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ESTEVAN — Aurora Recovery Centre is expanding out of Manitoba and into Estevan in an effort to help more people. 

A private program, Aurora, based in Gimli, Man., and also with a facility in Brandon, has been working to bring its services to Estevan, with an emphasis on family reunification. Its first day in Saskatchewan is expected to be June 1.

President and CEO Michael Bruneau said Aurora has a family reunification centre in Brandon that is full. When looking around, he thought about Estevan because there were a couple of hotels, the Motel 6 and the Quality Inn and Suites, that were available at a price they could afford, but he most appreciated the welcome from the city itself.

He purchased the two hotels and Aurora will rent out rooms from both businesses. The sites will be staffed around the clock, and the number of rooms will be rented out based on the need. 

“I guess they realize there’s a need for what we’re doing,” said Bruneau in an interview with SaskToday.

In many cases, the people coming to Estevan will be parents who have come through the Aurora Recovery Centre and are now stable and motivated to get their children back.

“The motivation for them to come to Aurora is we can help get their children back, help them have a purpose and have some working skills, and help them get their family back and live a decent life,” said Bruneau.

Job training and life skills will also be part of their Estevan operations. He believes the kitchenettes that are in the Quality Inn will help members learn how to live with a family again, purchase groceries and cook. 

Bruneau said Estevan came on his radar when somebody from the city was staying with Aurora a little over a year ago. The individual has business connections and they talked.

“He heard how we were opening up different locations, and he said there were pretty good deals on hotels in Estevan,” recalled Bruneau.

Aurora will have its own doctors and nurses for the Estevan operations. Bruneau said they won’t be taking away from St. Joseph’s Hospital, so they will bring in their own staff. 

At its centre in Gimli, Bruneau said Aurora has a complete medical detox program, primary care, and doctors and nurses. Then they opened a family reunification site at a hotel in Brandon that Aurora purchased.

“A lot of people that have an addiction … they’d have a hard time making a living,” said Bruneau. “They don’t have a lot of skills, or they have skills they never used, so what we’re doing now is training a lot of our members to be health aides. … We [also] have a construction company, [and we’re training] and we have many of members, alumni, working with our construction companies because they’re working with sober crews.”

It is easier for the members when they come out of recovery, he said, because they’re aren’t going back to their old friends.  

With the number of members they have from Alberta and especially Saskatchewan, Bruneau said they thought it made sense to operate in Estevan. They have also looked at setting up in another location in outside of Regina, and are looking at another hotel in Estevan.

Bruneau said he doesn’t believe addictions treatment and recovery were working with one-month or six-week programs. Some facilities brought people in, and got them off of alcohol or drugs for a short period of time, but the failure rate “was so high”.

“I just decided I had to think outside of the box. We’re doing a lot. We have some members for a year or more … they don’t leave until they’re ready and we know they can make it.”

Some can come for 60 or 90 days, and they’ll be fine, Bruneau said, but he believes most need a longer stay.

“The best counsellors that you can get and train are the ones that lived the life. They’re the ones who, when someone walks into our medical detox, they tell them ‘I was where you’re at a few years ago, a couple of years ago, and it really, really works.’ The best thing we’ve done at Aurora is hire alumni to work with us and get trained because we get fantastic results.”

Other alumni, once they’re finished at Aurora, will go back to their communities and help others.  

Bruneau says they believe in diet, exercise and traditional cultural healing for different groups. It has used horse and animal therapy.

Bruneau has a background in hotels, construction and real estate. When he acquired Aurora through foreclosure on June 6, 2022, he was retired, but he told his wife he wanted to change how recovery centres were operating.

Bruneau said Estevan’s mayor, city council and other representatives of the municipality have been “fantastic” to work with. At first they were nervous about Aurora, and Bruneau noted there has been opposition to a similar concept in Winnipeg, but he noted that in eight years in Gimli, there hasn’t been one complaint.

Aurora has also rented a heated warehouse building in Estevan to train people in welding and carpentry so they’re ready to enter the workforce.

In an email to SaskToday, city manager Jeff Ward said Aurora has been good to work with as it looks to set up in Estevan. A rezoning application was not needed because the Motel 6 and the Quality Inn will continue to be used as hotels.  

Bruneau said Aurora would be willing to have an open house when it’s open in Estevan, so that people can see how Aurora operates, and they will see it’s going to be very good for its members, Estevan residents and the community as a whole. He predicted the centre could create 100 employees with alumni staying in the community. 

“We’re going to create a lot of employment in Estevan, and we’re going to be very good for Estevan,” said Bruneau.