The province is providing $35 million for the buidling of a drug recovery community in Grande Prairie.
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Dan Williams, says this facility will be a huge asset for people in the Peace and Mackenzie regions.
“What this means is that individuals don’t have to travel to Edmonton or Calgary or other communities across the province. We’re going to have over 200 spaces a year for treatment and that’s going to be for individuals largely from these communities from this area and it’s high quality. This is world class, equivalent to what you would get in private facilities that you’d pay tens of thousands of dollars a month for.”
Construction of the centre in Grande Prairie is expected to be complete by early 2027.
Williams says that is part of bringing more mental health and addiction resources to the area.
He adds that the establishment of Recovery Alberta will allow his department to “zero in” on fixing capacity issues.
“We’re gonna really focus on changing the culture in Recovery Alberta and we want to work on making sure that we recruit and retain staff. In the North, this is one of our biggest issues when it comes to mental health and addiction professionals. Also part of this is what we’re doing with another bill that passed that allows us to start regulating mental health therapists as well.”
We asked a couple of questions to Williams at the announcement in Grande Prairie today, you can watch the video of that below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
