Alberta’s public safety minister is heading a new interagency task force to take action on drug use and homelessness in Edmonton. It aims to create a hybrid justice and health system, a model that could then spread to other cities in Alberta.
“I don’t think you need to walk more than a block to see someone using meth in the open air space,” Edmonton Police Chief Dale McFee said at the announcement of the initiative on Dec. 13. “That’s not acceptable. … So what you see here now is leadership, real leadership to say this is enough.”
The city should have a zero-tolerance policy toward drug use, he said, “not by using the justice system as the hammer, but using a multi-discipline approach.”…