The new sites will focus on recovery and treatment, mental health and social services, employment support, shelter beds, supportive housing, showers and food. Photo Credit: iStock.
Government rarely has right or wrong solutions to the problems it faces, but rather, faces a series of less wrong choices. That is clearly the situation before the Ontario government of Premier Doug Ford when it comes to the future of “safe consumption” drug sites.
Local communities, municipal leaders and police have been calling for change for months, alarmed at the dramatic increase in overdose deaths and local crime in neighbourhoods hosting such sites. Tales of families finding used needles in local parks, being threatened by individuals high on drugs or suffering serious mental health problems, local break-ins of homes and small businesses have been growing.
The murder of a local mother of two in the South Riverdale neighbourhood in Toronto, site of a notorious safe consumption site, has only heightened community concerns. She was an innocent bystander, allegedly shot by local drug dealers in a deal gone bad.
The Ontario government’s position is pretty clear. Enabling addicts to continue to use drugs “safely” is showing no signs of reducing overdose deaths. In fact, the opposite is happening. In 2012, the province saw about 4 deaths per 100,000 population. That has risen to 16 per 100,000 in 2022 with all signs pointing to even more dramatic increases in 2023 and onward.
Local neighbourhoods hosting safe consumption sites are being threatened and severely disrupted, particularly where those sites are located near schools and daycares. Local crime statistics are up. Police are seeing drugs offered at injection sites being diverted to the black market where criminals make exorbitant profits selling them back to addicts.
Clearly a new approach is needed, and Ontario took it – closing 10 such sites that are near schools and daycares and investing hundreds of millions more new dollars to create 19 new “Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment hubs (HART).” The new sites will focus on recovery and treatment, mental health and social services, employment support, shelter beds, supportive housing, showers and food.
Most municipal leaders and afflicted neighbourhoods cheered. But a chorus of critics slammed the government’s decision, literally accusing them of murdering addicts and of having “blood on their hands.” This, despite the fact that addiction experts have long argued that the only way to successfully treat addiction, requires such a “wrap around” services approach.
Time will tell if the new approach and the new resources make any kind of improvement in the situation. Drug addiction is one of the worst habits to kick. Too few make it.
But ignoring the increasing death toll, not recognizing what is really happening in local neighbourhoods, refusing to listen to the growing calls for help from parents, homeowners, local business owners and police officials is not a reasonable option either.
It is also worth noting that the province of British Columbia, which took the safe injection and consumption approach a big step forward by also decriminalizing the use of addictive drugs is busy rolling much of it back, faced with the same problems of growing overdose deaths, increased drug use and more criminality.
The Ontario Government has acted. It may not be the right choice or the wrong choice. Time will tell if it was the “least wrong” choice.
Janet Ecker is a former Ontario Finance Minister, Minister of Education, Minister of Community and Social Services and Government House Leader in the governments of Premier Mike Harris and Premier Ernie Eves. After her political career, she served as the founding CEO of the Toronto Financial Services Alliance, a public-private partnership dedicated to building Toronto region into an international financial centre. She currently sits on a number of corporate and non-profit boards, agencies and advisory committees.
Ms. Ecker received the Order of Canada for her public service contributions and was recognized as one of the “Most Influential People in the World’s Financial Centres” by Financial Centres International. She also received a “Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award” from the Women’s Executive Network and the Richard Ivey School of Business, among other awards. She is also one of the founders of Equal Voice, a national, multi-partisan organization working to elect more women.
