Ontario’s Ford Defends Consumption Site Closures, Calls Facilities the ‘Worst Thing’ to Happen to Communities

Ontario Premier Doug Ford delivers remarks at Lakeshore Collegiate Institute in Toronto, on Aug. 31, 2023. The Canadian Press/Spencer Colby

Premier Doug Ford is defending his government’s decision to close nearly half of Ontario’s 23 supervised drug consumption facilities, calling them “the worst thing that could ever happen to a community.”

The province earlier this week announced its plan to ban supervised drug consumption sites from operating within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres. The ban means 10 of the 23 sites will close by March 31, 2025.

“I just don’t believe in safe consumption sites,” Ford said at an unrelated press conference in St. Catharines on Aug. 21.

“Giving someone, an addict, a place to do their injections—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.”

Five sites will shut down in Toronto, as well as one each in Guelph, Hamilton, Kitchener, Ottawa, and Thunder Bay. Nine of those sites are provincially funded and will be eligible to receive funding under HART Hubs, a new $378 million homeless and addiction program that the province says will prioritize community safety, treatment, and recovery. The sites must give up supervised consumption services to receive funding under the new system.

HART hubs will offer primary care, integrated mental health and addictions care, social services and employment support, and increased availability for shelter beds and supportive housing, the province said. The hubs will also offer other supplies and services, including access to showers, food, and Naloxone, a drug used to temporarily reverse the effects of opioid overdoses.

The changes come despite two provincially funded reports recommending existing drug consumption sites remain open. While the authors back the sites as an effective way to prevent overdose deaths, the Ontario government maintains that the studies failed to take into account public concerns about the sites.

Ford said his government’s decision is based on “public consultation,” not just expert advice.

“I’ve been getting endless phone calls about needles being in the parks, needles being by the schools, and by the daycares,” he said. “That’s unacceptable.”

When pressed by a reporter about ignoring the expert recommendations, Ford’s response was curt.

“How would you feel if I stuck one of these beside your house?” he asked. “You wouldn’t like it. Matter of fact, I know you wouldn’t like it, neither will your neighbours and neither will anyone else. And they shouldn’t be by schools. They shouldn’t be by daycares.”

Safe Supply

Ford also spoke out against federally funded programming that provides so-called safer supply drugs to addicts as an alternative to illegal drugs.

Run by Health Canada, safer supply services do not focus on addiction treatment but on helping drug users to be “less reliant on the toxic illegal drug supply” while also providing connections to health and social services “where possible and appropriate,” according to the government website.

Ford said government funding should be used for treatment and detox beds, not to give addicts “free drugs.” He said many of those using safer supply programs to access drugs are selling them on the street so they can buy stronger drugs like fentanyl.

“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,” Ford said.

“It’s a failed policy, simple as that. We’re making a better policy: $378 million to help these people, support them, get them help, get them back on their feet, get them a good paying job. That’s what we need to do. We don’t need to feed them drugs.”

The Epoch Times contacted Health Canada for comment, but did not receive a response prior to publication.

Federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks has previously described supervised consumption sites as “lifesaving.”

“They protect the community by reducing public drug use, the spread of infectious diseases, and the strain on emergency medical services,” she said in a March 27 statement.

She added that as of October 2023, more than 53,000 overdoses have been responded to in supervised consumption sites across Canada.

There were 290 drug-related deaths reported in the province last month and 936 drug-related deaths between May and July, according to the Office of the Chief Coroner (OCC) for Ontario.

The latest numbers represent a 6 percent increase from the same period in 2021 and 53 percent increase from the same period in 2019.

There were also 538 confirmed stimulant-related deaths and 2,645 probable and confirmed opioid-related deaths in 2023, the coroner’s report said.

Several Ontario municipalities, including Belleville, Hamilton, Kingston, and Niagara, have declared states of emergency due to the overdose crisis, according to a recent report by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

The report identified three key drivers of the crisis as the stigma of accessing treatment, worsened mental health caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and an increase of illegal drugs laced with dangerous substances.