Doug Ford calls supervised consumption sites ‘worst things’ to happen to communities

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Premier Doug Ford defended his move to close more than half of the provincially funded supervised drug-consumption sites in Ontario and replace them with a network of new treatment centres, calling the sites the worst thing to happen to communities.

Mr. Ford’s government announced new restrictions this week that would ban supervised consumption services within 200 metres of schools or daycare centres as of next March, which will result in the closing of 10 sites. The government also intends to prevent such sites from relocating and to block new ones from opening.

“We haven’t seen it get better. This was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s the worst thing that could ever happen to a community, to have one of these safe-injection sites in their neighbourhood,” Mr. Ford said at an unrelated news conference about shipbuilding on Wednesday in St. Catharines, Ont.

The political debate about how to best tackle the opioid crisis – and the place of harm-reduction policies including supervised consumption sites – has flared up in recent months amid concerns about public disorder. Critics, including Mr. Ford, other conservative premiers and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, have argued that harm reduction has failed and that recovery, not harm reduction, should be the focus of addictions policy.

Mr. Ford labelled the sites, where drug users can inject or inhale drugs under medical supervision in case of an overdose, a “failed policy.”

But he also faced a question about why he would ignore two external reports commissioned by his own government that called for one site he is shutting, in Toronto’s east-end Leslieville neighbourhood, to stay open. He said had received “endless calls, non-stop on my cellphone” from people saying “thank you for doing this.”

He suggested the reports neglected public consultations, although both of them, one by a team from the Unity Health hospital network and the other from a former executive at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, say they canvassed community members.

Opinion: Supervised drug consumption sites may have earned political and public wrath, but they are more helpful than harmful

The reviews were prompted after a bystander was killed by a stray bullet in a drug-related gun battle last year outside the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Leslieville. A staff member was charged with being an accessory after the fact and obstructing justice in the case. People in the area had expressed safety concerns over the facility, both before and after the shooting, although some residents also supported it.

The sweeping changes to Ontario’s harm-reduction services announced this week will see nine of the 17 provincially funded drug consumption sites close. Another six sites operate with federal funding or support from donations or other sources, and only one of those will also have to close. The changes will leave Thunder Bay, Kitchener, Hamilton and Guelph with no sites. Five will remain in Toronto, including sites that operate without any provincial funding.

At the same time, the government says it will spend $378-million on a new network of treatment centres for homeless people and those with addictions.

The opioid crisis, spurred by the increasingly toxic drug supply, killed more than 2,500 people in Ontario last year.

Ontario’s changes echo policies put in place in Alberta in 2021 over similar concerns, as well as a pledge by Mr. Poilievre to pull funding from the sites, which he calls “drug dens,” and instead direct money to addiction-recovery programs. Harm-reduction advocates, however, say the sites are crucial to saving lives and warn that government-imposed restrictions on them will see overdose deaths increase.

On Wednesday, Mr. Ford also criticized the federal government over “safer-supply” initiatives – programs that see medical professionals prescribe controlled substances as an alternative to the illegal drug supply. Mr. Ford said those drugs are then sold on the street at a higher price, perpetuating addictions.

“As far as I’m concerned, the federal government is the biggest drug dealer in the entire country. It’s unacceptable, it needs to stop. We need to get rid of safe supply. We need to put money into treatment. Detox beds. That’s what we need to do, not continue giving people free drugs,” Mr. Ford said.

Asked to respond to the Premier’s comments about safe supply, Emily Kanter, a spokeswoman for federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks, said the Premier was free to change Ontario’s rules on prescriptions. She also said federal funding for safe supply is time-limited.

“As Premier Ford should know through consultations with his government to select these projects, this was always meant as a pilot program in the face of an unprecedented overdose crisis and not a permanent one.”

While some mayors have backed Mr. Ford’s changes, the decision was criticized by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who said closing the sites will have significant consequences, such as increased overdose deaths, greater strain on first responders and emergency rooms, and more public drug consumption.

Ontario’s Opposition NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the government was favouring “ideology” over expert advice in ordering the sites closed: “To take away these services in the midst of a crisis is going to cost lives.”

Gillian Kolla, an assistant professor of medicine at Memorial University and a harm-reduction advocate who lived in Toronto’s Leslieville area and worked with a community coalition supporting the site, said the group eventually gave up sweeping local parks and alleys for discarded needles, as they found so few of them.

She said there is strong evidence from studies in Toronto and elsewhere that these supervised sites reduce overdose deaths and keep people alive so that they can be connected to treatment.

But she said the promised $378-million for treatment centres follows a series of other pledges of cash from Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government to expand treatment in recent years that have so far made little difference to the shortage of spaces.

“They need to actually own the fact that the treatment system has been underfunded,” Dr. Kolla said in an interview.