Last month, Alberta lost over 117,000 jobs: 73,600 part-time jobs and 43,500 full-time jobs.

Since Jason Kenney introduced his so-called Job Creation Tax Cut in July 2019, we’ve had 4 months with drops in full-time jobs, for a total of 52,600 full-time job losses (if you account for gains made in other months). These new numbers make it 5 months of full-time job losses, bringing the total number of full-time jobs lost to 96,100.

That’s over 10,000 full-time jobs lost every month since last July, on average.

The combined loss of 117,000 part-time and full-time jobs last month is the largest monthly decline on record in Alberta. Jobs dropped by 5% in March 2020, compared to February, as well as 5.1% compared to March 2019.

In comparison, jobs in February 2020 were up by 11,400.

These new job losses have pushed Alberta’s unemployment rate to 8.7%, up 1.5% from February and the highest since January 2017. This is the second highest unemployment rate in Alberta since September 1994, and is only 0.5 points from becoming the highest rate.

Keep in mind, however, that the unemployment rate measures only those who are unemployed and looking for work, so the true percentage of unemployed people is likely higher.

All the job losses last month were in the service sector, with 43,700 in accommodation and food services and 27,500 in retail and wholesale trade, as well as losses in information, culture and recreation, and personal services. Contrastingly, jobs were actually up in forestry, mining, and oil and gas (8,700) and construction (5,300).

Since March 2019, 112,700 Alberta workers have been laid off, 58% of which were permanent layoffs. The number of workers not in the labour force increased by 138,200 over the same period.

But these unemployment number don’t tell the whole story. People who still have a jobs were also affected. For example, over 168,000 employed workers missed a full week of work in March, and nearly 200,000 missed at least half of their usual work hours.

Alberta isn’t alone in this job loss, however. Over 1 million jobs were lost across Canada. This loss is larger than Canada experienced during any of the 3 recessions since 1980.

Employment was down 6% in Québec, 5.3% in Ontario, and 5.3% in BC. While Alberta didn’t have the largest drop in the country, its 5.1% wasn’t that far behind.

The national unemployment rate jumped to 7.8%. It was 5.6% in February. This was the largest single-month increase in unemployment in Canada on record.

That being said, with low oil prices, businesses closed because of COVID-19 social distancing restrictions, and a global stock market crash, it may be months before these numbers start to reverse. And March may end up not even being the worst month.

Some partially good news: Jason Kenney announced yesterday nearly $2 billion in capital funding over the next year. Until yesterday, the allocation planned for 2020–21 capital spending was $937 million.

Specific projects haven’t been announced, but include “capital maintenance and renewal” for “schools, roads, post-secondary institutions, justice facilities, and more”. It will also include $410 million for transportation projects, of which, $60 million will be for transportation operating projects, such as road repair.

It’s good news because capital spending is one of two things necessary to help prevent and even reverse a recession.

It’s partially good news because the other thing needed is an increased public sector workforce. Given the recent cut of 25,000 education workers in the province, on top of the thousands of other public sector jobs losses, it’s unlikely there will be a plan to increase public sector employment in the near future.

While certainly the UCP government can’t be blamed for the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, the COVID-19 pandemic, or the recession caused by the two, we can hold them responsible for their resistance to investing heavily in the public sector to mitigate the effects of the incoming recession.

As a result, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to avoid a recession, one some analysts say is already here. And even less likely that we’ll be able to get out of it quickly.

There are two things I think are necessary to mitigate and even reverse a recession as quickly as possible.

1. Increase government spending

The first is the easier of the two to implement: increasing government spending. This can be done in two ways: public sector wages and capital projects.

Public sector wages

Because public sector wages are not determined by sales revenue, governments can insulate those employees from the effects of recessions. As governments continue paying their employees, they will continue spending their salary. If their salaries increase, they spend more. If the public sector workforce increases, there are more employees spending their salaries.

Public sector employees spend salaries on general goods and services. They buy groceries, cars, fuel, and clothing. They go out to eat, go to the movies, go to sporting events or the theatre. And every time they spend money, it drives up demand.

The grocery store orders more produce. The car dealership orders more cars. The gas station orders more fuel. The restaurant orders more ingredients. And so on.

That demand also increases employment. The grocery store hires more people to stock groceries and check purchases. The car dealership hires more salespeople and technicians. The gas station hires more attendants. The restaurant hires more servers and cooks. And so on.

And those new employees spend their wages, and the economy continues growing.

Capital projects

Capital projects have a similar effect. When governments build hospitals, schools, highways, commuter rail lines, and so on, they generally contract out the construction to private companies. Those companies purchase construction materials, equipment fuel, and other project components.

And as with consumer purchases, these corporate purchases drive up demand, resulting in higher wages and more jobs. Plus, as contractors hire more employees for these projects, it increases the number of consumers in the economy spending their salaries, further driving up demand.

2. Increase private sector wages

The second way to mitigate and reverse recessions is to increase wages in the private sector. As private sector workers receive more money, they’ll spend it, and as I outlined above, that added spending increases demand, which in turn drives employment rates.

