Our legal action to seek an injunction against the implementation of harmful regulations for consumption services goes to the appeal court on January 27.

We are thankful to the Honourable Carolyn Bennett, the Federal Minister for Mental Health and Addiction, for the meeting with our legal team today. We had requested this meeting in an Open Letter on January 13, 2022.

Today we explained our case and why we are seeking an injunction to stop the implementation of harmful new provincial regulations for consumption services until our human rights case on this matter is heard by the court. We further highlighted the importance of keeping consumption services as low-barrier as possible for everyone who needs them.

Minster Bennett, her staff and senior Health Canada staff joined us for this meeting, where we presented a letter explaining our case and asking for federal assistance.

In this letter, our lawyer Avnish Nanda, on our behalf, suggested that the federal government

“revise the framework for section 56.1 exemptions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, SC 1996, c 19. As part of any approval, the federal government should mandate that the delivery of any supervised consumption services must occur in an anonymous and confidential manner, with exceptions provided to in-patient supervised consumption sites or in other circumstances where it is assured that identity verification measures at a site will not deter substance users from accessing these services.”

Our legal team was represented by Timothy Slaney from the Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society (LOPS), Kym Porter and Petra Schulz from Moms Stop The Harm and Devyn Ens from Nanda Law. We were joined by Heather McPherson, the MP for Edmonton Strathcona.

We look forward to hearing back from Minister Bennett to follow up on our request. We are confident that the Minister understands the importance of low barrier delivery of life-saving consumption services and thank her for making time for us on such short notice.

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