Advocates for supervised consumption sites and even the government’s own internal reports have cited the sites as crucial to preventing fatal outcomes. A view of the Safe Injection Room in the Moss Park Consumption and Treatment Service in Toronto on Aug. 26.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Ontario is pressing ahead with its plan to shut nearly half of the supervised consumption sites in the province in new legislation that would also prevent municipalities from applying directly to the federal government to open any new locations.
Premier Doug Ford’s government on Monday tabled its Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act, which bans what the province calls consumption and treatment services within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres. The change means that 10 of the province’s 23 sites will have to close by the end of March.
The opioid crisis, spurred by the increasingly toxic drug supply, killed more than 2,500 people in Ontario last year. But the debate over how to best tackle addiction and combat illicit drugs has taken centre stage in recent months.
Supervised consumption sites are locations designed to allow individuals to use unregulated substances under the watch of trained staff, who can respond in the event of an overdose. Advocates for the sites and even the government’s own internal reports have cited the sites as crucial to preventing fatal outcomes.
Mr. Ford, on the other hand, has called the sites “the worst thing that could ever happen to a community” and cited safety concerns from residents near the sites and parents as the reason for their closing.
Critics of the sites argue that recovery, not harm reduction, should be the focus of addictions policy. The government is accordingly spending $378-million on a new network of treatment centres for homeless people and those with addictions.
Ontario’s new bill will also require municipalities to get the Health Minister’s approval to apply for an exemption from the federal government to launch new supervised consumption sites. But despite the change, Health Minister Sylvia Jones said Monday she would not approve any new sites.
“I want to be very clear: there will be no further safe injection sites in the province of Ontario under our government,” Ms. Jones told reporters at a news conference.
Of the 23 sites in Ontario, there are 17 provincially-funded locations. 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.
Ms. Jones said there are a few sites that have not received provincial funding or approval and yet can operate because of permission granted by the federal government. Ontario is “shutting down that loophole” to ensure no further exemptions can be made by Ottawa, she said.
Yuval Daniel, a spokesperson for federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks, said the overdose crisis needs “a solution that protects communities” and that the federal government will review Ontario’s legislation.
Ontario’s decision to move ahead with the closing of the sites took place in the aftermath of a fatal shooting that saw a 44-year-old mother killed outside the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in east Toronto last summer.
Doris Grinspun, chief executive of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, called the province’s move a “disaster” that is ideologically driven.
“The Ontario government will be responsible for the excess deaths,” Ms. Grinspun said in an interview.
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 government’s assertions that people won’t lose their lives is incorrect.
She said 36 per cent of overdoses reversed on the sites in the past four years happened in locations that are slated for closing: “The impacts are that people are going to die.”
A recent report published by the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation points to an internal government report that concluded the sites were effective including against overdose mortality.
The study also said a “large body of rigorous evaluations of supervised consumption sites undertaken internationally and across Canada, over multiple decades has shown that these services have positive impacts on the communities which they are located.”
When Ms. Jones was asked Monday about why Ontario was disregarding the findings of its own internal assessment, the minister said “we’re listening to parents; we’re listening to individuals who have had to deal with this on a day-to-day basis.”
Ontario’s new legislation proposes requiring remaining sites funded by the province adhere to additional mandatory reporting measures, as well as safety procedures.
The province’s changes echo policies put in place in Alberta in 2021 over similar concerns. At the federal level, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged to pull funding from the sites, which he refers to as “drug dens,” and direct money to addiction-recovery programs, should his party form government after the next election.
The new Ontario legislation also includes a suite of other previously announced measures, including banning those on the provincial sex offender registry from changing their names, new penalties for fraud related to identification numbers on vehicles and tougher measures for careless driving.