Northeastern British Columbia’s North Wind Wellness Centre is developing an Indigenous-focused Health and Wellness Centre in the Village of Pouce Coupe.
On June 18th, the site of the new centre was blessed by numerous Indigenous elders, dedicating the property for healing purposes.
Pouce Coupe Mayor Danielle Veach says the centre is a critical need for the area, as Northeastern British Columbia is currently seeing some of the highest per capita addiction rates in the entire province.
“I’m a woman in her thirties and I know over a dozen people that have lost their lives due to drugs,” she says. “When the statistics came out, I wasn’t surprised, I think I was more surprised by how the public reacted, there was no big uproar.”
Veach says taking an “activist approach” has been necessary in getting construction underway, as the project has not been without controversy from some residents.
“I do meet words of, I don’t want this in our backyard, I don’t want this in the community, I don’t want this in the neighborhood, and I have to push back because, addiction has been an issue within the region for many, many, many years,” she says. “By nobody stepping up and being willing to support this center and taking it on, we are ignoring and pushing aside a much larger problem.”
The province of British Columbia was recently granted a three-year exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to decriminalize people who use drugs by Health Canada. The controversial decision has resulted in some pushback by some provincial and municipal officials; however, Mayor Veach says the move has opened the eyes of many residents in her community regarding the opiate “crisis” going on in the region.
“Prior to the decriminalization of narcotics that we’ve just gone through, it was an invisible issue and then it came out, it came out into the light, the amount of people that are suffering, that are struggling, the loss within the community and the region, and they couldn’t be invisible anymore,” she says. “The activists’ approach is just demanding people to open their eyes and see the issues happening in our backyards currently.”
The Mayor adds that the decision to begin construction on the new facility is prudent, saying drugs are a problem in the community, and the people who are affected by addiction are worth fighting for.
“I don’t want to see any more children lose their parents or parents losing their middle-aged children,” she says. “We’re not fighting for the addict, we’re not, we are fighting for those people, we are fighting for who they are, who they can be again.”
Isaac Hernandez, Executive Director of the North Wind Wellness Centre says the project is meaningful for the community as the current approach of sending addiction-afflicted individuals to the lower mainland is simply not working for northern communities.
“It means that people are going to have the opportunity to receive the services that they need instead of traveling down to the lower mainland because history has shown us that they go there if there is no bed available for them, they go into the streets and we will lose them,” he says. “By having the center here, they will have the services that they need as well as the support of their families and friends, and they can continue on with their lives.”
Numerous programs will run out of the new centre once construction is completed, including rehabilitation services, providing job opportunities, supportive housing, and even education opportunities for those in recovery through Northern Lights College.
