New $5 million Crown corporation to mine data to battle addiction

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The UCP government is pledging $5 million to establish a Crown corporation for research and to get answers about what works —and what doesn’t — in the battle against soaring addiction rates for opioids and other substances.

Alberta Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams said Tuesday the new national Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence will conduct mental health and addiction research to inform and support the government in building the Alberta recovery model for mental health and addiction.

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The bird’s-eye, system-level view is expected to look at where dollars are going into the system’s programs and services, and to follow through on patient results.

Research that aggregates data for evidence-based programming while protecting the privacy of Albertans will be a priority, he said.

Patients will be research subjects who will have opportunities to choose how they’re personally identified, but not whether or not the batched data is collected or published. They will also be informed of the way their information will be protected, Williams said, soothing concerns about privacy and patient rights.  

Expect more public information available for other agencies such as social services and law enforcement as well as the media and the public in general, he said. 

Expected elements of centre include a board of up to five members, appointed by Williams, and a regional ethics board. The province will fund it, but will also partner with other organizations — Williams dropped names like the University of Calgary, Stanford, the Harvard Recovery Institute for Research, the Manhattan Institute and the Broadbent Institute.

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Mental health and addiction pillar

With the dismantling of Alberta Health Services Premier Danielle Smith set out in November, the pillar for mental health and addiction is taking shape.  

“Budget 2024 will invest more than $1.55 billion to continue building the Alberta recovery model. This includes $1.13 billion to support the establishment of Recovery Alberta as the health agency responsible for mental health and addiction services,” Tuesday’s news release said.

The Alberta recovery model will include individuals using supervised drug consumption sites being able to receive additional supports, as well as referrals, services, connections to housing or other treatment options.

But the province is drawing a line at the B.C. border.

In March 2020, the province of British Columbia launched SOS — Safer Opioid Supply — allowing individuals at high risk of overdose to receive prescribed pharmaceutical-grade opioids free of charge in an effort to cut opioid deaths, a global first, and something Alberta will “never” do, Williams said. 

“There is no evidence to suggest anywhere that I know of that ‘safe supply’ can help those who suffer from addiction in a meaningful way. As a broad policy setting, it has proven to be devastating and a disaster for the very few jurisdictions that have adopted it,” he said.  

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“Our system will be responding to evidence brought forward, but to be abundantly clear, the reason I take the position I do around ‘safe supply’ is that it’s abundantly clear that it’s a disaster, that handing out drugs to those in the midst of an addiction crisis for our society is not helpful.”

Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan pledged last week to take similar approaches to a recovery-orientation, he said.

Williams points to the increasing commitments the government has shown over the past five years.

“We pioneered the most robust program anywhere in the world to prescribe opioid agonist therapy through the virtual program right here in Alberta, which currently provides more than 8,000 individuals with addiction treatment each and every day,” Williams said.

The province set a terrible record in 2023, with more than 1,700 deaths from drug poisoning through November, according to Alberta’s Substance Use Surveillance System. 

Williams said the Alberta recovery model focuses on mental health while offering same-day counselling anywhere in the province, increasing the number of youth served with mental health programs within schools and connecting them to clinical supports while continuing their education.

The province has “massively expanded” treatment capacity, with two recovery communities built and nine more underway, five of which partner with Indigenous communities.

jcarmichael@postmedia.com

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