Province hears from Point Douglas residents on proposed supervised consumption site
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Posted January 30, 2025 8:47 pm.
Last Updated January 31, 2025 10:06 am.
At Sport Manitoba, the province provided Winnipeg residents the opportunity on Thursday, to voice their questions and concerns over a proposed supervised consumption site in the Point Douglas Area, and opinions about the proposed site from community members seem to be mixed.
CityNews was not allowed into the public consultation forum, which saw around 150 people attend, but spoke to several attendees, some of whom wished to remain anonymous.
“It’s normalizing drug use. What’s next, what are they going to normalize next, they normalized retail theft until it started affecting the government with their liquor stores, and then they put a stop to that, but the rest of the retailers are on their own unless they can afford to pay for special duty constables,” said one attendee.
CLIP: MONICA BALLENTYNE – LIVED EXPERT ADVISORY COORDINATOR, SILOAM MISSION
Monica Ballentyne, the lived expert advisory coordinator with Siloam Mission says, “I think a safe consumption site definitely is going to save lives. It’s going to open up room for people to access detox treatments, and overall just help the whole person, whole community member, our relative as we refer to it in the sector.”
Minister of Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Bernadette Smith who was on the panel, said the government is listening to Manitobans, and that harm reduction resources such as the proposed site, are clearly needed.
“We have a rise in STBBI’s in this province, we have folks that haven’t had access to treatment and primary health care, mental health supports, we came out of a government that didn’t take a harm reduction approach, so our government has heard Manitobans loud and clear, that a supervised consumption site is needed in this province,” explained Smith.
As for concerns about safety, she says the province is listening to all feedback, and that there will be no tolerance for any illegal activity.
“We have community wellness workers that will be on the outside, we have safety and security guards on the inside. We have downtown community safety patrol that will be patrolling in and around the area, we’re working with the Winnipeg police service, so we have four pillars that were working from harm reduction, treatment, prevention and of course enforcement,” said Smith.
The proposed location of the site would be at 200 Disraeli Freeway, and if approved, would open sometime this year.