Before we get into the graphs, let’s highlight some larger numbers.

Combined, all city council members spent $62,338 for travel and per diem expenses in 2017, $55,098 in 2018, and $55,048 in 2019. They spent $172,484 over the entire 3-year period.

They had budgeted a combined $94,500 for 2017, $112,000 for 2018, and $112,000 for 2019. (Although Campbell and Crowson had prorated budgets in 2017, since they were elected in only the last quarter of 2017). That comes to $318,500 for the entire 3-year period.

They spent about 66% of their combined travel and per diem budgets in 2017 and about 49% in both 2018 and 2019. If you calculate their spending for the entire 3-year period, it comes to about 54% of their travel and per diem budgets.

Now onto the graphs.

I graphed total expenses for each council member, total per diem for each council member, number of events attended, both total expenses and total per diem each council member spent per event, per diem per day, and finally 3-year averages per event for travel and per diem, as well as 3-year averages for per diem per day.

Total travel expenses

In this graph, you can see that the mayor, Chris Spearman, claimed the highest in total travel expenses for each year. That makes sense, given that the mayor often attends more events than councillors do (which you’ll see below).

For councillors, Blaine Hyggen was highest in 2017, Belinda Crowson and Rob Miyashiro were more or less tied for highest in 2018, and Hyggen was highest again in 2019, but just barely.

Joe Mauro claimed expenses just in 2018, but he attended only 1 event: IMCL – Making Cities Livable in Ottawa. While it appears as though Ryan Parker claimed no expenses in 2019, his expenses were simply so low, they appear as just a yellow sliver on the chart. He attended 2 events and claimed a total of $72.38 in that year.

Total per diem expenses

Despite having the highest travel expenses, Spearman came in at the lowest for per diem.

Once again, Hyggen comes in the highest. Jeff Carlson comes in second highest, and much higher than the other 6. Mauro claimed per diem only in 2018, and again for the one conference, at about $280 per day.

Other than that, everyone else is more or less around the same amount each year, except for Coffman, who claimed about the same as Spearman.

Number of events

As I mentioned earlier, Spearman, as mayor, attended far more events than the councillors did, an average of 32 per year.

Other than Carlson in 2018, all councillors attended fewer than 10 events per year. As I already pointed out, Mauro attended just one for all 3 years.

Average expenses per event

If we average travel expenses over the number of events city council members attended, we see some interesting numbers.

First, even though he has the highest travel expenses, Spearman’s per event average is the lowest.

Second, Mauro’s average is the highest, but I don’t think we should read too much into it. I’d consider this data point an outlier.

Finally, Mark Campbell has the highest average in 2019. Even though the other two years are middle of the pack, if you average the 3 years together, he claimed about $1,430 per year, the second highest average. The highest three-year average is Miyashiro, at $1,519.

Average per diem per event

Unsurprisingly, Spearman comes in lowest for average per diem per event expenses, given that he claimed the lowest per diems overall and attended the most events.

Also not surprising is Mauro’s placement, given that his per diem is for a single event.

While their averages for 2017 and 2018 were on par with everyone else, it’s interesting that Campbell’s and Parker’s 2019 per diems were significantly higher than the others, as well as their own from the previous two years.

Crowson and Jeff Coffman kept their average per event fairly low for all 3 years.

Average per diem per day

When you calculate the average per diem expenses charged per day, Spearman, once again, ends up the lowest.

Other than Coffman (who was significantly lower than the others) and Miyashiro (who was significantly higher than the others), the average per diem per day in 2017 was around the same for everyone. Well, except Mauro, of course.

In 2018, per day claims climbed, with 7 council members claiming $200 a day or higher. Campbell and Mauro each claimed over $300 a day.

Finally, in 2019, spending dropped, with most everyone hovering around the $200 mark, except for Spearman and Parker, both of whom were below that.

3-year average travel expenses per event

In this chart, I calculated the 3-year, per-event average for each council member’s travel expenses.

Again, it’s not that surprising that Spearman is the lowest. And as I mentioned earlier, Miyashiro and Campbell have the two highest 3-year averages.