The problem with the two ways I mention for mitigating and reversing recessions is that no one seems to want to do it.

Corporations keep profits for executives and shareholders instead of increasing worker wages, and they may even lay off workers. Governments freeze or even rollback wages and they eliminate positions.

Laying off workers and reducing salaries doesn’t reverse recessions; it prolongs them.

We already see companies replacing workers with automation. We see it everywhere: self-checkouts at grocery stores, robots on vehicle assembly lines, automated trains on mass transit lines, large machinery on farms or on road-building projects. And so on.

This automation is designed to maximize profits. By reducing the number of workers you need, you reduce how much money you pay in wages, and wages are often a company’s largest expense.

But what if we went all the way?

Imagine a world where everything is automated. Companies have no need for human labour. This eliminates the need to pay out wages at all, which should lead to drastically higher profits, right?

Except if no company is paying out wages, then doesn’t that mean that no one is receiving wages? And if no one is receiving wages, then who is buying the products the companies are producing?

Expenses aren’t the only variable in determining profit: revenue is equally important. And if you have no revenue, then it doesn’t matter how low your wage costs are; you still won’t have profits. And if companies have no revenue, then they have no money to buy from other companies.

You see, it’s not companies that drive the economy; it’s consumers. The more money consumers have, the more they spend. The more they spend, the more companies must produce. And to increase production, companies must hire more labour.

Consumers drive the GDP. Consumers increase jobs. And the best way to encourage them to keep driving the economy is to pay them higher wages.

Between July 2019 and February 2020, Alberta experienced a net loss of over 50,000 full-time jobs. And that was before the province implemented emergency measures that ended up shutting down businesses, forcing people out of work. Plus, with the huge drop in oil prices and the stock markets, unemployment has probably skyrocketed in the province. Alberta already had tens of thousands of people out of work, and the COVID-19 crisis likely pushed that number into the hundreds of thousands. We won’t know for sure until the employment numbers are released in early April.

Regardless, it’s clear that the working class has been hit hard by the crisis. Public facilities have closed, putting public sector employees out of work. Self-isolation and social distancing policies enacted by the province have forced people to primarily stay in their homes, driving down demand for products and services provided by businesses. These businesses have had to close or at least restrict staff hours.

Workers have less money to spend, and businesses have less money to spend. Some workers have no money to spend. And all this simply amplifies the problem.

For some of the working class, this affects more than just their discretionary spending. Some people are worried whether they’ll be able to afford groceries, rent, or any of their other bills.

Clearly we need solutions. And with so many businesses shut down, any real solutions likely won’t come from the private sector. Which means any solutions to the financial strain the working class is under must come from the government.

Which leads me to the response of the Alberta government.

While the provincial government has enacted several policies directed at restricting the spread of COVID-19 and mitigating the effects of the infection, I want to focus on the policies specifically intended to help the working class deal with the financial fallout.

Emergency isolation support

The first programme I want to highlight is emergency isolation support.

This is a one-time payment of $1146 designed to tide people over until federal emergency payments begin in April. While this sounds like a good measure, it’s restricted to only those who must self-isolate, who either have the disease or meet high-risk criteria, such as returning to Canada after being away.

This programme is not available to workers laid off because their employer closed their doors or workers who had their hours significantly reduced. Nor is it available to self-employed workers, such as me, who have lost all their clients.

Utility payment deferral

Another programme the province is offering is 90-day deferral on utilities. This means that those who are struggling financially because of the crisis can arrange for payment deferral with their utility providers. These are not payment cancellations. Workers will still need to make their payments; it’s just that they can put it off for three months.

It’s unclear what that will look like in the end. Will workers have to pay it all back after the three months, or will they be able to make smaller payments each bill?

My own utility bill is over $200 every month. Will that mean that if I take advantage of payment deferral, I’lll need to pay over $800 in the fourth month? For some people, that will be nearly impossible.

Credit payment deferral

This programme is the same as the utility payment deferral, except it applies to student loans, other loans, lines of credit, and mortgages. The same issue exists. Workers will still need to pay the deferred payments back, and it’s unclear if all that money must be paid at once, following the deferral period.

One credit payment deferral programme is for 6 months. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for some workers to have to pay back 6 months of mortgage payments all at once. That would be over $5,000 for us if we qualified for that specific programme.

Education property tax freeze

Another initiative—announced just this past Monday actually—is that the province is reversing a 3.4% increase to the education portion of property taxes.

The province estimates that collectively, this will “save” households $55 million.

Keep in mind that this is not a 3.4% reduction in property taxes. This is a cancellation of a planned increase that had been announced in Budget 2020. Property taxes in April will be the same as they were in March. Functionally, nothing will change for working taxpayers. They aren’t actually saving $55 million, at least not in any meaningful way.

But even if we play along with the UCP rhetoric and agree that households are saving $55 million, we have to remember that there are over 1.5 million households in Alberta. That means the average household will “save” about $37.

