Where or when safe injection site could be built on P.E.I. still unclear

The plan to build an overdose prevention site in Charlottetown as part of a provincial harm reduction plan continues to face challenges. Officials concede they don’t know where or when there will be one.

Charlottetown’s safe injection site would have gone alongside the provincial emergency shelter on Park Street. Charlottetown city council shot down an application for a variance for such a site in September.

The province chose not to appeal that decision and Heather Morrison, the Chief Public Health Officer, says she doesn’t know, or can’t say, what comes next.

“It is something that government is continuing to look at, but I am not able, at this point, to answer any question in terms of confirming location or next steps,” said Morrison.

Officials held firm that P.E.I. should have a safe injection site, as it’s one of only two provinces in the country without one. The officials noted that it’s a critical part of a three-pronged approach alongside prevention and treatment.

“Some people didn’t make it into the clinic because they died. Dead people can’t recover,” said Shawn Martin, harm reduction coordinator. “That’s really how we make that connection, from prevention to treatment to harm reduction. There’s these niches and these gaps that cannot be filled without it.”

Officials didn’t single the city out, but said all levels of government need to collaborate to get the site built. There's been fierce opposition to a safe injection site in the city's downtown.

After Public Health left a legislative committee meeting on Wednesday, MLAs sparred about where responsibility rests and accused each other of playing politics. They ultimately decided to ask Charlottetown for its rationale for rejecting the variance so it could be discussed at a future meeting.

This decision comes just day before the last in a series of meetings across the island on homelessness, and though not directly tied together, the issues of homelessness and drug use have become twinned in the minds of some people living in the city's core.

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