The future of a Nanaimo overdose prevention site is up for debate after a city councillor demanded its closure.
On July 28, Coun. Ian Thorpe introduced a motion urging councillors to formally request that the Vancouver Island Health Authority close Nanaimo’s only overdose prevention site.
“The consumption site, to me, is simply a symbol of failed government policy,” Thorpe said during the meeting.
“This motion just takes a first step in getting the attention of the provincial government.”
Council ultimately voted to defer the motion, but its supporters say they hope it will put pressure on the province to start closing its 43 overdose prevention sites.
“This motion was symbolic, and we do not expect Island Health to close the [overdose prevention site],” local community association representative Collen Middleton told Canadian Affairs in an email.
Social disorder
Nanaimo’s mayor Leonard Krog says the neighbourhood that surrounds the overdose prevention site has been plagued by issues ever since the site opened in 2022.
Theft, violence, threats and open drug use have left residents and city staff feeling unsafe, and have prompted calls for action.
The city previously considered and rejected a $412,000 proposal to upgrade a fence near the site.
“Council voted it down unanimously because, candidly, we didn’t think it would make enough of a difference, not for $412,000 anyway,” Krog told Canadian Affairs.
In Thorpe’s view, overdose prevention sites enable addiction rather than addressing its root causes.
“We don’t have the money, the resources, or, in fact, the mandate to treat the root of this problem,” he said during the meeting.
“My motion asks the government to change direction, to stop enabling drug usage,” he said. He urged the province to instead invest in drug-free treatment facilities and “involuntary compassionate care for those that can’t look after themselves.”
Thorpe’s motion echoes a similar initiative by Victoria City Councillor Marg Gardiner in early July, which names issues comparable to those faced in Nanaimo.
Those in favour
Thorpe’s motion has garnered the support of some city residents.
The day before Thorpe introduced his motion, Middleton sent a letter to Krog and City Council supporting the motion’s passage. Middleton is president of the Nanaimo Area Public Safety Association, a residents’ group that has previously raised concerns about the effect of B.C.’s drug policies on community safety and public order.
The association’s letter, which Canadian Affairs reviewed, says the overdose prevention site has “significantly degraded public safety and quality of life” downtown.
The letter also links the overdose prevention site to increased crime, drug trafficking and human exploitation. In one case, a local man was sentenced for trafficking diverted safer supply opioids near the site.
“Consistent, enhanced security is required for any and all sites of this nature to protect people from unpredictable, threatening, harassing, second-hand drug smoke, and violent behaviours,” Middleton told Canadian Affairs in his email.
Citing overdose data from 2016–2024, the association’s letter also notes that Nanaimo’s drug-related fatality rate has remained largely unchanged in the past eight years, implying the overdose prevention site is not effective.
Deferral
During the meeting, Coun. Sheryl Armstrong proposed deferring Thorpe’s motion to close the site.
She said it was necessary for City Council to first consult with Vancouver Island Health Authority, the site’s operators and medical professionals — and to know what the other options are.
“I’m not prepared to shut down something when we do know it does save lives,” she said.
In follow-up comments to Canadian Affairs, Armstrong acknowledged there are indeed incidents of social disorder around the overdose prevention site — especially following drug use.
“The social disorder [comes] after a person uses there and then comes out into the community where they then become the problem of the police and the neighbourhood,” she said.
Armstrong, a retired RCMP officer, says the site’s impact on the surrounding neighbourhood has worsened over the past nine years. She believes the normalization of drug use has contributed.
During the meeting, Armstrong proposed exploring mobile overdose prevention sites to reach people using drugs alone at home — where most deaths occur.
Several councillors supported deferring Thorpe’s motion, citing a lack of consultation and warning that the motion could be a “distraction from the real issue” — namely, the failure to invest sufficiently in housing, treatment and health infrastructure.
Coun. Perrino said he would like to see overdose prevention sites located near hospitals, instead of in residential or commercial areas.
Ultimately, the motion to defer passed by a 7–3 vote.
Krog was one of the seven who supported the decision to defer Thorpe’s motion.
“I want to hear from Island Health … to see if they are connecting people with services,” he told Canadian Affairs.
“Can they point to people who have not simply had an overdose prevented … but in fact are on the road to some kind of recovery or supportive housing or off the streets — in other words, some tangible improvement?”
Krog says he hopes two new housing developments in Nanaimo will ease tensions downtown.
‘Cry for help’
Island Health says it is aware of the motions put before Nanaimo and Victoria’s city councils.
In an email to Canadian Affairs, the agency defended overdose prevention sites, calling them “evidence-based health services that reduce adverse outcomes and death.” The agency said the sites have averted 2,140 deaths across the region since 2019.
“Island Health remains committed to providing health care services to the people we serve,” it said.
While acknowledging community concerns, the agency emphasized that substance use is a complex issue tied to trauma, poverty and mental health, requiring “a multi-level, cooperative response from all levels of government.”
But for smaller municipalities such as Nanaimo, a government response has been hanging in the wings for too long.
“The letter is a cry for help,” Krog said.
“It’s a cry for help that … is being made across this country, let alone the province, by municipal politicians on behalf of their citizens who are coming to them and saying, ‘I can’t live in this neighborhood. I can’t handle the theft, the violence, the threats, the behaviours, the open drug use. I don’t feel safe’.”
The high-handed Emperor Krog wants to know of any tangible benefit that has come in the wake of the introduction of the harm reduction sites. What a tone deaf and actually appalling bit of Trumpery that is. Do fewer dead people count as tangible, m’lord? Maybe someone can tell this august personage that the prevention of an overdose is often, indeed always, the prevention of the municipality having to spend money on police and/or ambulance assistance, a hospital stay and possibly funeral expenses. Do your sums Mr Mayor. As with the lavish building project to give city employees a Five-star workplace, you have overstepped. And let me be clear, I’m no Woo-woo do-gooder. Reducing harm reduces expense for the City and Province. Or maybe we can just revert to the Middle Ages and burn the corpses on pyres with an updated Plague Warning?