The provincial government is demanding Lethbridge police shut down an illegal safe injection site being operated in a tent..The tent sprung up after a controversial Lethbridge safe drug consumption site shuttered its doors on Aug. 31 after the Alberta government cut its funding after an independent audit discovered a litany of problems including “financial irregularities.”.Now the pop-up drug site operates on a nightly basis in a park that is the centre of the opioid abuse in the southern Alberta city..“Alberta’s government provides a legal, sanctioned overdose prevention site a block away from this location, with adequate capacity for the community, said associate minister of Mental Health and Addictions Jason Luan in a statement to the Western Standard..“This illegal site contravenes the Criminal Code of Canada and we expect the City of Lethbridge and the Lethbridge Police Service to enforce the law.”.ARCHES received up to 800 visits a day – one of the busiest supervised consumption sites in the world. Lethbridge, a city of 100,000, has the highest per-capita rate of opioid overdose deaths in Alberta..The pop-up site is being run by the newly formed Lethbridge Overdose Prevention Society, CBC reported..The tent offer services for a couple of hours before packing up for the day. There is enough room for two people to inject drugs at a time..ARCHES had received more than $14.4 million in taxpayer dollars over the past two years..The government announced in July the accounting firm Deloitte found:. POLL: Many Albertans say they will ignore Christmas COVID lockdown .$1,617,094 unaccounted for due to missing documentation for expenditures from 2017 to 2018.$13,000 of interest off ARCHES bank accounts was used to fund parties, staff retreats, entertainment and gift cards.A senior executive’s compensation totalled $342,943 for calendar year 2019. This includes $70,672 in overtime for fiscal year 2019-20. The grant agreement allows for a salary of $80,000. The Everyone Comes Together (ECT) program staff salaries and benefits also exceeded the amount allocated by the grant agreement by $16,000.The number of ARCHES employees is greater than allowed by the grant agreement. ARCHES maintained up to 126 employees. However, the exact number could not be verified.$4,301 spent on European travel for management to attend a conference in Portugal.Thousands of dollars in unverifiable travel expenses, including trips charged to company credit cards but not recorded in the ledger.A senior executive’s family member was hired, earning $9,900. The auditors could not locate a resume or personnel file to verify any qualifications.$7,557 for management retreats, including meals and mileage where documentation for spending was unclear.The grant agreement requires the organization to maintain the funding received from Alberta Health within a separate bank account; however, the audit revealed that it was comingled with other funding sources. As a result of ARCHES comingling their accounts, the auditors could not verify thousands of dollars of expenses.Proper personal conflict of interest declarations were not recorded when related individuals or vendors were hired or utilized.Vendors were repeatedly secured in secrecy with a lack of transparency and accountability.No petty cash reconciliations have been completed.$1,129 was used to buy gift cards for board members for The Keg, iTunes, Boston Pizza, Earls, Gap, Shell, Chapters, Cineplex, Amazon, Starbuck’s, Tim Hortons, MasterCard, and Bath and Bodyworks. The expense was recorded as “Gift cards – Board Members.”$2,100 was spent on gift cards to The Oil Changer – a business owned by a senior executive’s spouse.$2,205 was spent on a television with no receipt documentation to support the purchase..The report has been passed on to police..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com.TWITTER: Twitter.com/nobby7694