Interestingly, even though he attended just one event, Mauro had the third highest 3-year average. Keep in mind, however, that his 3-year cumulative total was $2,778. Other than Parker, whose 3-year total was $3,241, all other councillors had 3-year totals between $10,000 and $22,000.

Speaking of $22,000, even though Hyggen outspent all the other councillors on his 3-year total—by about $9,000–12,000—his 3-year average was the fourth highest, third if you consider Mauro an outlier.

3-year average per diem expenses per event

For the 3-year average on per diem expenses per event, Spearman, of course, comes in the lowest, given that he had the lowest claims every year and attended the most events.

Coffman and Crowson both had 3-year per diem averages significantly lower than the other 6 councillors. But they also had the lowest per event per diem expenses, too, so this isn’t surprising.

Other than Mauro, the remaining councillors spent over $500 per event on average over the last 3 years, with Parker averaging at an even $600.

3-year per day per diem average

Now, if we average the per day per diem expenses for the entire 3-year period, we get another viewpoint.

Spearman is the only member of city council who claimed less than $100 per day on average. Coffman, Mauro, and Parker were the only councillors who claimed under $200 per day.

The remaining 5 councillors all claimed more than $200 per day, with Miyahsiro and Campbell each claiming above $250 per day.

Over-budget spending

Finally, let’s discuss over-budget spending. Even though city council as a whole claimed significantly less every year than they had budgeted for, some members of city council overspent their individual budgets.

In 2017, Campbell went 130% over budget and Crowson went 135% over budget. Keep in mind that they were both elected in the last quarter of 2017, so their budgets were prorated, and each claimed und $1,400.

Hyggen, on the other hand, outspent his 2017 budget by 173%.

In 2018, no one went over budget. Carlson was the highest, at 81%. And 2019 was similar, with the highest spend being Hyggen again, at 89%.

You can find the original data, including the specific events and how much each member spent at each event here:

• 2017: https://buff.ly/38S0May
• 2018: https://buff.ly/38XWG0v
• 2019: https://buff.ly/38ZZWsg

One would think that as a Mormon myself, I’d relish in the idea that Lethbridge is a Mormon town. However, this claim is rarely ever said in a celebratory way; it’s always accusatory.

I already knew that Mormons made up a minority of the population of the city—unlike some of the surrounding communities, Lethbridge was founded by coal miners, not by Mormon irrigation workers—so with the help of a friend, I decided to do some research recently and set this rumour to rest once and for all.

I found the religion data table for Lethbridge that is part of the 2011 National Household Survey conducted by Statistics Canada. This is the newest data available, since it’s conducted every 10 years, which means there should be an update next year.

Here are some interesting things I discovered in that survey.

When looking at religions as a whole (without breaking it down by their component sects and denominations), Christians make up, by far, the largest religious group in Lethbridge. Over 2 out of every 3 residents identify as some type of Christian.

The next largest group is all those who are not religious. This includes atheists, agnostics, humanists, and simply “no religion”. This makes up almost the other third of residents. Combined, Christians and those with no religion make up 97.55% of the population. The other 2.45% are religious, but not Christian; Hindus, Jewish people, Sikhs, Muslims, etc would fall under this group.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. If we break Christianity into its component denominations, we find that “non-religious” is actually the largest “religious” group in Lethbridge, being larger than any single Christian denomination. There are over 50% more non-religious people in Lethbridge than there are Catholics, which is the singlemost largest Christian group, making up roughly 30% of all Christians in Lethbridge.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is actually only the 4th largest Christian denomination in Lethbridge. Catholics, United, and non-denominational Christians are each larger than those claiming to be Mormon. And while they make up roughly 12% of the total number of Christians in Lethbridge, Mormons are only about 8% of the general population.

Now, there is a higher percentage of Mormons in Lethbridge than there is in any other metropolitan city in Canada. And they do make the top 10 largest religious groups in Lethbridge; heck, they even make the top 5. But that being said, there are 2.5 times as many Catholics in Lethbridge as there are Mormons.

In fact, there are roughly 400% more non-religious people in Lethbridge than there are Mormons.

