Mandatory Rehab – Stop Enabling Addicts in Smithers
Let me begin by getting something off my chest, it really bothers me when someone flogs biblical quotations for self serving ideologies, so here is one back at you. “He overturned the moneychangers’ tables and the chairs of those who sold pigeons. 13 He told them, “Scripture says, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you’re turning it into a gathering place for thieves!” That said lets get to the heart of the issue. We do not oppose helping the poor, the downtrodden and or even drug addicts from the cold, but here is where you and I differ. We believe that simply “enabling addicts” helping them to continue as addicts, is the single worst and Un-Christian thing to do. You and I both know that these people cannot break their addiction on their own even if we invest in another 100 Thousand drug addiction counsellors.
Every project by the BC NDP to date has been geared towards enabling drug addiction, that is the heart of the problem. The solution is assisting them, take them out of the tents, put them in warn, nutritious, rehab centers cared for by expert health professionals. They will not voluntarily stay so it must be mandatory rehabilitation for those who are legally classified as addicts by professional doctors. You talk about addicts freezing thier fingers or losing their toes, but not once did you mention the obvious answer, mandatory rehabilitation. If a person cannot break the addiction cycle, then we as a society must help our brothers and sisters, feeding addicts sup is nice, kind and gives you a feel good emotion but does nothing to help against the addiction.
Next I want to address those who were using Jessica Patrick as a promo for this BC NDP $700,000 program that puts a lot of money into a few peoples pockets, but does nothing to solve the addiction problem, its another act of enabling addicts, a total waste of tax dollars. Jessica Patrick did not die of exposure or due to the lack of housing, I challenge you to reveal the cause of death, as the real cause of death has never been publicly revealed. Shame on you all for using her death to promote “your” ideals.
DO THE MATH – $700,000 for 6 months = $16,666 per month – Divided by 30 days per month = $3,888 per day divided by the maximum of 6 beds = $648.00 per person every day.
It would have cost significantly less to house them in the most expensive hotel in Smithers meals included, so who is pocketing the difference?
Why is there such an effort to keep the professionals working as experts in drug addiction, why are we working so hard to keep them in demand? We are killing our children, turning them into drug addicts, just to keep employed the specialists who do nothing to end drug addiction? Below one of the speakers who was a former drug addict told you to your face that what you are doing is bad.
It was another eye opening experience to attend this meeting, some very unexpected revelations came forward, that I am sure had many counsel members staring at their toes in shame.
Many question remain intentionally hidden from the public, what are the names of the people running the Bulkley Valley Harm Reduction Society, what are their credentials, and how mach money will they earn> How many others will personally profit from th9is tax funded project? Why the secrecy? The only person named is the program manager Billie Kennedy, and absolutely no background history on her, not even if she is a citizen of Canada or when she entered Canada? if she has any educational degrees? or how much her salary will be?
BC NDP and its BC Housing Ministry secretly did this to the residents of Smithers without ever consulting us.
If you were in attendance, you would know that Gladys Atrill made it very clear that anyone showing disrespect would be subject to her cutting off the presentation. Having said that Gladys Atrill knowing full well that Sharon Hartwell was not present, and allowed a person how described himself as someone from out of town, meaning not a local resident, who started with telling people he was going to be navigate, that he is a left leaning guy, and Gladys Atrill knowing he was making a rant against our elected MLA without her having any chance of a rebuttal. The rant went on for a full 3 minutes without any indication by Gladys Atrill that anything was wrong. Would Gladys Atrill have done the same if the attack would have been on former MLA Nathan Cullen? We believe she would have cut anyone doing so off, and we see this as an opportunists attack in support of a project she helped create.
The entire public meeting was a part of a cover-up, that blew up when one Scott Marco revealed what really happened.
Read below what Scott Marco revealed.
Considering the decision is already made and final, its more important that even to see what those who opposed the decision had to say. We hear a number of people that supported this centre for drug addicts, the fact they are homeless is a consequence of a problem these same people refuse to address.
We used a transcription program to turn audio into text, so if the names are spelled wrong we apologize, if you want a correction please message us.
I will highlight the very important revelations made here.
Hello, my name is Scott Marco.
I live at 1201 Queen street, about a block away from the, temporary shelter, I guess you call it.
