‘If you’re trying to find a scapegoat it’s not me and it’s not my council,’ says Mayor Jyoti Gondek on being blamed if the Calgary drug site stays open
Mayor Gondek looks to be in a fighting mood.
The government of Premier Danielle Smith wants city council’s support to shut down a dangerous drug site at the Sheldon Chumir Health Centre in Calgary’s Beltline.
The site is a place that should have been deep-sixed long ago.
The crime, the social disorder, the ongoing concerns of a community who never wanted the drug site in the first place.
Coun. Dan McLean leads the charge.
Council will vote on whether to ask the province to send the site packing later this month.
Their drug site will close in the spring.
But Gondek seems to be setting up a reason to vote No while insisting the drug site isn’t working.
“It’s not appropriate to be signalling publicly that you want a city council to give you their blessing. There’s no blessing to give here. There is no role for the city council or the mayor in the decision-making about closing down the supervised consumption site,” says Gondek.
The mayor says you “cannot close down a supervised consumption site without an alternative plan. What I need from the province is a plan.”
You see where this is really going.
The mayor can say she is like almost everyone in Calgary. The drug site was a bad experiment.
But she can also say because she doesn’t believe the province has a plan on what to do next and the city has no part to play deciding the fate of the site she can’t possibly ask the Smith government to get rid of it.
Her vote is No.
But Gondek must realize if she and most of city council vote No the story will be how city hall voted against closing the drug site and it will be the latest move in a sorry laundry list of loser moves.
The mayor already has her answer locked and loaded.
“If you’re trying to find a scapegoat it’s not me and it’s not my council.”
Earlier in the day, Gondek takes to social media.
She fires off a letter to Williams, the UCP cabinet minister committed to seeing the last of this Calgary drug site.
She wants to see his comprehensive plan.
The smart money says the provincial government’s plan will not be what Gondek wants to see because she wants to see more drug sites.
This Williams guy does not. This Williams guy is old-school conservative.
Gondek tells Williams over X that it only takes a phone call to talk.
“I’m waiting,” writes the mayor.
She didn’t have to wait long. Talk about same-day delivery.
Williams had a letter back to Gondek and the other members of city council in a matter of a few hours.
In government, that’s like breaking the world record in the 100-metre dash.
Williams says he is “looking for a solution that better supports Albertans struggling with addiction while keeping our communities safe.”
The man tells Gondek and council he has an obligation to ask them for their position on removing the drug site in Calgary “because of the responsibility and the relationship you have to the residents you represent.”
Williams ups the political voltage.
“It is clear Calgarians do not support, nor is it in the community’s interest to support opening new drug sites across the city.”
Williams and Gondek are really not seeing eye to eye.
With a lack of community support “any proposal to expand with new drug consumption sites is not an option I am willing to seriously consider.”
The man adds if city council wants to ask for more drug sites they’d better include a list of preferred locations in the city.
There aren’t any. Do you want a drug site in your neighbourhood? Hands up. Thought so.
Instead of more sites “as the mayor has publicly suggested,” he wants to spend money on addiction treatment, recovery services and mental health supports.
Williams points to detox beds, mobile overdose response teams, recovery communities.
He waits, like the rest of us, to see what this mayor and council will do in a few weeks.
All bets are off. After all, if anyone is capable of not doing the obvious right thing it’s this city hall.