Lethbridge braces for closure of Canada's busiest supervised consumption site

More deaths, because of partisan austerity measures.

The audit that revealed all the financial improprieties was devastating, and really makes the previous NDP government look stupid for allowing that kind of free-for-all to occur at that site. The former management really can't pretend to be surprised about being shut down and replaced with a much tighter program with a UCP government that was already against the idea of supervised sites to begin with. With the kind of outright theft of operating funds that was going on, including abuse of travel funds in the amount of tens of thousands of dollars, all they did was give the UCP every reason to shut them down completely.

Canning the management had to happen. But as you say, it was the UCPs' choice to close the busiest supervised consumption sire in Canada completely.

The management could have been replaced, but because the UCP would rather these people died out on the streets and out of sight, they decided the whole thing should go.

UCP types have been against this idea all along, and with some validity given that collecting all the junkies in one spot has devastated entire neighbourhoods. Odds are high that the Kenney government would have shut down the Lethbridge site altogether anyway, just as part of their agenda. That mismanagement and theft that happened there just made the decision that much easier and politically popular for them to do. If that area in Lethbridge where the site was located was ruined by muggings, robberies, indecent exposure incidents, and scumbags literally shitting on the sidewalks in front of other people, like happens all the time at the Calgary site, then there isn't anyone in that neighbourhood who isn't entirely happy that they were kicked out completely. Do enough crazy nonsense like that in front of non-addicts and any sympathy for the addicted usually dies off altogether.

I agree that there has to be a little respect for the area, but alas the areas these are usually put in are the areas where the junkies are already. If not, then that is the right place for them. No one wants their neighbourhood ruined by transients, but if your neighbourhood is already full of transients, at least they could be live ones.

But the benefit to the healthcare, law enforcement and prison budgets to have these junkies in some sort of supervised areas is a lot more than the costs of running them. At least, if the staff isn't on the take.

It opens the question as to why the Dippers opted for that kind of management. Obviously the sites should have been put directly under AHS control, with the local police heavily involved, instead of whatever charity/volunteer/quasi-private organization was in control. Do that and none of this might have happened at all.

That's the hallmark of the NDP though. Newbie mistakes. If they had a little experience, I doubt they would do something so obviously set up to fail.