I’m more going to talk about the, town’s role in this and the policy about it. So it might be a bit boring for some people. This is specifically for the town employees here. Once again, here we are. A large response from the public and another emergency, meeting. I would have thought that the town NPC housing would have learned after the Capri Hotel adventure that the citizens would smell Smithers expect more than the cookie cutter approach to these issues. But I guess I expected too much. I thought your take away from that would have been to improve the communication and bring forward a comprehensive plan. Instead we have been treated to lies and obfuscation. We have been railroaded to the point of this useless meeting for an already approved project. So much for the engaging the neighbourhood. I was in the town office on Friday talking with the CIO Michael, and on the phone with the mayor trying to get the permit approval delayed until after this meeting. Unfortunately, I was not aware that the permit had already been issued. Nobody told me. So I was basically, wasting my time.
The last two weeks I’ve had numerous discussions with town officials and I was told repeatedly that this came out of nowhere, that the town was blindsided and that there was nothing the town could do to delay or stop the project. But after looking into this a little further, I realized that not only was the town aware, the mayor had been actually pursuing this since 2022 and before. So as early as 2022 or before, which, when the town moved the encampment to the downtown area, they were aware of the loophole in the Variance act that was before mentioned. They knew and did, nothing at that time.
Basically the rescue mission part of the variance. So here we are. No input, no vote, permit approved, emergency meeting. That means nothing. Didn’t the town think that would have been a good idea to put a firewall around the zoning usage so that when this came up again, the community would have a say?
I mean, I think that would have been appropriate at that time to do that and it should be an option moving forward for the town? I would think so. But I am starting to question the priorities of the administration and of our town. I would think that the town will be aware that the businesses, investors and residents of downtown are an integral part of the pride and a foundational building block of the community. Many downtown businesses depend on safe, clean streets to attract customers into town and ultimately into their store. And as we enter the holiday season, the, timing for this and for downtown merchants is horrible. Absolutely horrible. The implications could be painful for these merchants, if things go wrong. I feel the town has been negligent in protecting the taxpayers of the community and has deemed it okay to offer up some of them as collateral damage.
The town has left us at the mercy of BC Housing and their bad ideas. I urge the town to move quickly, to close the loophole before any more damage is done to downtown and to put the power back into the hands of the people in the community so we can vote on these things and debate them before we get to this point.
Thank you.
The speaker is Shane Bovian.
Hello. I was born and raised in this town. I’ve had experience with addiction in the past and what I see here I don’t think is positive. What I’ve seen in the community with our tent city I don’t think is positive. There’s been an influx of violent crime drug use, drug crime, theft, burglary. The enabling behaviour we are doing is not helping the situation. There needs to be more security. There needs to be more personal accountability to the people using these facilities to use them just for help as in hygiene, warm place to be, food, nothing else. Thank you.
Dr. Wouter Morkel
I have several concerns. First of all, to these guys over here, I think they’re doing a good job. I think they know that there’s a need and they’re trying to fill it as good as they can. Um, I’m a GP in this town and we built the building across on them. We are their closest neighbour. I feel like we were not consulted at all. I will tell you a little bit of my experience, uh, through the consultation process. Uh, I, I first called them. I think there was a problem with the phone line.
I think that’s now been resolved, but I didn’t get an answer. I then wrote them an email, later that same day, I, I hadn’t heard anything. So I walked over and I, uh, introduced myself. (1:00) Um, and I, I really want them to prove to me that there’s going to be no harm to our, to our community and, and, and doing this, this good work that they’re trying to do. But the reality is, uh, that we need a warming shelter, but this is going to be a low barrier shelter.
The first day I walked in there, they explained to me, um, that they’re planning to pop up a safe ventilation tent, uh, on the property. And I was gobsmacked to hear that because Third Avenue is a, is a, is an artery that connects two schools. There are kids walking through there every day.
And it, it, it didn’t make sense to me that people could consider putting a, a, a tent up where our kids walk, where people are going to be smoking drugs. It’s, it doesn’t make, it doesn’t make any sense. So although I know they’re trying to do good work, I don’t think that’s the spot for it.
And I don’t think, the process has been transparent. I think if it was, we wouldn’t be here tonight, so I think there are some shortcomings and I, and I look over to these guys and, and I know they, they, they’re doing it out of love and they’re giving their time and their effort. But it, it, you know, two years ago we had an issue at our house where we had a drug dealer living across the road from us. My son came out of the ditch with a crack pipe. That’s the reality.
That’s what’s happening. And I don’t think a warm place to do drugs should supersede our kids’ right to, to safety. This is my concern. And I, I knew Kirsten Patrick as well. She was an amazing woman. I loved her. And it’s sad to see that, but I think there’s a right way of doing this and a wrong way. And, and I don’t think the process has been good. And I don’t think the transparency has been good. And I think there’s been no discussion about potential harms and there’s been no discussion on how to mitigate those. My time’s up, but, uh, I had to come up and say this. Thank you for listening.