So, it’s a bit of a stretch to really call Lethbridge a Mormon town. Especially when there are so many actual Mormon towns nearby.

For residential properties, technically, Wetaskiwin is higher, by about 1.15 points. As well, Lethbridge’s residential property tax rate of 11.30 is more than 2 points higher than the provincial average of 9.28.

However, for non-residential properties, Wetaskiwin’s tax rate is 1.31 points lower than Lethbridge. Its non-residential tax rate of 24.33 is nearly 9 points above the provincial average of 15.47.

Lethbridge has the highest non-residential property tax rate and the second-highest residential property tax rate. However, when you account for both residential and non-residential rates, Lethbridge has the highest overall property tax rate.

We often frame property taxes as affecting homeowners, but they affect renters, too. It’d be rare to find a property owner who rents out their home without adding the cost of the property tax to the rent. Arguably, such property owners aren’t affected by property taxes, since they simply pass them on to their tenants.

The last thing the lowest paid workers in the province need when trying to pay for unaffordable housing is having to foot the bill for the highest property taxes in Alberta.

And given that roughly 1 in 3 households in Lethbridge rents their home, it’s not a segment of the population that we can keep ignoring.

But there were a few comments from people saying how good we have it here in Lethbridge, that we should try living in Calgary if we think rent is high in Lethbridge.

Never mind the fact that I didn’t claim rent was high in Lethbridge, only that it was unaffordable, nor did I say it wasn’t unaffordable elsewhere. But those comments did get me thinking.

CMHC considers rent to be affordable if it’s less than 30% of your pre-tax (gross) income. So I wondered what the average income in Lethbridge was, and how that compared to the average income in other cities. So I checked the most recent federal census data.

And what I discovered shocked me: Lethbridge has the lowest average wage of all the cities in Alberta.

Okay, technically, it has the third lowest. Brooks and Wetaskiwn have an average wage lower than Lethbridge’s, but only by $18 and $82 per year, respectively. Lethbridge workers make $1.50 more per month than Brooks workers and $6.83 per month more than Wetaskiwin. For all intents and purposes, the three cities are tied for last place in Alberta.

Not only is Lethbridge tied for the lowest paid workers in the province, but workers here are paid $1,000 per month less than the average of all 18 cities.

I also compared the average income for Lethbridge to the average income of the 58 communities in Canada that are larger than it. Lethbridge isn’t the lowest, but it is below the average of all 59 municipalities. It’s also the second lowest of the 7 largest municipalities in the Prairies.

Calgary, on the other hand (since people said we should try living there), has the highest average salary in Alberta, the highest in the Prairies, and the third highest in Canada. Calgary workers make, on average, $1,646.75 more per month than Lethbridge workers.

Finally, Statistics Canada categorizes income earners in $10,000 increments (those making under $10K, those making $10–20K, etc). The 4 lowest paid categories (under $10K, $10–20K, $20–30K, $30–40K) together make up 53% of the workforce, and each category has over 8,000 people in it—over 21,000 workers make between $10,000 and $30,000 alone. The fifth most populated category has over 7,600 people in it, yet it’s still under $50,000. 64% of the workforce makes under $50,000. The highest paid category—those making more than $150,000—contains only 2.4% of Lethbridge workers.

When people tell you they’re having a difficult time getting by in Lethbridge, believe them.

The article then goes on to list the average cost of rent in Lethbridge: $923 for a 1-bedroom apartment and $1,051 for a 2-bedroom apartment.

However, it never goes on to say how those prices are “affordable” or “reasonable”. So, I decided to do the research the reporter didn’t do to see if rent in Lethbridge indeed is affordable.

CMHC says that “housing is considered “affordable” if it costs less than 30% of a household’s before-tax income.”

Well, $923 a month for 12 months comes to $11,076, which is a third of $36,920. For the average rent of a 1-bedroom apartment to be affordable in Lethbridge, the renter needs to make $36,920 a year, before tax. For reference, that’s about $17.75 an hour for full-time work.

I decided to check the census data for income level in Lethbridge. The most recent census we have is for 2016, so it may not be entirely representative of current numbers, but I haven’t been able to find anything closer.