That’s not going to go far in helping the working class pay their rent or buy groceries.

Plus, this doesn’t directly help members of the working class who rent, who don’t directly pay property taxes. For them to benefit from this “saving”, their landlord would have to pass those “savings” on to them, and I’m not sure how likely that would be.

Clearly, the measures announced by the provincial government are not designed to help workers. Very few workers will benefit from these measures. They’re smokescreens, engineered to make it seem as though they’re helping while doing very little to make a functional difference.

Workers need help now. Workers need money. Workers need income increased and expenses decreased. Workers need a universal basic income. Workers need the government to pay their non-discretionary spending costs.

Doing so will prevent workers from going hungry, from losing their homes, and from going further into debt. Plus, it’ll boost the economy. Something Alberta sorely needs now.

Our healthcare systems are vastly underfunded as a result of the relentless pursuit of balanced budgets through tax breaks to large corporations and billionaires. When pandemics hit, our healthcare providers end up overworked, stressed, and ill themselves. When pandemics hit, we lack the resources to maintain current healthcare service levels, having to prioritize who gets tested, who gets surgeries, and who gets seen in clinics and emergency rooms.

On the labour side, we find that our system isn’t set up to protect the worker. Public sector workers are laid off (even temporarily) because the public facilities where they work are shut down. Private sector workers are laid off because their employer shuts down due to lack of business or because of government mandate. And when these workers are laid off—whether in the public sector or the private sector—they’re unlikely to have wages continue during their layoff period (unless they were unionized and it was part of their collective bargaining agreement or they lucked out with a generous employer).

Or if their employer doesn’t close shop, the worker may feel forced to go to work, particularly if they have low wages, no savings, no food storage, no way to fulfill their physical needs should they stay home. And if they work in a public environment, where they’re exposed to customers, their risk increases of contracting whatever disease is causing the pandemic, and then passing it onto other customers. And the entire underfunded healthcare system gets overloaded.

Capitalism didn’t create COVID-19. Nor did it cause it to mutate to spread to humans. But capitalism aided in its spread. And it’s not even an issue specific to the COVID-19 pandemic. All the issues I mentioned above exist for other pandemics, too.

There is only one cure (pun intended) to the issues I mentioned above. And that’s addressing the root cause. 

There’s a massive amount of wealth being hoarded by large corporations and billionaires. That money could instead be circulating in the economy: through public funds collected by taxation and spent on public labour or capital projects or through private funds as workers spend higher paycheques. Whether governments spend more money on hospitals or workers spend more money on eating out, spending money is what drives the economy. Hoarding money, on the other hand, hinders the economy. Unspent money can’t create jobs, no matter how many hundreds of billions of dollars it is.

If a robust health care system that’s prepared to easily deal with the fallout of a pandemic is important to you, then you should support measures to extract more money from billionaires and large corporations.

If a strong public research system that can help find a cure for the cause of a pandemic is important to you, then you should support measures to extract more money from billionaires and large corporations.

If an adaptable public education system that can flexibly educate students during a pandemic is important to you, then you should support measures to extract more money from billionaires and large corporations.

If workers being able to care for themselves in the event of a job loss is important to you, then you should support measures to extract more money from billionaires and large corporations.

If small business owners not having to go out of business due to lack of customers during a pandemic (or even an economic downturn, for that matter) is important to you, then you should support measures to extract more money from billionaires and large corporations.

Those measures can be varied but could include higher corporate taxes, higher inheritance taxes, higher income taxes on the top bracket, cracking down on tax evasion, implementing maximum wages, stronger labour unions, stronger antitrust laws, and so on.

And once that money is out of the hands of billionaires, it can be in the hands of the government and workers. 

In the hands of the government, it can be spent on hospitals and health professionals, universities and researchers, schools and teachers, and so on. It can be spent on social programmes that get more money into the hands of consumers, whether it’s through supplementary income programmes or more progressive options, such a universal basic income.

In the hands of the workers (whether through wages, supplementary income, or UBI), it can be spent on groceries, on fuel, on clothes, on eating out, on new trucks, on housing, on cell phones, on going to the movies, on travel, on hockey games, on theatre productions, on hunting trips, on back country camping, and so on. And all those purchases require a person at the other end selling the product or providing the service. And the more people there are buying those products or paying for those services, the more jobs it’ll require.

The greed of billionaires and large corporations is preventing us from being able to quickly and efficiently respond to this pandemic. The greed of billionaires and large corporations is preventing small business owners from being able to keep their doors open during this pandemic. The greed of billionaires and large corporations is preventing workers from being able to provide for themselves during this pandemic. 

And insisting that cutting their taxes will fix our hospitals and create jobs isn’t going to change anything.

For example, I know of one restaurant in Lethbridge that recently limited its operating hours because it wasn’t making enough money during certain hours. This, of course, reduces the total number of shift hours available to workers. This same company insists that their workers end their shift on time, that no matter how busy the restaurant is, they must plan in advance to cover all their tasks to close out their shift on time. All in an effort to curb paying out too much to workers.

