different light.

You’ll need to search long and hard to find a Canadian unwilling to help those less fortunate. And, so long as we identify as members of one nation¹, that feeling stretches from coast to coast.

So the basic principle of Canada’s equalization payments – where poorer provinces receive billions of dollars in special federal payments – is easy to understand. But as you can imagine, it’s not easy to apply the principle in a way that’s fair, and the current methodology has arguably lead to a very strange set of incentives.

According to Department of Finance Canada, eligibility for payments is determined based on your province’s fiscal capacity. Fiscal capacity is a measure of the taxes (income, business, property, and consumption) that a province could raise (based on national average rates) along with revenues from natural resources. The idea, I suppose, is that you’re creating a realistic proxy for a province’s higher personal earnings and consumption and, with greater natural resources revenues, a reduced need to increase income tax rates.

But the devil is in the details, and I think there are some questions worth asking:

  • Whichever way you measure fiscal capacity there’ll be both winners and losers, so who gets to decide?
  • Should a province that effectively funds more than its “share” get proportionately greater representation for national policy² – or at least not see its policy preferences consistently overruled by its beneficiary provinces?

The problem, of course, is that the decisions that defined equalization were – because of long-standing political conditions – dominated by the region that ended up receiving the most. Had the formula been the best one possible, there would have been little room to complain. But was it?

For example, attaching so much weight to natural resource revenues is just one of many possible approaches – and far from the most obvious. Consider how the profits from natural resources already mostly show up in higher income and corporate tax revenues (including income tax paid by provincial government workers employed by energy-related ministries)?

And who said that such calculations had to be population-based, which clearly benefits Quebec (nine million residents vs around $5 billion in resource income) over Newfoundland (545,000 people vs $1.6 billion) or Alberta (4.2 million people vs $19 billion). While Alberta’s average market income is 20 percent or so higher than Quebec’s, Quebec’s is quite a bit higher than Newfoundland’s. So why should Newfoundland receive only minimal equalization payments?

To illustrate all that, here’s the most recent payment breakdown when measured per-capita:
Equalization 2025-26 – Government of Canada

For clarification, the latest per-capita payments to poorer provinces ranged from $3,936 to PEI, $1,553 to Quebec, and $36 to Ontario. Only Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC received nothing.

And here’s how the total equalization payments (in millions of dollars) have played out over the past decade:

Is energy wealth the right differentiating factor because it’s there through simple dumb luck, morally compelling the fortunate provinces to share their fortune? That would be a really difficult argument to make. For one thing because Quebec – as an example – happens to be sitting on its own significant untapped oil and gas reserves. Those potential opportunities include the Utica Shale formation, the Anticosti Island basin, and the Gaspé Peninsula (along with some offshore potential in the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

So Quebec is effectively being paid billions of dollars a year to not exploit their natural resources. That places their ostensibly principled stand against energy resource exploitation in a very different light. Perhaps that stand is correct or perhaps it isn’t. But it’s a stand they probably couldn’t have afforded to take had the equalization calculation been different.

Of course, no formula could possibly please everyone, but punishing the losers with ongoing attacks on the very source of their contributions is guaranteed to inspire resentment. And that could lead to very dark places.

Note: I know this post sounds like it came from a grumpy Albertan. But I assure you that I’ve never even visited the province, instead spending most of my life in Ontario.

1

Which has admittedly been challenging since the former primer minister infamously described us as a post-national state without an identity.

2

This isn’t nearly as crazy as it sounds. After all, there are already formal mechanisms through which Indigenous communities get more than a one-person-one-vote voice.

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Alberta

Big win for Alberta and Canada: Statement from Premier Smith

Published on April 2, 2025

By

Premier Danielle Smith issued the following statement on the April 2, 2025 U.S. tariff announcement:

“Today was an important win for Canada and Alberta, as it appears the United States has decided to uphold the majority of the free trade agreement (CUSMA) between our two nations. It also appears this will continue to be the case until after the Canadian federal election has concluded and the newly elected Canadian government is able to renegotiate CUSMA with the U.S. administration.

“This is precisely what I have been advocating for from the U.S. administration for months.

“It means that the majority of goods sold into the United States from Canada will have no tariffs applied to them, including zero per cent tariffs on energy, minerals, agricultural products, uranium, seafood, potash and host of other Canadian goods.

“There is still work to be done, of course. Unfortunately, tariffs previously announced by the United States on Canadian automobiles, steel and aluminum have not been removed. The efforts of premiers and the federal government should therefore shift towards removing or significantly reducing these remaining tariffs as we go forward and ensuring affected workers across Canada are generously supported until the situation is resolved.

“I again call on all involved in our national advocacy efforts to focus on diplomacy and persuasion while avoiding unnecessary escalation. Clearly, this strategy has been the most effective to this point.

“As it appears the worst of this tariff dispute is behind us (though there is still work to be done), it is my sincere hope that we, as Canadians, can abandon the disastrous policies that have made Canada vulnerable to and overly dependent on the United States, fast-track national resource corridors, get out of the way of provincial resource development and turn our country into an independent economic juggernaut and energy superpower.”

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