Following Rising Above’s groundbreaking ceremony on their new facility expansion, Grande Prairie MLA Nolan Dyck delivered an update on the province’s role in addiction treatment across Alberta, and the Grande Prairie area.
Recently, the Province of Alberta announced a 50-bed facility in Clairmont, which will cost $35 million, and Dyck says he is hopeful shovels will be in the ground by this spring.
“I’ve asked the administration for some updates on that, and I’m looking forward to hopefully having shovels in the ground in the Spring of 2025,” he says. “That would be a second tier past this, heavy addiction, long-term addiction treatment, and we’re looking at about 50 beds.”
When discussing the need for such facilities, Dyck indicates the issue is province-wide, saying more developments are on the way for the government to attempt to tackle addictions at the provincial level.
“There’s different aspects of it, all these different organizations are taking a slightly different direction on it, but they’re all coming together and helping the community as a whole,” he says. “We’re seeing the need right across the province, but I think a few things we’ve already dove into, one- the addictions treatment centre here, but more than that we are pushing for people just not to utilize hard drugs, that’s one of the challenges.”
While his government pushes residents to avoid hard drugs altogether, facilities are being set up throughout the province to address the issue and help those affected by addiction get back on their feet.
“Part of it is just having a good working environment, good family, and being able to bridge some of those things so people don’t feel like they need to necessarily step into that,” he says. “We have a new research facility, Recovery Alberta, so we’re looking at how do we actually get people through the addiction process, we have a plan, we’ve been able to execute the beginning of that plan, and now just following through.”
“We want to see people come back on the side of recovery, this isn’t just a holding pattern, it’s about recovery at the end, getting people through their addictions and to the other side.”
The most recent development, aside from Rising Above and the Clairmont facility, is in Red Deer, which Dyck says has resulted in a “pattern of success” that his government is looking forward to scaling province-wide.