Likewise, I’m aware of a local clothing store that recently consolidated their locations into a single storefront. This, of course, resulted in some job losses. Prior to the consolidation, the store—like the restaurant above—reduced their operating hours. And now, I’ve heard, this clothing store is shutting down their last retail location.

Here’s the thing though.

When businesses such as clothing stores, and restaurants, and bars, and hotels reduce shifts, or close locations, or lay off workers because profits are down, business owners are shifting responsibility of profit-making onto the worker, even though these workers rarely affect profit.

If you’re paying your line cooks $15 an hour, you’re paying them that amount whether they’re frying 1 burger or 100 burgers an hour. If you’re paying your bartender $15 an hour, you’re paying them that amount whether they’re pouring 1 drink or 100 drinks an hour. If you’re paying your store clerk $15 an hour, you’re paying them that amount whether they’re ringing through 1 shirt or 100 shirts an hour.

But how many burgers they fry or drinks they pour or shirts they sell isn’t really up to them. It’s your job to create business, to bring in customers. Your workers are more than happy to work hard to make sure lots of customers get the service they need. They likely don’t want to stand around with nothing to do either.

And when—instead of focusing on increasing revenue—you focus on reducing your expenses by reducing salaries through cutting hours and locations, then you’re shifting the burden of profit making onto your workers instead of yourself, the owner. You’re seeing wages as the issue rather than lack of customers. And that’s unfair.

At the beginning of March, the committee released the results of their review in a document called “Impact: A socio-economic review of supervised consumption sites in Alberta”.

Because it’s nearly 200 pages long, I won’t be responding to the entire document. I’ll focus specifically on the Lethbridge section, found on pages 24 through 26.

This review is extremely biased and flawed, which will be apparent to the reader as they go through my response. My response below will address the review one paragraph at a time.

Here we go.

Lethbridge has one fixed SCS site, which has been in operation since February 28, 2018 and is run by a not-for-profit organization called ARCHES, originally established in 1986 to curb the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C. The site provides 24-hour services throughout the week. The SCS site is in close proximity to the Lethbridge Soup Kitchen, a temporary shelter and resource centre, and to the Lethbridge Food Bank. Overall, the immediate area is best described as being light commercial with small retail establishments predominating. A large residential area is situated about three blocks to the south and east of the SCS location.

This opening paragraph is mostly fine; although there’s no residential area east of the SCS. Other than a single, small apartment building on the corner of 13 Street and 2 Avenue South, there are no residences east of the SCS until after Mayor Magrath Drive South. Residences north of the SCS are closer than the residences to the east.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Lethbridge SCS site may be one of the most used, not only in Canada, but worldwide. Whether or not this is the case, it is evident that Lethbridge has a significant opioid use problem. In 2018, the number of deaths, mostly due to fentanyl poisoning (overdose), was 25 for a rate of about 25.1 per 100,000 population for the year. In the first six months of 2019, the municipality experienced 11 deaths. This is higher than the provincial average of 17.1 per 100,000 population for the same period. For Alberta, the death rate due to opioids other than fentanyl in 2018 was 9.4 per 100,000 (seven deaths) while in the first half of 2019, it was about one per 100,000 (one death).

This is true, and this fact should not be ignored when considering such things as prevalence of social disorder. That being said, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, although Lethbridge’s death rate is higher than what the report labels as the provincial average, it’s not the highest. Grande Prairie, at 51%, is more than twice as high as Lethbridge’s 22.5% for the first half of 2019. In 2018, it was lower than both Grande Prairie and Red Deer, which had 32.4% and 42.8%, respectively. Lethbridge’s death rate increased between 2016 and 2017 and between 2017 and 2018, so clearly it was a growing issue prior to the SCS opening.

On the point of the provincial average, the 17.1 cited in the review is not actually an average. It is the number of deaths per 100,000 for the combined population of the 6 cities. The average of the 6 cities studied in the cited report is actually 23.7%. So, in actuality, Lethbridge’s death rate for the first half of 2019 was actually lower than the average of the 6 rates.

The Lethbridge SCS reported that from its opening in February 2018 until July 31, 2019, there had been 268,283 visits. In its report to Lethbridge City Council in August 2019, ARCHES noted that, “Since opening the facility, there has been a high uptake of service with approximately 1,376 community members having accessed the SCS and an average of 663 visits to SCS a day.” In their latest report to Alberta Health for the six-month period from April 1, 2019 until Sept 30, 2019, they reported a total of 910 unique users, with an average of about 136 unique users per day.

I have nothing to comment on here, as they, in turn, provided no commentary or analysis in this paragraph.