What I discovered is that about 38,320 people in Lethbridge make under $40,000, which is less than the salary needed for the average rent of a 1-bedroom apartment to be affordable. That’s 53% of all those employed in Lethbridge.

That means more than half of those employed in Lethbridge cannot afford the average rent of a 1-bedroom apartment in Lethbridge.

Now, keep in mind that the 30% I mentioned above, which CMHC considers the cutoff for what is affordable, includes not only rent but also utilities (electricity, heating, water, etc). It’s not clear from the December 2019 Rent Report that the Herald cites whether their data includes utilities. If they don’t, then that likely changes the affordability of rent in Lethbridge.

The Utilities Consumer Advocate website shows a range of $250.62–257.90 a month for electricity and gas together for Lethbridge. My water, wastewater, recycling, and trash collection bill comes to just over $100 a month. So, assuming these rates can apply across the board, and we choose the UCA’s lowest rate, that’s about $350 more per month. That adds an extra $4,200 to our annual wage of $36,920, for a total of $41,120. That’s $19.77/hour, with full-time hours.

Statistics Canada groups workers in income levels in $10,000 increments, so it’s difficult to tell how many workers in Lethbridge make $41,120 or less. We do know 53% make under $40,000, and 64% make under $50,000, so the total percentage of the workforce unable to afford the average rent of a 1-bedroom apartment in Lethbridge is at least 53%, but possibly as high as 64%

Either way, the majority of workers in Lethbridge can’t afford it. So, in short, rent is not affordable in Lethbridge.

All it took was a bit of research to verify it, instead of just parroting the information in the press release.

I’m writing a book.

Since last week, I have been compiling a list of potential sources for information about labour in Lethbridge, and I’m convinced that there is enough data out there to warrant writing a book.

I’m super excited about it, and felt very inspired when the idea came to me last week.

I’ve never written a book before, but I’ve wanted to for a few years. I just never knew what to write it on. I’m looking forward to the process, learning a heckuva lot, and seeing the final product in print.

If you agree with me that this project needs to happen, please consider supporting me financially. Every little bit helps.

In the late 19th century, for example, the Union Western Federation of Miners had a local in Lethbridge, one of only four unions in the province at the time. The union lasted only a few years, but the Western Federation of Miners came to Lethbridge in 1899 from Montana to help organize against wage cuts. They also advocated for 8-hour workday legislation, which ended up passing and applied to all of the Northwest Territories (Alberta didn’t exist as a province yet).

In 1905, local labour councils were formed in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. Also in that year, workers held strikes in Southern Alberta, including Lethbridge, so that their recent membership with the United Mine Workers would be recognized by their employers.

In February 1906, 363 Lethbridge miners joined United Mine Workers of America. The union submitted a contract to the Alberta Railway & Irrigation Company, one of the Galt companies (yes, those Galts). The company refused the demands (where have we heard that before?). When the company also refused the union’s recommendation for arbitration, the workers went on strike, only a month after joining the union. The strike lasted until the end of the year and included workers in surrounding communities. The company hired scabs, but never saw the same production output that they had with the unionized workers. After much pressure from politicians, the two sides eventually made concessions. The workers received some benefits: a small wage increase and the right to collective bargaining. Even so, the company continued to ignore the union, and workers staged additional work stoppages in 1909, 1911, 1919, 1922, 1923, and 1924 in an effort to fight for their rights. Each of those strikes lasted for months, some as long as 8 months.

The 1906 UMWA strike had far-reaching effects throughout Alberta and Canada. It led directly to the federal Industrial Disputes Investigation Act in 1907 and the provincial Workman’s Compensation Act in 1907, as well as a legislated 8-hour work day in 1909. It also lead to amendments to the Coal Mines Act.

Did you know that the Alberta Federation of Labour started in Lethbridge? At a 1912 convention in Lethbridge chaired by local miner and independent labour MLA Donald McNabb, 34 delegates from unions and the United Farmers of Alberta joined forces to form the Alberta Federation of Labour, which focused on protecting working conditions and improving salaries and benefits for workers throughout Alberta.

