The paper, published Monday in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, calls the government's 2019 report into seven supervised consumption sites"pseudo-science." It says the United Conservative-commissioned study is irredeemably flawed by bias against safe consumption sites, in which drug addicts can use illegal substances in a safe and supervised environment.
However, Ginatta Salvalaggio, professor of family medicine at the University of Alberta, said after the report was released in 2020, all plans for new sites in the province were cancelled. "Failure to situate results within existing literature that contradicts a study’s claims increases the risk of confirmation bias when drawing conclusions and undermines the development of evidence-based recommendations," it says.
The government has also commissioned reports or inquiries into non-health-related fields, including a proposed Alberta pension plan and the impacts of renewable energy development.