Based on multiple comments from stakeholders, it was the Committee’s impression that the Lethbridge SCS site may be facing the most problems in the province, since the expressed concerns were disproportionately higher than expressed at other sites. Most of the concerns the Review Committee heard were directed at the operations of the site itself — how it is being run, the behaviour of its employees, an apparent lack of accountability, alleged occurrences of flagrant and open criminal activity around the site, its isolation from the greater community and several questions about the integrity of how data are submitted. The Review Committee also heard from some medical professionals that they would not work in this place as it is “unethical.”

Another explanation for the disproportionally higher number of expressed concerns is greater prejudice among people in Lethbridge.

Even so, just because the committee received a large number of complaints doesn’t mean that this indicates a large number of individual events. The complaints could be describing the same events. For example—hypothetically speaking—if over the last year, there was only one person who consumed drugs in the alley behind SCS, but 30 people submitted complaints to the review committee about that person, it wouldn’t be fair to interpret that as 30 people consuming drugs in the alley.

Regarding medical professionals, did you hear from medical professionals who would be willing to work in the supervised consumption site? After all, medical professionals are already working there. They don’t seem to find that it violates their ethics.

Recently, there has been open conflict between the site and some residents and local business owners. In July 2018, there were protests both for and against the site. Much of this conflict is playing out through social media channels. One nearby business owner has (and continues to) broadcast pictures and live video from cameras placed around his building to illustrate the disorder at the SCS site and at his place of business because of the SCS site. This has resulted in equally hostile and aggressive responses including purported death threats by the site’s supporters. As indicated in the previous section of this report, police calls for service around the site have increased dramatically since it opened.

To be clear, this disorder is caused by the drug crisis, not the SCS. This disorder still existed in 2017, and even before that. It’s just that Doug Hamilton didn’t care then because it was happening in someone else’s alley and behind someone else’s building. It’s true that there are more instances of disorder in that vicinity than before the SCS opened, but that’s because some of the instances that occurred prior to 2018 simply shifted to this location instead of the downtown alleys, nearby parks, and school grounds where they had been previously.

Funny how there’s no mention about the countless death threats made to staff and clients of the SCS.

Of course police calls for service have increased around the site. People in the area hate that it’s there and will use whatever opportunity they can to shut it down, including phoning the police for benign activity. While calls of services could correlate with crime—theoretically—they don’t correlate one-for-one: one call for service doesn’t mean one crime. Calls for service are when people phone the police to report something they think needs responding to. And while certainly, this could include reporting crime, it also includes people phoning in someone sleeping in their entrance or a group of people just standing around outside their business. Calls for service is a poor indicator of crime or even general risk to the public.

It is also believed by many members of the community that ARCHES staff actively contribute to the problem of drug use. Several community groups that met with the Review Committee indicated that they felt intimidated by ARCHES and were afraid to speak out in public out of a fear of retribution by ARCHES.

Of course there are people in the community who think ARCHES staff contribute to drug use. Heck, there are people who think the SCS in general enables drug use. It’s one of the most frequent myths perpetuated by opponents of the site. But what does many members of the community mean? How many is many? Is it 5? 50? 500? Why not quantify it? Also, you used many 76 times in your document, in case you were wondering.

Also, in what ways do these members of the community think staff contribute to drug use? Why just leave the claim sitting out there like that?

Also, referring to drug use as a problem seems subjective. How is drug use problematic? Because of crime? Wouldn’t crime be the actual problem? Or perhaps elements of social disorder, such as loitering, sleeping in businesses, or public defecating? But, again, wouldn’t those specific actions be what’s problematic, and not the drug usage itself? If society was able to eliminate crime while still allowing drug usage, if it could address social disorder while allowing drug usage, would we still see drug usage as problematic? After all, social disorder and crime are connected with alcohol usage, but we don’t find alcohol usage problematic.

Finally, I can’t really speak to the intimidation by ARCHES staff, as I wasn’t there to witness the summarized claims apparently found in the submissions. That being said, I find it interesting that the report references intimidation done by ARCHES staff—real or not—but failed to reference intimidation done to ARCHES staff. They don’t label Doug Hamilton’s live streaming of surveillance video of the facility as intimidation. They don’t mention staff and clients being shot by paintballs as intimidation. They don’t label people organizing protests on SCS property as intimidation. They don’t label the racism, sexism, and death threats sent by email to staff or posted in social media comments as intimidation.

And by leaving out these acts or refusing to label them as intimidation, the report writers are trying to frame SCS staff as the antagonists and the concerned citizens as the protagonists.

The statistics generated by the site appear to be out of line with those in the rest of the province, as do some aspects of the costs. Except for the smaller sites (RAH in Edmonton, and the mobile site in Grande Prairie), the Lethbridge SCS is estimated to be one of the costliest on a per-capita (client) basis. While most of the other sites have a cost under $600 per unique client, the cost in Lethbridge is over five times that, at $3,270 per unique client. The Committee could not find any plausible explanation for this, and there was no mention of it by the Alberta Health management contact person who would have overseen this in the past.

