Province to update mental health legislation
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on February 26, 2025.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
The provincial government introduced legislation Tuesday that will create three types of bed-based addictions services in Alberta.
Bill 37: Mental Health Services Protection Amendment Act, 2025, has three components, including withdrawal management,intensive treatment and non-intensive recovery, with each type of service subject to robust licensing requirements.
If passed, the amendments would come into effect this fall.
The province says its recovery model has the goal of building “a world-class, publicly funded continuum of care where every Albertan can access the mental health and addiction recovery services they need.”
The Act was originally passed in 2018 with the intention of ensuring Albertans get safe, quality mental health care while holding service providers accountable.
The province says the amendments are needed because, under the existing model, “the requirements for bed-based addiction treatment services are the same for all providers” regardless of whether they provide services that are low-or high-risk.
The province says there isn’t any authority for the minister to allow exemptions to service providers or people from the Act requirements, regulations or standards.
The UCP says that addictions continue to negatively impact Albertans with significant social, economic and financial impacts. The province says it’s estimated that one in five Albertans will access mental health and addictions services in their lifetimes.
The amendment to the Act redefines bed-based treatment services for addictions to clarify which service providers will require licensing, and will establish separate standards for different types of services “to ensure robust clinical and administrative requirements for providers.”
The proposed services are described as:
* Withdrawal management services: medically supervised services to manage or support an individual through the process of withdrawal from one or more substances.
* Intensive treatment services: intensive and structured residential care for individuals with addiction.
* Non-intensive recovery services: services, in a recovery-oriented environment, that provide less intensive treatment compared to intensive treatment services.
“These types of bed-based addiction treatment services represent a spectrum of care for patients along the journey to recovery,” says the government.
The province says that best practises and evidence in both Canada and the United States emphasize the importance of differentiating service types based on severity and needs.
A media briefing was told Tuesday morning that currently licensed under the MHSPA and its regulations are bed-based addiction treatment services, drug consumption services, narcotic transition services and pyschedelic drug treatment services.
About 130 facilities, owned and operated by roughly 65 service providers, are licensed under MHSPA.
The majority of those operators support bed-based addictions treatment services which were formerly referred to as residential addictions treatment services, where overnight accommodation is provided to people facing addictions or mental health needs, media heard.
The government is proposing to amend MHSPA.
“In broad strokes, the proposed amendments would enhance bed-based addictions treatment services, introduce the opportunity for exemptions in exceptional circumstances and refine regulatory requirements,” a government representative said.
“The proposed changes aimed to raise the standard of care for Albertans and importantly increase the regulatory oversight for mental health and addictions service providers, ultimately resulting in enhanced protection for clients and Albertans,” said the spokesman.
A media release states that “currently, there is a ‘one size fits all’ regulatory approach to bed-based addiction treatment services. All services are subject to the same licensing requirements, regardless of type or intensity.”
Standards for bed-based addictions treatment services will be developed with support from the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence, an Alberta Crown corporation established last June by the province, Recovery Alberta and service providers.
Administrative updates to the Act include renaming certain services such as “residential addiction treatment services” to “bed-based” services and changing the term “supervised consumption” services to “drug consumption” services.
26-25
That is where I want my tax dollars going: into treatment, not into non-profits who only encourage addicts to continue using, or ‘safe supply’ drugs they call safe, but are toxic as well and kill people. BC is the perfect example of what we should NOT be doing in this crisis and are dumping billions into programs that do not treat the addicts. We have already seen hundreds of lives saved in the last year from this approach, with almost a 30% decrease in 2024. No other province has seen this dramatic decrease.
Every month that goes by shows improvements that prove Alberta has made the right choice in dealing with this crisis that has taken so many lives, destroyed so many families and increased crime!