Today, there are over 20 unions in Lethbridge, some of which are part of the Lethbridge & District Labour Council, which has operated in Lethbridge for decades and belongs to the Canadian Labour Congress.

Lethbridge has not only a long labour history, but a history that includes work actions that made a difference to the broader labour movement and workers who were willing to take a stand.

It seems as though the aggressive, proactive, confident labour actions of the past have been forgotten. Certainly it’s not reflected in the government representatives elected in our ridings.

Obviously conservative governments don’t care about labour needs. Liberal governments aren’t any better when it comes to labour. We’ve spent decades watching voters cycle between Liberals and Conservatives. And it’s not working. Both parties care only for owners, not for labour.

Maybe it’s time to change that. Maybe it’s time to remind people of the importance of organized labour to Lethbridge. Maybe it’s time we remind everyone that Lethbridge was built on the backs of unionized labour. Maybe it’s time to finally put aside spats from the past, come together, and get behind candidates who have labour interests at heart.

This post inspired me to write a book about the labour history of Lethbridge. I’m in the process of writing it, but I’m not sure when it will be out. I’ve fleshed out about two chapters so far.

Here are two images for reference.

The first image is a table of calls for service for 2017 and 2018, and the other is a map for reference. The colours of the table rows match the zone colours on the map.

I shared a post from Lethbridge Supports Harm Reduction earlier that questions these stats from different perspectives, but there are a couple of points I wanted to highlight.

First, in speaking to the media, Acting Chief Scott Woods said the following:

“Quite frankly, we’re in that area more, which means that we’re putting more resources into that area, which means that in other areas of the city for example, or even in that same area of the city, outside it—depending on the priority of what we’re dealing with, our response times will suffer. As a result, we can’t get to some things as quickly as we’d like to. Obviously we do things on a priority system, so some of the lower level stuff is waiting longer, which is leading to some frustrations from people in the community. . . . From the standpoint of the police service, our people are starting to get tired, because we’ve been busy.”

“Significant increase” in calls for service at SCS and surrounding area strain LPS resources, Lethbridge News Now

I don’t understand this. If you look at the table, you’ll see that calls for service around the SCS have increased, but calls in the city overall have gone up by only 0.15%—less than 2/10 of 1%. The city, as a whole, saw an increase of only 52 calls in the second year, compared to the first year. That’s one extra call for service per week.

Maybe it’s just me, but one extra call for service per week doesn’t seem enough to strain resources. The LPS paid out over $1 million more in wages for their 2018 budget than their 2017 budget. Did they not spend this extra million dollars on more cops? If not, why not? I mean, if they feel strained by an extra call for service per week, you’d think using some of that million dollars for more cops might be something they’d do.

Second, It’s misleading to say that calls for service to the SCS increased by 6000% in 2018 over 2017. The building where the SCS sits now was vacant during the last 6 months of the first reporting period, and the nightclub that occupied it during the first 6 months of that reporting period was open only twice a week. So, of course there will be only 7 calls for service during that reporting period. Plus, half of the calls to the SCS originated from SCS staff, and many of those were related to the partnership agreement between LPS and Arches.

It always pays to analyze data critically, rather than using the data to justify your ideology.

Even though crime was increasing and public drug usage was on the rise, it wasn’t until the SCS was announced that people started rallying around how terrible the city had become.

I’ve read hundreds—if not thousands— of comments from people who are opposed to the SCS. That opposition varies by degrees, but it often comes down to common points.

Here are the 9 myths people often use when opposing the supervised consumption site and why exactly they’re just myths.

1. We need to shut it down

Shutting down the SCS will not improve any metric these opponents are worried about. It won’t reduce crime, it won’t reduce drug usage, and it won’t get people off their addiction.

The crime, drug usage, and addiction exist independent of the SCS. They were here before the SCS, and they will be here if the SCS shuts down. Plus drug-related deaths would increase.

2. It’s not working.

It most definitely is working. The SCS was designed to reduce harm, specifically, to prevent deaths and reduce the risk of infection. The staff at the SCS have reversed thousands of overdoses in the last year and a half, and none of them have resulted in deaths.

