The sign outside the Yukon Health and Social Services office on Lambert St. Photo Courtesy of Macklen Linke/CKRW.
Whitehorse, YT – Whitehorse is no stranger to the debate around supervised consumption sites as the Liberals celebrate the potential these sites have for preventing overdose deaths and providing pathways for recovery while the opposition points to breaking substance additions as the number one goal.
The Yukon Liberal Caucus proudly supports the Supervised Consumption Site operating out of the Blood Ties Four Directions Centre. In a press release from the Yukon Liberal Caucus, they state that as of February 2024, there have been more than 11,300 visits to the site since it opened in September 2021.
As part of the Substance Use Health Emergency Strategy the Yukon Government pushed to expand the hours at the site to seven days a week from 10:30 am to 9:30 pm.
The Yukon Government says the Yukon Party consistently voted against funding Blood Ties Four Directions to instead focus on financing the RCMP.
The Yukon Party Caucus says that they support effective harm reduction programs as part of efforts to address the substance use crisis and they believe there should be an increased focus on prevention.
“The Yukon Party believes that the number one goal of any substance abuse action plan should be to help as many people as possible break their addictions, and live free from the risk of overdose,” they said in an emailed response.
They criticized Health and Social Service’s Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee for releasing a Substance Use Health Emergency Strategy over a year and a half after declaring a substance use emergency in January 2022. The opposition adds that there are no timelines for implementing the strategy’s 43 recommended actions.
The opposition argues more resources are needed for addiction treatment and mental health with targeted enforcement to “take the drug dealers selling toxic drugs off our streets.”
According to an evidence brief published in 2020 by the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, supervised consumption sites lead to lower levels of overdoses, HIV and Hepatitis C. They also state that “there is little support for the assertion that supervised consumption sites contribute to social disorder.”
At the Association of Yukon Communities annual meeting, the Conservative Party of Canada Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman delivered a speech expressing strong disapproval of consumption sites.
“…I think it’s okay to say that it’s one of the most insane policies of our life, we continue feeding taxpayer-funded drugs into communities where people don’t have a shot at getting better.”
The CBC previously reported that some people left the room during her speech.
If elected in 2025, the Conservative Party of Canada says they will ban the use of supervised consumption sites.
