GOLD: Fake consumption site consultations not fooling Point Douglas stakeholders

Article content

Ever since The Winnipeg Sun revealed the specific location for a proposed safe consumption site in South Point Douglas, the NDP government has been forced to play defence. It’s become a losing strategy.

Article content

Article content

Recommended Videos

Article content

The first problem arose after Bernadette Smith, Minister of Housing, Addictions and Homelessness, admitted the Point Douglas area in her constituency was being looked at, which raised anxiety all around the neighbourhood.

The second problem was when the proponents, the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre, filed the application for the site with Health Canada on Nov. 21 before performing the basic consulting requirements about the project with the community.

“A group of elders” and a “peer-advisory council” of current and former addicts were involved in the selection process but that raised even more suspicions, since who those individuals are and where they live has never been divulged. AHWC also said a “community cohort” of organizations was consulted for months to select the site. That wasn’t actual consultation about the project itself and fooled no one.

Article content

The third problem was when we revealed that the location was at 200 Disraeli Freeway, directly across from Argyle High School.

Point Douglas residents well remembered what Premier Wab Kinew had said to CTV News a year earlier: “You don’t want it near a school. You don’t want it in your other community sites where you got young people or elders, so there’s a lot of consideration that needs to go into that.”

Somehow all those people and groups the AHWC “consulted” on the site choice decided they knew better than Kinew.

In response to the double-cross, he told the media he was “willing to go in a different direction” on the site location if there’s an “outcry from the community.”

With that threat to their grand vision hanging over their heads, thus far the small-scale, bare-bones meetings have exposed that the organizers have no expertise in designing and presenting valid and fair public consultation sessions and never intended to.

Article content

Article content

There’s been no questionnaires handed out, no flyers put in mailboxes, no online surveys, and no door-to-door canvassing.

At the few small meetings held so far, there’s no plan distributed, no illustrations of the facility displayed and there’s no copy of the application provided so attendees can even know exactly what is being proposed.

There’s no email address advertised for people to send questions or give feedback and the AHWC website has holding pages where you’d expect to see “News” and “Events.” Those are all examples of consultation tools the feds expect to see used.

The federal application protocol requires a community consultation report with “a description of consultation activities that were undertaken for the proposed site. Results from the consultations, including all feedback and comments that were received, should be provided. Any advertising materials, forms or documents used for collecting opinions may be included as supporting documentation.”

Article content

The rules state: “You should include a description of measures to address concerns that were raised during the community consultation.”

By limiting information about and opportunities to analyze the plan (which seemingly doesn’t exist), and not collecting feedback from a broad range of stakeholders, the hope of organizers and Smith appears to be to keep concerns from emerging.

That’s not going to work. No one accepts that you can impose 30 km/h speed limit zones in neighbourhoods to protect pedestrians from vehicles without validation and neither will Winnipeggers accept plunking a site soliciting addicts to consume drugs across the street from Argyle High School as “safe.”

Tanya Bashura is on the board of the Ashdown Warehouse condos. She’s on a safety subcommittee that’s exploring the costs of shoring up security around the building after five years of spiralling damage, graffiti and social disorder affecting residents, the main floor businesses and the rest of the East Exchange.

Article content

She started to make inquiries in November about what the consultation process would entail, writing “the impact of such a facility will likely be felt beyond the 500m radius.”

Their building is in fact just outside the consultation zone invented by the NDP but by any definition, it’s part of the neighborhood that will be affected.

Bashura got bounced around from Smith’s office to AHWC, who replied by copying five people in the Minister’s office who they said were on the “team” and could answer her questions, which didn’t happen.

It was only after a third follow-up, copied to PC opposition critic Kathleen Cook — that anything resembling a response from “Health Promotion” was finally received, promising “more information in the coming weeks.”

Article content

The next week, I provided the Point Douglas Residents Association an invitation that a handful of businesses got to a Jan. 16 meeting with Smith and AHWC officials. Bashura was one of the area residents who crashed the session.

“It was a cramped space with about 20 people from the community,” Bashura told me, although no one is sure how many in the room got the invitations, how many were gate-crashers, and how many worked for the government.

“I’ve never met Smith,” Bashura said, but “her handling of the meeting came across as a sales job.”

The meeting actually revealed the trauma Point Douglas residents, renters, businesses and property owners have endured. That was the last thing Smith and the team wanted to hear.

Article content

“There was no plan for community safety. They say they’re working with the police and the City but they weren’t there. No one was representing them at the meeting to answer questions. No cops saying yes, we agree with the plan — they’re being spoken for.”

It looks like the playbook is to squelch any outcry so Kinew won’t force them back to the drawing board. But a growing number of residents simply aren’t prepared to let Health Canada be deceived into approving the proposed site, especially with it being across the street from Argyle and near the Children’s House Montessori School.

“Smith said, what feedback could we incorporate into the plan? We aren’t being asked do you want this, yes or no? Here’s what it looks like, what do you think — they didn’t ask that. This was definitely not professional,” Bashura said.

Article content

“I’ve worked in public consultations, I’ve done project management for many years and we use organizational change management specialists to do it. This was not one of those. There was no, here’s some whiteboards, here’s some pads of paper, write your thoughts, write your concerns so we can solicit them. And there was only one pen and one pad of paper per table. Or, here’s a website you can enter in some concerns or questions. Nothing. It was a checkbox ‘we consulted,’ That’s it.”

More than two months after the application was filed, a meeting is finally being held with the residents of Point Douglas on Thursday at the Sport Manitoba building, with Smith again slated to appear. That’s not good enough for Bashura.

“She’s our MLA but she is not representing us. We’re supposed to trust them? I’d like to see the Winnipeg police and a representative from City Council there to confirm what the safety plan details are for the surrounding neighbourhood.”

Bashura added, “The premier should come to the meeting and hear our experiences and what we have to say without Smith or AHWC filtering our comments. We need to be heard.”

— Marty Gold is a Winnipeg journalist. You can find more of his work at The Great Canadian Talk Show.

Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca

Article content