In 2024, the Government of Alberta announced that the City of Red Deer would be closing its overdose prevention site (“OPS”) in March 2025 once the OPS current funding lapsed. The OPS was Red Deer’s only safe consumption site and had served the city since its opening in 2018.

Aaron Brown, a resident who uses drugs and lives with a substance use disorder, and who relies on the OPS, sued the Alberta government seeking the Court’s intervention to prevent closing the OPS relied on by people who use drugs to avoid preventable deaths amidst the toxic drug crisis. He further sought a declaration that such closures violate right to life under section 7, given the essential role the OPS plays in his overall health care; constitute cruel and unusual treatment or punishment under section 12; and discriminate against him and others with substance use disorders by denying access to supervised consumption services contrary to section 15 of the Charter.

The government argued that the decision to cease funding did not constitute state action capable of engaging Charter scrutiny. It further submitted that the absence of funding for a particular health care service cannot, on its own, amount to deprivation under section 7, as the Charter does not confer a positive right to access specific health care services.

Mr. Brown was not successful at the Alberta Court of King’s Bench and appealed the decision.

BCCLA is intervening to argue that when governments provide lifesaving health care services to a vulnerable population, and individuals come to depend on those services for their survival, the government’s deliberate decision to eliminate those services by allowing funding to lapse is a state action capable of causing deprivation under section 7 of the Charter. The right at stake is not the right to health care or health care services, but the right to life and security of the person, which flows from the life-saving health benefits of supervised consumption services.