Turning Points adds to harm reduction discussion in Vernon: ‘There isn’t one pathway’

Turning Points adds to harm reduction discussion in Vernon: ‘There isn’t one pathway’

Published 7:00 am Sunday, September 20, 2026

On the heels of a town hall in Vernon earlier this week that saw four Conservative MPs reject harm reduction as a useful framework for solving the drug and addiction crisis seen in many parts of the country, a local organization that’s on the frontlines of the crisis says harm reduction is only one piece of a currently incomplete puzzle.

MPs Scott Anderson, Kelly DeRidder, Todd Doherty and Kurt Holman gathered at the Schubert Centre Tuesday night, Sept. 15, with their predominant messages being that harm reduction isn’t working and funding for it needs to be funnelled towards addiction recovery instead.

Turning Points Collaborative Society wasn’t invited to participate in the town hall, but the organization’s acting CEO, Tara Tschritter, told The Morning Star that harm reduction and recovery are not mutually exclusive philosophies. Instead, she said they are two aspects of solving the crisis that work in tandem, not in opposition.

“I think one of the challenges with the conversation around harm reduction is that the term can mean very different things to different people,” Tschritter said. “Our approach builds on the traditional definition of harm reduction to a Holistic Harm Reduction philosophy. We look at the whole person and work to reduce the physical, social, emotional, spiritual and economic harms associated with substance use.”

Tschritter’s comments echoed a common rebuttal to criticisms of harm reduction: that it’s best not to throw out the baby with the bath water, or in other words, not to discard harm reduction while in pursuit of better treatment and recovery options for folks looking to break free of addiction.

One attendee of Tuesday’s town hall made that argument during the question period, saying harm reduction is “a very important pillar that is life-saving, that is health-care,” and the goal should be to ensure other pillars are put in place without knocking that one down.

Doherty responded by saying a billion dollars has been spent on the crisis, and he wants “dollars to be spent wisely.”

That could mean allocating more money to recovery beds and away from things like safe-injection sites. Though Doherty didn’t specify how he’d ideally like to allocate funding, he said earlier in the town hall that “we just need to get people into recovery.”

Tschritter said there’s no disagreement from Turning Points’ perspective that treatment and recovery are important for people experiencing addiction, but made her organization’s mandate clear: “Our responsibility is to keep people alive, reduce harm and create as many pathways as possible toward greater health, stability and recovery.”

She said Turning Points provides overdose prevention, naloxone and other lifesaving measures, “but we don’t stop there.” The organization creates substance free communal spaces such as Bill’s Place (which Turning Points is working to expand), establishes healthy routines around meals and sleep, provides “strong boundaries and expectations,” builds community connections, and uses case management to help people move toward housing, treatment, recovery and other individual wellness goals.

DeRidder, who herself has made a remarkable recovery from addiction to become the MP of Kitchener Centre, flatly denounced harm reduction at the town hall, saying if she had been trying to recover amid today’s harm reduction policies, she simply would have kept taking drugs.

Tschritter said she respects that people with lived experience of addiction “may have very different perspectives on what helped them recover,” while highlighting that others may heal differently.

“There is value in listening to those experiences. At the same time, there isn’t one pathway that works for every person,” she said.

“Ultimately, we want the same outcome: fewer people dying from toxic drugs and more people moving toward healthier, more stable lives. Treatment is an essential part of achieving that, and so is engaging people wherever they are today and helping them take the next step,” Tschritter added.

She also extended an invitation to elected officials concerned with the drug and addiction crisis to come see Turning Points’ work firsthand.

“These are complicated issues, and I think the best conversations happen when people can see what services actually look like on the ground and talk directly with those doing the work every day,” Tschritter said.