KAMSACK — Powerful and assertive, Betty Nippi-Albright, “touches me and shows love, support and encouragement,” said Martha Quewezance, MC, during the Saulteaux Healing and Wellness Centre event in Kamsack on April 30.
“She speaks on behalf of people in crisis,” Quewezance said in her introduction of the MLA, who is a Saulteaux and Cree mother, grandmother and MLA for Saskatoon Centre.
“It is heartening to hear my relative speaking my own language,” Albright said as she took to the podium.
As the only female First Nation MLA in the Saskatchewan Legislature, it can be a very difficult place to work, she said, explaining that at times she does not have much support because “the system was not created for us.”
Albright brought greetings on behalf of Carla Beck, the leader and the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party, and said that the Saulteaux Healing and Wellness Centre is “a place where our relatives are going and are being embraced.”
As the shadow minister for mental health and addictions, Albright criticized the provincial government for not paying for places at such centres and said that across the province, all communities feel the impact of substance abuse, alcohol or drugs, and frontline workers are exhausted while people wait for help.
Explaining that she has lost loved ones to toxic drug poisonings and terming the situation as an emergency, Albright discussed her struggles and said she has lived with fear, waiting and watching loved ones while worrying about who would die of a drug overdose. She reminded the audience of the many drug overdoses in a brief 24-hour period last year in Saskatoon and said, as a consequence, she had attended three back-to-back funerals.
Drug poisoning, toxicity, impacts everyone and all socioeconomic classes, she said, adding that she has lived experience that she brings to the legislature, which is not always appreciated.
“I know how quickly toxic drugs can take a life,” she said, referring to the example of her daughter, who had been addicted. She had told her daughter that there was nothing she would do that would stop her loving her.
Albright said that although it may take the body about 42 days to detoxify, it takes the mind much longer, as much as another two years, to recover from the drugs.
“So sober homes for patients to go to are needed,” she said. “But this government is cutting programs for such homes, and without such support, people are vulnerable.”
There is a public outcry to do something, but the government is not making its decisions on evidence but on public pressure, she said as she talked about Bill 48, the Compassionate Intervention Act.
Albright explained that her study of the act reveals that it is far from being compassionate, and its consequences could be devastating if passed as written.
Bill 48 gives powers to detain people, even without warrants, and this power could be used unfairly and people could be detained, she said. The Bill says people may get legal counsel, not must get legal counsel, and safeguards are activated after a person is detained, which is like putting the cart before the horse.
There was no request for Indigenous participation in creating the Bill, and it risks repeating past harms, such as the federal government’s Indian Act Amendments of 1953, which resulted in abuse of the nation’s Indigenous people.
Bill 48 is similar, she said. There are not enough volunteer treatment centres. People need treatment beds today, and the government has not provided dollars for expanding voluntary treatment.
Saskatchewan cannot accommodate people seeking treatment, she said, adding that forced treatment is not supported by the evidence.
“It does not work and can lead to overdosing,” she said. The Bill wastes a lot of money and still does not deal with the issues.
“We want everyone in recovery,” but like one can take a horse to water but cannot make it drink, the government is pushing towards forced treatment, which does not work, she said. Detention without treatment is not good.
Bill 48 does not align with medical standards, may create harm and blends health and justice in unsafe ways, she said. “We want more beds, community-based care, evidence-based care and the Bill does not address those needs.
“We need sober-living homes because deadly, toxic drugs can take someone quickly, and the brain needs more time than the body needs to detox.”
She said that what is needed are homes where people can live safely, cultural care, more than the 500 beds the government has promised, expanded on-reserve treatment centres and evidence-based harm reduction. But instead, the government awards contracts to for-profit providers.
“We should strengthen our own centres, but the government chooses not to,” she said. People who use substances need care grounded in evidence.
It is important people in the province get information, and the Bill is different from what it purports to be, she said.
When a person is detained by a court order for assessment, if he or she walks out, then it is a breach of a court order, and the person is then a criminal, she said. The government is forcing people into treatment, but there are few treatment centres without two or three months waiting, so the jails are filling up.
Albright said the second reading of the Bill will be in a few days, and the vote on the Bill will follow soon thereafter.