Over a quarter of a million instances of drug use has occurred in the SCS since it opened. That’s a quarter of a million incidents that didn’t happen in public, thereby reducing the net amount of drug debris in public.

3. I support the SCS, but it needs to be in a different location.

Its location was chosen because of the close proximity to the highest concentration of public drug use. Placing it close to that concentration would increase the effectiveness of the facility.

Moving it away from that concentration would reduce usage, and all the activity people claim is happening around the SCS would still be there. It may even increase.

And even so, where would you put it? No one wants it in their neighbourhood, and if you put it out in the middle of nowhere, it most definitely won’t be used.

4. SCS has caused crime to go up.

Crime has not gone up because of the SCS. The drug crisis arrived in Lethbridge nearly 5 years ago. The crime associated with increased drug activity came with it.

Because this myth seems to be the most prevalent, I’m going to spend the most time on it. I have three datasets I’ll discuss regarding crime in Lethbridge over the last two yeas.

First let’s take the crime severity index that everyone loves to cite.

According to Statistics Canada, Lethbridge had the highest CSI last year of all the metropolitan areas in the country. Last year was also the year the SCS opened, and, of course, people are claiming they have causal connection.

Lethbridge also had the highest crime rate in the country in 2018, which makes sense since the crime rate measures crime volume and CSI measures both volume and severity. If CSI goes up, so should the crime rate. But we’ll get to that in a second.

While the CSI increased for Lethbridge in 2018, it also increased in 2017. In fact, it has increased every year for the last 5 years. However, the rate at which it increased has not been consistent.

We see here that while the CSI did increase in 2018, the rate it increased was lower than most of the other years within the last 5 years. In fact, the rate of increase in the 2014 CSI was nearly 50% higher than it was in 2018.

Let’s say that again: the CSI rate of increase was nearly 50% lower the year the SCS opened than it was during the same period 5 years before it opened.

I mean, one could even argue that the SCS opening reduced the CSI rate increase. One may not be correct, but one could argue that; it would be an easy assumption to make.

Second, this image is one someone posted in reply to a comment I left on someone else’s post. They provided little context to why they picked that map and those time ranges, but I assume it’s to show that crimes has gone up since the local supervised consumption site opened. It was created using screenshots of the LPS Crime Mapping tool.

The image is a bit problematic in that it not only includes the Upper East Side, but that it includes Downtown, as well as parts of the London Road and Senator Buchanan neighbourhoods. The area covered in the map contains the densest population in the city. As I pointed out in another post from earlier in the week, crime in the Lethbridge area has gone up (and has been rising since before the SCS opened), so it makes sense that the most densely populated area in the city would also see an increase in crime.

If that image suggests that the SCS is the cause of the increase in crime because the January before the SCS opened is lower than the January after the SCS opened, then I wondered what the amounts were for multiple months. Which brings me to my next image.

I decided to chart the total number of incidents for every month going back as far as I can. Unfortunately, the tool has no data older than August 2017 and is missing data for November and December of 2017. The last half of 2017 appeared to be trending down, so I will assume that the missing months were on that trend. That’s an assumption I’m making though, based on that trend, and the fact that the last half of 2018 also trended down.

What we can see is that crime does indeed seem to increase after the SCS opened. August through October 2017 both seem lower than the same period in 2018. January through February 2018 seem lower than the same period in 2019.

But then the data does something interesting starting in March 2019. In March 2018, the total number or incidents reported in this area was 393; the total in March 2019 was 396. That’s roughly the same amount, and it’s the first time in over a year that the data in the second half is not higher than the first half. I mean, it’s technically higher, but by only 3 incidents. That’s less than 1 more per week.

Then in April 2019, the number of incidents drops compared to 2018. And it keeps dropping. For each of the last 4 months, the total number of incidents reported for this area have been lower than the same months in 2018.

If the SCS is the cause of the increase in crime in Lethbridge, why is the crime in the area around the SCS dropping?

Third, remember how last month, the local media was whipping everyone into a frenzy because of the 2018 crime severity index results showing Lethbridge had the highest CSI? I thought I’d use the LPS’s crime mapping tool to see what crime is like in Lethbridge.

