People wait to enter the Safeworks supervised drug-use site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in Calgary in 2021.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
After five years of back-and-forth by the Alberta government on the fate of Calgary’s only supervised drug-use site, the province announced that the service will close its doors this summer.
Mike Ellis, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, said the Calgary site, in addition to a mobile unit in Lethbridge, will cease operations by the end of June. The Calgary Safeworks site, where people can inject drugs under medical supervision, has been open since October, 2017, inside a downtown hospital.
“You can care deeply about people battling addiction and still believe that communities deserve to be safe,” said Mr. Ellis, who was joined by Rick Wilson, Minister of Mental Health and Addiction. “Our government refuses to pretend that one must come at the expense of the other.”
Mr. Wilson said the province has no plans to close Alberta’s remaining sites in Edmonton and Grande Prairie. He noted the capital accounts for about 60 per cent of drug-related deaths in Alberta and “we need better insight into exactly what is happening.” More than 600 people died in Edmonton last year.
Supervised drug-use sites have become highly politicized in Canada, particularly among conservative-leaning governments that favour recovery-focused supports over harm reduction. Ontario earlier this week cut funding for seven sites in the province.
Advocates for drug-use sites say they are a critical resource that saves lives and provides pathways for people to access social services and treatment. But community residents and governments have expressed concern over social disorder and crime in the vicinity – a perspective that has taken centre stage in the debate across Canada.
Mr. Wilson said funding for the Calgary site will be reinvested to expand addictions treatment, detox and other recovery supports, in addition to 24-hour outreach teams.
The ministers highlighted a recent study, conducted by an Alberta Crown corporation, that found the closing of a Red Deer site did not lead to increased deaths, hospital visits or ambulance calls among former site users. The study and its authors have come under scrutiny by academics who say the paper has limited supports for those claims.
The United Conservative government has been critical of drug-use sites since it came to power in 2019.
The UCP first announced it would shutter the Calgary site in 2021, arguing it was disruptive to the surrounding neighbourhood. But the closing was postponed owing to a number of issues, including that the province was unable to find providers willing to house new sites to replace the downtown service.
Health care staff at the Calgary site have responded to more than 8,000 overdoses since opening, the majority of which required lifesaving interventions such as naloxone and oxygen. There have been no deaths on site.
There were 12,572 visits to Safeworks with 542 unique individuals and staff handled 160 adverse drug reactions in the third quarter of 2025, according to the latest provincial data.
Kelly Deschamps has been accessing Safeworks for roughly four years. He has had staff reverse overdoses and also relies on the site for access to housing supports, sterile drug supplies and to get messages left for him with staff, as he doesn’t have a cellphone.
In an interview on Wednesday, he said he wants to stop using drugs but hasn’t been able to yet. Mr. Deschamps is afraid of what will happen when the site closes, not just for himself but also for his friends, who will be at greater risk of overdose outside of Safeworks’ walls.
He said it will also push drug use more into the public eye. “People don’t want to see that. I worry about the kids especially,” Mr. Deschamps said.
The last days of Kitchener’s supervised drug-use site
City councillor Nathaniel Schmidt, whose ward houses the site, said he wants greater clarity from the province on what supports will be available when Safeworks closes. He is worried emergency services, including police and fire, which are already at “maximum capacity,” will be further strained.
Alberta has already shut down a number of sites, including in Edmonton, Red Deer and Lethbridge, as it forges ahead with its recovery-oriented drug policy. The province was sued in November, 2024, by Aaron Brown over the Red Deer closing, which Mr. Brown argues violates his Charter-protected rights. The legal challenge is continuing.
Lawyer Avnish Nanda, who represents Mr. Brown, said he expects the government will face additional challenges over the new closings, which he said will result in more deaths and grievous injuries.
“It just defies what public-health experts, front-line responders and people who live with these conditions have been saying. In order for them to access recovery, they have to be alive,” Mr. Nanda said.
“Supervised consumption services ensure they’re alive.”