Supervised injection site recommended for Park Street by Charlottetown's planning board

The City of Charlottetown's planning board recommended city council to approve two applications by the province at a special meeting on Wednesday night.

One application was for a one-year, temporary variance to establish what the province calls an overdose prevention site in the Park Street area. The other was for a one-year, temporary variance for Park Street Emergency Shelter, to allow it to continue to offer services.

About 10 people were in the council chamber for the meeting with a couple dozen watching a video feed just outside the doors. There was also an added police presence.

Seven spoke at the meeting. Some were not opposed to providing some form of supervised consumption program for those facing addiction, but none wanted to see it on Park Street.

The provincial government's plan for the supervised injection site would let people use the facility to take drugs they've obtained themselves, after using supplied kits to test the drugs for the presence of dangerous substances such as fentanyl.

"I have deep concerns about the effectiveness of the location due to the lack of accessibility to a larger pool of Islanders and residents of Charlottetown who would potentially use the service if it was mobile service, professionally run." said Patrick Coady, adding he helped provide services at the Community Outreach Centre for a few years.

Mathieu Arsenault, who said he comes from a family that has struggled with addictions, said he wants the best for those facing addiction, but he doesn't like the idea of a supervised injection site near Park Street Emergency Shelter.

"All these people that are here today have impacts," Arsenault, said referring to the current set up of the emergency shelter.

"There are noise complaints, there is theft, there is vandalism, there are needles. You know, an eight-year-old got pricked in the park. I mean this is unacceptable in my view. I have a young kid and it is emotional to me to see those risks and I don't want this, but I also want to support them."

Arsenault wants a committee created which will take ongoing feedback from members in the community who might be impacted by a supervised injection site, he said.

Some speakers said they don't think supervised injection sites help those experiencing addiction, but the province presented contrary information.

"With controversial topics, oftentimes they are studied to death and what we see from over 100 studies of real services — I need to emphasize that we are not talking about something that happens in a lab; we are talking about real services and their results — we see that they prevent overdose deaths. Of course, connect more people to services including addictions and mental health treatment and housing and reduce public substance use, " said Shawn Martin, harm reduction coordinator with the Chief Public Health Office  through a video feed.

"There have been zero deaths in overdose prevention sites."

There were 36 accidental opioid-related overdoses in P.E.I. in 2022, four of them fatal, according to the province's website. Numbers for accidental or unintentional overdoses involving opioids do not include those that occurred as a result of intentional self-inflicted harm.