Prince Albert is adding another layer to how it tracks local drug trends, after city council approved joining Health Canada’s National Wastewater Drug Surveillance Program.
Council voted 8 to 1 Monday to approve a memorandum of understanding with Health Canada and authorize the mayor and city clerk to sign the agreement.
The program will allow wastewater samples from Prince Albert to be screened for the presence of more than 550 drugs and drug-related metabolites, including new psychoactive substances, fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and precursor chemicals.
The decision came after council added a letter of support from the Prince Albert Police Service to the agenda at the start of the meeting. In the letter, Police Chief Patrick Nogier said access to emerging intelligence and analytical tools is becoming increasingly important as police respond to illicit drugs, organized crime, and substance-related harms.
Nogier wrote that early adoption could help police and community partners better understand how the information supports operational planning, strategic decision-making, prevention initiatives, and collaborative responses.
Coun. Tony Head moved the motion and said the program gives the city another tool to understand illicit drug activity.
“This is just another tool that we have to identify some of the illicit drugs in our community and some of the amount of usage as well,” Head said. “This is another way that we could target certain drugs, and through the police, this information could be valuable.”
Prince Albert has already participated in Statistics Canada’s Canadian Wastewater Survey since March 2022. That program uses a quantitative approach to estimate the levels of 16 psychoactive substances commonly found in circulation, such as cocaine.
The Health Canada program is different. It uses a qualitative approach, meaning it detects whether substances are present, but does not measure how much is in the sample in the same way.
Coun. Daniel Brown questioned whether city was doubling up on wastewater programs.
Anna Dinsdale, the city’s Community Safety and Well-Being Manager, said the two programs serve different purposes. She said the Statistics Canada project tests for a smaller number of substances but gives volume information, while the Health Canada project can test for about 550 substances but only shows whether they are present.
“The idea is that the two projects actually align together really nicely,” Dinsdale said.
Brown also asked who would analyze the information and how it would be shared.
Dinsdale said the city plans to create a wastewater surveillance table with key partners. She said the Prince Albert Police Service and Saskatchewan Health Authority are interested in the project, and the group would help analyze the data and report back to council and the community.
Brown also raised concerns about earlier wastewater data leading to negative comments about Prince Albert on social media.
Dinsdale said the Statistics Canada project is required to publish its data, which can lead to conclusions being drawn without enough context. She said the Health Canada program gives the city more control over how local data is shared.
“We can determine how to share that data in a way that allows the public to really understand what we’re seeing, rather than drawing kind of conclusions that just aren’t accurate,” she said.
Mayor Bill Powalinsky said drug trade and addiction issues are not unique to Prince Albert, but the city needs good information to respond properly.
“To move ahead successfully on challenging things like addictions and the drug trade, we need good intel, we need good information, we need corporate partners at the table to work together on these things,” Powalinsky said.
Powalinsky also linked the city’s participation in studies and interest in drug and alcohol issues to a $3.6 million federal pilot project aimed at reducing deaths due to addictions and steering people away from an addictions lifestyle.
The council decision comes days after Prince Albert police announced a major drug trafficking investigation involving cocaine, methamphetamine, firearms, and cash. Nogier also spoke after that police event about track and trace technology being developed in British Columbia that could help police connect seized drugs across communities and provinces.
He said wastewater analysis, track and trace technology, and police investigations can give police and community partners more pieces of the puzzle when trying to understand and disrupt illicit drugs in the community.
According to the city report, Health Canada will provide data reports and analyzable data sets to participating communities. Public reporting from Health Canada will be aggregated at the provincial level, while the city will decide how to use and share its local data.
arjun.pillai@paherald.sk.ca
