An Edmonton business association that took its fight against three downtown safe injection sites to court has lost its legal challenge in Federal Court.
In a decisions released Tuesday, Justice Richard Mosley found the federal Ministry of Health met its duties to the Chinatown and Area Business Association.
“Justice Mosley found that concerned neighbours are entitled to only a minimal level of procedural fairness in the context of these decisions,” said Nathan Whitling, the lawyer representing Access to Medically Supervised Injection Services Edmonton (AMSISE), a coalition of community, medical and academic representatives behind the sites.
“The court found they were treated fairly and there was no breach of their rights to be treated fairly.”
AMSISE received in October 2017 an exemption granted under a federal drug statute to operate sites in the Central McDougall and McCauley neighbourhoods.
The business group asked the federal court to quash the exemption to the sites at the Boyle McCauley Health Centre, Boyle Street Community Services and the George Spady Centre.
A fourth site at the Royal Alexandra Hospital reserved for inpatients is not included in the court challenge.
By the end of August, the sites reported nearly 15,000 service visits from 711 people, according to a city report. Staff had reversed 180 overdoses.
The Chinatown and Business Association claimed in court filings that the three clustered supervised injection sites “can reasonably be expected to bring opioid users into these neighborhoods.”
It points to public health data that shows most fentanyl deaths occur outside the downtown core.