This image illustrates the total incidents reported by LPS for every month starting in August 2017. These are citywide results. And while crime did seem to rise in the last part of 2018 compared to 2017, crime has been actually lower every month of 2019 starting in February, compared to the same months in 2018.

So crime is going down in Lethbridge, not up?

The funny thing is that any one of the reporters covering that story could have easily done this same research. It’s publicly available data. I didn’t even need to contact someone.

So, to sum up, crime was rising before the SCS opened; it came in the middle of an upward trend, one that everyone ignored until it opened, so they assumed its cause was the SCS. But the SCS isn’t a time machine.

Crime has been here for a while, long before the SCS opened. The SCS is a response to the drug crisis, not the cause of it.

5. The area around the SCS is dangerous.

The SCS is near downtown, which has the densest population in the city. And the higher the concentration of people, the higher the number of incidents of crime. Downtown has always had a higher crime rate, even before the SCS.

As I mentioned, the crime rate has increased. And if the crime rate in general goes up, so will the crime in the area with the highest concentration of crime. But it’s not the fault of the SCS. That crime would still go up even if the SCS shuts down, because the causes are independent of the SCS. The SCS is in its current location because of the drug crisis and the proximity to the highest number of users. The drug crisis and that concentration of users would still be in the area if they shut down.

Regardless, crime is up all over the city. It’s not restricted to Downtown and the Upper East Side.

6. We need more enforcement.

For every $4–5 the City of Lethbridge spends in its budget, $1 of it goes to the budget of the Lethbridge Police Service, making it the highest funded entity of all city-funded entities. We spend more on enforcement than we spend on any other entity: more than we spend on Casa, more than we spend on fire/EMS, more than we spend on parks, more than we spend on transit, more than we spend on ENMAX Centre, more than we spend on any single entity.

How much more do you think would work? Should we spend a third of our budget on enforcement, instead of a quarter or a fifth? How about half?

If enforcement worked, why are we still fighting a war on drugs, even after almost half a century? The enforcement model is a failure.

7. It’s enabling drug usage.

No, it’s not. People who are addicted to drugs are going to use drugs, regardless of whether a consumption site exists. They will find a way to get their needles if ARCHES wasn‘t handing them out, even if it meant stealing them, using makeshift ones, reusing old ones, or borrowing someone else’s.

By allowing people to use drugs at the SCS, ARCHES reduces deaths, reduces infection rates, and reduces risk to the public.

8. Addicts aren’t going to get clean unless they want to.

The SCS isn’t really designed to get people clean. Sure, they have referral services, but their purpose is to reduce harm: keep people alive and mitigate health risks.

However, yes, people won’t get clean until they’re ready. Which is why we need a consumption site; it keeps people alive until they’re ready.

9. We should have built a detox facility instead of the SCS.

We definitely need more detox services; Medicine Hat has more detox beds than we do. But it doesn’t need to be an either/or. For that matter, it shouldn’t be. We need harm reduction facilities and treatment and prevention facilities.

Lethbridge has a unique situation in that we have experienced the drug crisis as larger centres have, but we lack the resources found in larger centres. That’s why we’re struggling. We were entirely unprepared for this crisis, and our provincial governments have done very little to address it. We desperately need more resources here to properly address the effects of the crisis, but that lies in the hands of the provincial and federal governments. Complaining to city council is going to do very little. Petitioning the provincial government to shut down the SCS will do very little.

Unfortunately, governments aren’t willing to make the bold changes needed to properly address the crisis. Like decriminalizing all drug use, providing drugs free of charge, and redirecting enforcement funding to prevention and treatment programmes.

Until politicians show some real leadership, we’re going to see very little progress, and any progress we do see will be slow.

To: Kim Siever and Elect Lethbridge

Pursuant to section 13 of the Defamation Act of Alberta, I am providing you notice of my intention to bring Action against you for defamation for the article entitled: ‘Ìs there a connection between Bob Ackerman and Dodic’s 2010 mayoral campaign?’ posted by Kim Siever on the Elect Lethbridge Website on September 28, 2013 and, additionally, with respect to any further defamatory writings and comments which may come to my attention.

Rajko Dodic, QC