From Harm Reduction to Forced Treatment: Neoliberal Governmental Discourse and the Decline of Alberta’s Supervised Consumption Sites

Abstract

Canada’s implementation of Supervised Consumption Sites remains controversial, despite a growing opioid overdose mortality crisis. In 2019, the Alberta United Conservative Government published in affiliation with Alberta Health, ‘Impact: A Socio-Economic Review of Supervised Consumption Sites in Alberta’. Following publication, the review became an important referent document used by governments to prevent supervised consumption sites from operating; as Alberta’s overdose deaths increased, the provincial government froze supervised consumption site funding, shutting down North America’s busiest sites. These events indicate the need to analyze how supervised consumption sites and harm reduction is now communicated by the Alberta Government, with Alberta Health. This cross-sectional case study asks: what discourse is produced in Alberta Health’s ‘Socio-Economic Review of Supervised Consumption Sites in Alberta?’ The methodology is informed by Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis and Michel Foucault’s concepts of knowledge and power. The two major themes identified, site inefficiency and risk to society, evidence a neoliberal governmental discourse on health services. Findings indicate that neoliberalism silences the voices of site users and social issues to emphasize the negative community impact of supervised consumption sites. Consequently, the review’s neoliberal governmental discourse repositions the fundamental problem underlying drug addiction away from the silenced, systemic, socio-economic marginality site users face to the salient, socio-economic challenges that harm reduction sites impart on the community. This discourse erodes health and social services like harm reduction to rationalize the Alberta Government's newest addiction treatment proposal, the forced treatment model, increasing disciplinary measures against society’s most vulnerable.