My name is
I live at 1011 Columbia Street, which is the corner of Columbia and Railway, and I’m an immediate neighbour to just down the alley to Good Acre Place, the Alfred Avenue prospect, and the Tenth City. I’ve attended every hearing for all of those ones in the past, and Mayor Ratterall summed it up quite well. The difference between this hearing and the other one, this one is after the fact, not ahead of it. The reasons I found online were explained. There’s no zoning requirement required. It’s within that. But BC Housing is involved. Town of Smithers is involved. I just like to say with the first project, the Good Acre Place, to the surprise of many, I came out in support of it. A lot of people were taken aback by that. But I’d said for years that we required a facility in this town, and I thought that I would be a hypocrite if I was a nimby and said, Just because they’re putting it in my backyard, now I’m against it. But at that hearing, I did raise three concerns, and I warned of repercussions which were to come, which would be open drug and alcohol use, an increase in crime, and lower values in the far end of Main Street in my area.
I attended the meeting for the Alfred Avenue one, and as Councilor Buhl member, I came out in grudging support of it. Grudging Support means that even if you don’t support it, you better come in and say you’re two-cent while you have the chance. I brought up the point that the three warnings that I did about Good Acre Play and the Other had come to fruition. I do not support the Tenth City, but at the same time, I’d like to think myself a compassionate person, and I don’t think anybody in this room wants to see anyone freeze to death or suffer undue harm. Right now, because of the way it’s come about, I think there’s been a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. I’d like to say that I don’t think that there’s a single person in this room, including myself or any other group, who’s going to solve this problem because of its complex and convoluted nature. There needs to be more discussion. I think it should have been a little bit more open at the beginning, and you wouldn’t see the public backlash we’re experiencing right now. But no one wants to see anybody freeze to death, whether it’s in our community or walking across a border.
The problem is getting worse. The problem which I brought up, and several others did, one for the Alfred Avenue, was the concentration. Some refer to it as creating a ghetto area in the far end of Main Street. There’s no arguing that there’s been an impact on the businesses in that area and on the residents. At the Alfred Avenue The one I spoke how I had three break-ins in 48 hours, and I was at talk at the detachment. I’ve had my say. I’ll respect the red card. Not the first one I ever got. I’m glad that people have come out and to say, As someone who lives in the immediate vicinity, I have a vested interest and a stake in it, but I’m not furt and I’m not a guanet. I’m just here to see that the best possible outcome is achieved.
My name is Matt Dykstra, physician in Smithers. I wanted to speak of, I suppose, in opposition to this project, respectfully. I appreciated the gentleman two commentators ago just clarifying that even if a person like myself was not in support of a shelter, that is being proposed here. Doesn’t mean that I want people to freeze to death.
Doesn’t mean that I don’t love Ms. Patrick who passed away a year or two ago. Those sorts of labels I think are unhelpful.
I don’t support the warming shelter. As a tenant to the building that’s right next door to the shelter, I have concerns about the safety of myself and my staff. Our entrance for staff comes in off that kind of side alleyway that directly faces the proposed shelter. And I’m concerned, particularly in the early mornings when my female staff members open up our shop. that they’ll be approached for money or accosted perhaps for their valuables.
I hope that’s not to be, and I hope my prediction is wrong, but this is my concern. Also break-ins, for example, to the property where I house confidential patient records, laptops, computers, money, break-ins to cars, these sorts of concerns I have as a tenant.
I feel bad for my landlord who’s invested $3 million in a beautiful building, and that building probably isn’t worth a million dollars today. I lament that. I’m also not in support of a shelter like this because of its open drug use concept.
I fully support shelters that would allow a hot meal, shower, warm bed, these sorts of dignifying services. (0:02:17) But as soon as a shelter allows 24 hours, the folks can come and go as they please. They can do drug use in the open if they please. This is not loving. This is not helping them. It’s just continuing to facilitate their addiction. And I don’t believe that’s a loving posture.
I certainly don’t believe that’s what Jesus intended when he said, love your neighbour as yourself.
Lastly, I’ll comment about, as a physician, I just wanted to say that there’s not a unanimous opinion in the medical world about so-called harm reduction approach to drug use. So I might be in the minority here, but… I just see harm reduction, I’ll use that in quotation marks, as a giant failure.
Started in the 80s, downtown Vancouver, where they’d give out clean needles and say, hey, we’re helping people because we’re decreasing hep C and HIV spread and then safe injection sites. And now we’re basically just giving people drugs and a better tent, thinking that we’re loving them. I don’t believe that’s love and it’s not good medicine.
Thank you very much.