In October of 2006, Regina was one of only six cities in Canada to operate a Drug Treatment Court. Today, over 150 individuals have graduated from the program and have had their lives completely changed for the better. The Regina Drug Treatment Court (RDTC) is fueled by a partnership between the federal Department of Justice as well as the provincial Ministry of Health and Ministry of Justice and Attorney General. Now retired Provincial Court Judge Clifford Toth was the inaugural judge of the program. It was his work to create the program that has seen thousands of sittings and hundreds of lives positively impacted. “It is not only the graduates who benefit from their recovery but their spouses, children, parents, siblings, close relatives and friends,” he said. Current Provincial Court Judge Noah Evanchuk noted the program started as a “corner of the desk, labour of love, by Judge Toth,” who had noticed repeat offenders come through his courtroom due to drug use. The program is voluntary for people who are facing 12 months to two years of incarceration and choose to plead guilty to the drug crimes they are accused of. There is then 12 to 18 months of individualized programming to be completed by those accepted into the program and upon completion, participants receive a reduced sentence. What happens in those 12 plus months is not only an effort to get clean, but day-treatment, counselling, weekly check-ins, group support, therapy, and more. Employment skills, cultural guidance, parenting, and addiction treatment are just some of the building blocks provided by the RDTC. “Drug Treatment Court allows judges an opportunity to meaningfully engage with participants on a one-on-one basis. We get to share their successes, support them during challenges and witness a true life-changing process towards recovery,” Judge Evanchuk said. Meagan Jasper was a graduate of the program in 2018. Now she is the Coordinator of the Moose Jaw branch of the Drug Treatment Court. The same kind of organization that she said completely flipped the script on her life. “My life before that was just about surviving, chaos, trauma, all that, I come into DTC, get out of jail free card and all of a sudden, all of my basic needs are getting met. And then I’m starting to do some counselling, but I had always been told I was a bad person… so every time I’d come to DTC I’d be late I was expecting to go back to jail I was expecting to be told I was a bad person, a mess up, a screw up, and you know, they (RDTC) were never like that,” she explained. “They were always willing to meet me where I was at and work with me.” Jasper is just one of the program’s now 152 individual success stories, the most recent of which graduated on Sept 8, 2026. It is a beacon of hope for the hopefully many more lives to be changed for the better, as well as an inspiration that addiction is beatable and there are solutions to dealing with drug offenders outside of incarceration.