Really? You couldn’t find any plausible explanation for it? Are you costing just supervised consumption site services operated by ARCHES, or are you looking at their total operating cost, which covers 17 health services, including supervised consumption? Do the other supervised consumption sites in the province provide such comprehensive services? Do the other sites provide as many consumption services as Lethbridge does, including injection and inhalation facilities?

Even so, let’s talk about that calculation. On page 24, you indicated that the average cost per visit is $25, and when you multiply this by the 119,355 total visits between 1 April and 30 September 2019, you report a total of $2,982,756. You then divide this by 910 unique clients to get an average cost per unique client of $3,278.

Well, first of all $25 times 119,355 is actually $2,983,875, not $2,982,756. But your false calculation aside, I don’t think measuring cost effectiveness based on unique clients is a fair assessment, particularly at a facility that offers 17 health services.

If a client comes in at 2:00 in the morning to use the injection facilities, then at 11:00 to use sexual health services, then at 15:30 for the Hip Hop For Healing programme, you’re calculating their cost as if they made one visit, despite having accessed multiple services, all of which are delivered by separate staff members.

I think a fairer metric for determining cost of delivery is cost per visit per day, particularly if you’re using total funding and total visitors to calculate the delivery cost, considering that you’re not delineating the different types of unique users.

And if we use cost per visit per day, Lethbridge’s is—according to Table 13—$25.18, which is not only below the provincial average of $101.93, but it is the lowest cost per visit per day of any of the supervised consumption sites in Alberta.

ARCHES operates the most cost-efficient facility in Alberta, and it’s unfair to misrepresent it as the most expensive.

An increase in crime rates was one of the key concerns raised by many who attended the town hall meetings in Lethbridge. Police calls for service suggest that the city has experienced one of the highest levels of crime increases at a site location relative to the rest of the city. Despite the increase in police activity, many residents believe that there is a “safe zone” for open drug use, trafficking, prostitution and related criminal activity around the Lethbridge SCS site. The Committee was reminded by many stakeholders of the seriousness of crime in the area. During the limited time the Review Committee spent visiting the area around the site, members directly observed several instances of open drug use, with individuals injecting drugs on the sidewalks close to the SCS site. Committee members also observed what appeared to be drug trafficking as well as prostitution.

As I mentioned above, calls for service is a poor indicator of crime, since it includes more than just criminal activity.

In a news article from September, Acting Police Chief Scott Woods denied the myth that there is a “safe zone” around the SCS, stating:

“That’s not true. The police . . . us, will arrest people for criminal activity around there, including drug possession and trafficking. The only exemption that the Federal Government has given is within that site specifically. So, criminal activity around that site is not something we’re turning a blind eye on.”

It’s irresponsible of the review’s writers to perpetuate this commonly held myth and omit official statements from the Lethbridge Police Service that debunk this myth.

Regarding the actual crime observed by committee members, I’m not sure what the point of this is. As I already pointed out, crime existed in Lethbridge prior to the SCS opening. In fact, crime has increased every year since 2014. If crime increases in the city overall, then it makes sense that crime will also exist, let alone increase, in the area around the SCS. But, again, the SCS doesn’t cause the crime. If you label public drug usage as a crime, as the quote above does, then the SCS actually reduces crime, since people consuming drugs in the SCS aren’t consuming publicly. Now, people might be committing the acts listed in the quote around the SCS because the SCS is there, but if the SCS didn’t exist, those acts would still occur; they’d just be in other locations in the city, maybe even still relatively close by, such as downtown parks or alleyways.

This view is echoed by members of Lethbridge Police Services in the First Responders’ Survey. As one police officer wrote: “The SCS is a lawless wasteland. Drugs can be readily purchased right in the parking lot. I have watched videos where SCS security staff are watching while drugs are being bought and sold and say nothing. They say they are reluctant to call police because it is frowned upon by SCS management and they don’t want to lose their jobs. SCS management make it very clear police are not welcome there and regularly complain if police try to do enforcement in the area.”

Another law enforcement officer stated that, “There has been attempts by the SCS staff to destroy video evidence. They had a pregnant lady have [a] miscarriage immediately after using their facility. They became offended when I asked what their procedures were for pregnant women and filed a formal complaint.”

In a news article from March 2020, Scott Woods said regarding the claim that police are unwelcome at the SCS, “We have a fairly positive relationship with (ARCHES). I meet with them monthly, and I discuss any issues we may have.” The article later summarized Woods, claiming that he said any issues LPS has with the SCS is with any crime in the immediate area, and not with the staff in the SCS.

Everything else in those quotes is heresay, so there’s not much I can respond to, as I wasn’t present during any of those apparent events.

Lethbridge Police services reported that in the period of March 1, 2018. and February 28, 2019, there were 424 calls for service in the area immediately surrounding the site. During the same period the year prior, there were only seven calls for service. Across the city, there was only a 0.15 per cent increase in total calls for service across the two periods. This is consistent with a dramatic and disproportionate increase in call rates to police after the SCS site opened.

