New addictions Crown corporation to export Alberta recovery model

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OTTAWA — A new Alberta Crown corporation designed to aid and analyze the province’s approach to addictions could help reverse the “lack of high quality evidence” about the under-studied recovery-oriented model of tackling addictions, a Calgary researcher says.

The Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence, or CoRE, is set for a fall launch, after being announced earlier this year in shake-up of provincial health services.

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Rob Tanguay, a clinical assistant professor at the University Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine, said by phone that years of underfunding have left researchers with an incomplete picture of “what recovery looks like” in Canada.

“There’s been a real lack of focus on outcomes,” said Tanguay, adding that harm reduction has taken up much of the oxygen — and funding dollars — in the research ecosystem.

Tanguay singled out a dearth of actionable research on the effectiveness of involuntary treatment for substance dependency. He and co-authors recently published a systematic review in the Canadian Journal of Addictions concluding “(t)here is a lack of high-quality evidence to support or refute involuntary treatment for (substance use disorders).” The team found a number of methodological and research design issues in the scientific literature, which mostly comprised studies from Canada, the United States and China.

Tanguay says that CoRE will improve researchers’ understanding of recovery by tracking the outcomes of recovery-focused policies in real time. The Alberta’s Compassionate Intervention Act, expected to be introduced before the next provincial election, could be an especially informative case study for researchers outside of the province.

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And while CoRE’s mandate is to aid the development of Alberta’s recovery-oriented policies, its leadership welcomes the external interest.

“The ‘Alberta Model’ is a framework for system transformation that provides (drug users with) access to a continuum of services,” CoRE CEO Kym Kaufmann said in an email. “CoRE will be sharing information and effective practices with interested jurisdictions (that) are looking at improving outcomes.”

“Our aim is to evaluate programs and provide expert advice on the effectiveness of the Alberta model, sharing those learnings throughout the province and with jurisdictions across Canada,” she added.

Kaufmann herself comes to CoRE from the Manitoba government, where she last served as the province’s deputy minister for mental health and community wellness.

With an initial annual budget of $5 million, CoRE will be building out its operations and staff in the coming months. Kaufmann and scientific director Dr. Nathaniel Day comprise the organization’s current leadership.

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Katy Merrifield, a veteran of premiers’ offices in Alberta and British Columbia, was recently hired to lead CoRE’s communications and engagement efforts. Merrifield is in recovery herself and has been a vocal advocate of a robust system of addictions care.

One facet of addictions policy CoRE has no plans to evaluate is safer supply.

“Th(e) practice of providing a government supply of addictive opioid drugs is illegal in Alberta; therefore, we will not be evaluating or advocating for these programs,” Day wrote in response to a question about CoRE’s position on safer supply.

Day said it is not CoRE’s role to join the Alberta government in petitioning the feds to implement measures to track the diversion of ‘safer-supply’ drugs, including by adding a unique chemical identifier to the alternative pharmaceuticals being distributed to street drug users through safer supply programs.

Day was also quick to shoot down comparisons between CoRE and the similarly named Canadian Energy Centre, perhaps better known as Alberta’s ‘energy war room‘, stressing that the organization will be a far less combative entity.

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“Our approach is collaborative and is rooted in the program evaluation and expert advice supporting a recovery-oriented system of care,” wrote Day, citing CoRE’s organizational values of clarity, integrity, exploration and expertise.

Staff have likewise said not to expect CoRE to follow the energy war room’s lead of getting into fights on social media (neither Kaufmann nor Day have an account of the social media platform X).

The controversial energy war room was shuttered in June after a rocky five-year run that included dust-ups with the New York Times and Netflix — the latter over the alleged anti-oil industry message of animated film “Bigfoot Family”.

CoRE will also have a different governance model than energy war room, which was structured as a private corporation.

As a public body, CoRE will be subject to provincial freedom of information legislation. Its board chair (currently Kaufmann) will also make regular reports to the addictions minister.

With polls showing support for recovery-focused drug policies on the rise in other provinces, CoRE will no doubt attract a great deal of interest across Canada. Its research could well play a role in next year’s federal election, as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to end Ottawa’s “failed” harm reduction policies if elected prime minister.

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