Again, this makes sense, as mentioned above. Plus, the building sat vacant from August 2017 until they started construction. And even before August, the nightclub that was there was open only twice a week, so it’s not surprising that they had lower calls for service. I’m curious, however, what the number of calls for service were several years ago when The Roadhouse was at that location. For example, what was the number of calls for service in the area in 2009, when 5 people were stabbed at that location?

That being said, let’s look at calls for service city wide: 27,638 in 2014, 28,519 in 2015, 26,119 in 2016, 34,327 in 2017, and 34,379 in 2018. There are a couple of things to note here.

First, calls for service were up significantly in 2017—the year before the SCS opened—over 2016. Obviously, that wasn’t the fault of the SCS. Even in the first year of operation for the SCS, calls for service were up by only 52 for the entire city. If calls for service for the area increased 600% in the immediate area of the SCS, it wasn’t because calls for services increased substantially, but they shifted locations.

Second, calls for service for the entire city increased by 3% between 2014 and 2015, dropped by 8% between 2015 and 2016, increased by 24% between 2016 and 2017, and increased by only 0.2% between 2017 and 2018. The largest increase to calls for service citywide was the year before the SCS opened, and it increased by three times as much as the second largest increase. The year the SCS opened, calls for service for the entire city increased by less than 1%.

For reference, the population of Lethbridge grew by 1.6% between 2017 and 2018. That means that calls for service for the entire city increased at a lower rate than the population did in the same period. If you account for population growth, that means calls for service per capita actually dropped for the entire city the year the SCS opened.

Again, if calls for service for the city overall did not increase significantly, then all a 600% increase in the SCS vicinity means is that the calls for service shifted from elsewhere in the city.

Another major complaint concerning the Lethbridge SCS site relates to the volume of needle debris surrounding the site. As noted elsewhere in this report, needle debris is a significant issue in all areas where supervised consumption sites or needle distribution and exchange services are located. The situation in Lethbridge, however, is reportedly exacerbated by the particular policy of needle distribution that allows drug users to obtain excessively high quantities of needles — that is, packages of 200 to 500 needles at a time — simply upon request. ARCHES reports that it distributes somewhere between 13,000 to 15,000 needles per month. Presenting before the Review Committee, one representative reported a number that is approximately two to three times higher, indicating that 37,000 syringes are distributed per month from ARCHES. This is beyond those needles that are issued and used inside the actual SCS. ARCHES maintains that all but about 400 needles per month are accounted for. Given the directly observed residual level of needle debris around the site, however, this assertion does not appear plausible and appears to defy credulity. Several stakeholders raised doubts about whether ARCHES is forthcoming and candid in their self-reporting. The review committee was not able to corroborate the veracity of ARCHES’s statements.

While 13,000–15,000 needles per month seems like a lot, it’s important to keep this in context. In the “A Community Based Report on Alberta’s Supervised Consumption Service Effectiveness” published last summer by the Alberta Community Council on HIV, we find the following table:

In it, we see that during the first year the SCS was open, ARCHES was actually distributing 11% fewer needles than the year before it opened. Not only that, but the return rate went from only 32% the year before it opened to more than tripling to 103% for the first year the SCS was open. So, 2018 saw fewer needles going out and more needles coming back than in 2017. And while the 2019 number are incomplete, the return rate is higher than 2018, despite being on track for distributing more needles.

Given that ever since it opened, the SCS has been retrieving more needles than it has been distributing, the number distributed doesn’t seem to be significant. Even if we assume that the claim in the above quote of 37,000 syringes per month is correct (not the 9,269 listed in the ACCHIV report), at a 113% return rate, that would mean that ARCHES collected over 500,000 needles in 2019. It’s odd that the panel’s review left out the figure of half a million needles being collected by ARCHES last year.

What basis did the stakeholders have for raising doubts regarding ARCHES reporting practices? Did they provide justification? Was it just a hunch? Why is this information not present in the review?

The fact that the panel was unable “to corroborate the veracity of ARCHES’s statements” means they were equally unable to prove them false. Saying that you can’t prove something is true doesn’t automatically mean it’s false. That’s fallacious.

In a 2019 report to Lethbridge City Council, ARCHES also noted that, “From 2017 to 2019, needle distribution has decreased approximately 70 per cent.” This 2019 report does not provide the number of needles distributed in either 2017 or 2019. Nor is there any explanation as to why distributing 70 per cent fewer needles is acceptable now but was not in 2017. It remains unclear how ARCHES determined its policies on needle distribution.

Distributing 70% fewer needles is acceptable now because we have a supervised consumption site now. If people are consuming drugs at the site instead of in public, then there’s less need to distribute needles. It’s simple logic.

Lethbridge residents also report finding large numbers of unused needles in public areas. This is in addition to the volume of used needles that are discarded in public. Numerous stakeholders reported that needle debris causes significant concern among parents with children. During summer 2019, the local press reported the case of a six-year-old who was apparently injured by a discarded used needle. The child was given a series of blood tests and was started on a treatment for a possible Hepatitis C infection. To alleviate anxiety, some medical professionals cited evidence that the likelihood of contracting an infection from a used needle is small. Most parents found little solace in this, and it was evident that some stakeholders were offended by this apparent insensitivity to the consequences of a needlestick injury in a child, especially given that the supposed purpose of distributing needles is to prevent the spread of blood-borne infections, such as HIV and hepatitis, among drug users.

This is what I don’t understand. The panel goes out of their way to criticize the fact that they couldn’t verify the truth of ARCHES’ claims, but they say nothing about verifying the claims of submitted reports from the public.

How many needles did the public find? Are some user-submitted reports discussing the same needles? Were they needles that ARCHES picked up but that the public saw prior to pickup?

ARCHES has been distributing clean needles for decades. Literally, decades. Long before the SCS opened. If there was an increase in discarded needles in public, it’s because drug usage in public has increased because of the drug crisis over the last 5 years, not because the SCS opened. Even so, given that tens of thousands of instances of drug consumption have occurred at the SCS over the last two years, that’s tens of thousands of instances of drug usage that did not occur in public. As already established above and in your own report, there are literally fewer needles in public, so it’s confusing how people can be reporting large numbers of needles in public places.

Yes, the purpose of distributing clean needles (the actual purpose, not the supposed purpose, as you call it) is to prevent the spread of blood-born infections. By distributing clean needles, it reduces needle sharing, which would be a significant cause of contracting infections. And the fewer infections we prevent from spreading, the lower the risk of contracting infections from a discarded needle. That risk is further minimized by a year-over-year increasing rate of needle return.

Numerous complaints were received by the Review Committee about how the Lethbridge site is operated.

But what does this mean? What were the complaints? What was the proof of these complaints? Did you “corroborate the veracity of these statements”?

The Review Committee was also informed by ARCHES that it currently employs 174 persons working at the site. Putting this into context, at the time the Review Committee visited Lethbridge the site was seeing approximately 130-135 unique users per day. At the same time, police in Lethbridge had 161 constables on staff.

So what? Alberta Health Services employs over 3,300 people in Lethbridge. The University of Lethbridge employs nearly 2,300 people. I’m not sure I understand what the point is here.

An ARCHES worker told the Committee that approximately 40 per cent of workers at the SCS are “addicts in recovery” themselves. There was no apparent concern about the associated occupational risk or relapse risk to those workers in recovery.

Why do you think this is an issue? Was there evidence of occupational risk or relapse among staff over the last two years?

Finally, the review panel included a single quote from someone who is in detox:

“When I was in the Fort McLeod detox last year, I had made the first step in getting sober and trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. There were mandatory groups we had to attend which also included ladies from ARCHES coming in and telling us about their programs and what is included. Letting us know where the SCS was located and that they were on ways to test drugs so us addicts know exactly what we were getting. Also, that they will help drive us to and from appointments, as well as give us clean material to use with. I felt extremely hopeless. Was there even a reason for me to get clean? I ended up calling my mom crying, how desperately I wanted to get out of detox. I was feeling extremely triggered. I felt resentful towards Foothills detox for letting these ladies in. I thought they were supposed to help me, not give up on me.”

In contrast, here are some testimonials from people who use the SCS:

ARCHES is a type of family where you are accepted despite the drug life. Smiling faces of support and encouragement greet you at the door, making the trip to get here worthwhile every time.

The supervised consumption site are my heroes. Thanks for saving my life.

The supervised consumption site is the best life saving project. Keep up the good work.

They help me feel better about myself and feel safe.

Without the site, I probably wouldn’t be here.

The most important thing to me is the staff being there for me lately in my most toughest time.

The supervised consumption site means feeling safe with the services here. Having health services and counsellors close by to help is important. Feeling comfortable with the workers!

ARCHES has been the best thing for me because I don’t have much people before them. I got everything I need and want: a family who cares.

As seen above, this review published by the panel is biased, lacks academic rigour, and fails to present the supervised consumption site in an objective, balanced, factual way. It focuses on anecdotes and misrepresenting what little data it does share.

It’s unfortunate that this review will be used to create policy regarding supervised consumption sites in Alberta.

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.

What people fail to realize is that anything that seems to be an innovation of capitalism and that helped raise the global standard of living are made possible by the state.

More people have access to food, for example, not because of multinational food conglomerates, but because of the infrastructure states have created: transportation, communication, banking, and so on are all made possible because of governments, not because of capitalism.

Research in food technology and in medical technology is made possible by public funding to public research institutions, such as universities and federal research centres, not because of altruistic billionaires.

Improvements in quality of life and longevity are likewise a result of government investment into public health research and healthcare, not because of large pharmaceutical companies posting billions of dollars in profits.

Global wages are rising because of labour legislation passed by governments that increase wages and reduce worker exploitation, not because of the kindness of company owners.

Capitalism would have let people starve if it meant business owners could make a profit. Or at the very least, business owners would feed the poor just enough to keep them alive as they worked in their mines, on their plantations, and in their factories.