Five supervised drug consumption sites are slated to close in Toronto after the provincial government announced a ban on such facilities near schools and child-care centres — a move that some harm-reduction experts are slamming as a “deadly mistake.”
Health Minister Sylvia Jones made the announcement Tuesday at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in Ottawa.
The new rules will force consumption and treatment service facilities within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres to close. Supervised consumption sites allow people to use drugs under supervision to reduce the risk of overdose.
A total of 10 supervised drug consumption sites in Ontario — five of which are in Toronto — will be shuttered no later than March 31, 2025, the province said in a news release Tuesday.
The other five sites that will be forced to close due to the new rules include one each in Ottawa, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Guelph.
The closures will apply to four provincially funded consumption sites that include the following locations:
- Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre – 168 Bathurst St.
- Regent Park Community Health Centre – 465 Dundas St. E.
- South Riverdale Community Health Centre – 955 Queen St. E.
- Toronto Public Health – 277 Victoria St.
A fifth supervised consumption site that is self-funded will also close as a result of the ban:
- Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site – 260 Augusta Ave.
Harm-reduction experts slam move as dangerous
Diana Chan McNally, a Toronto community worker and expert in harm reduction, said the province needs to rethink the move, saying the restrictions will only contribute to more deaths.
“This is a deadly mistake,” Chan McNally said in an interview ahead of the announcement Tuesday.
“The fact that we are essentially leveraging zoning legislation to shut down life-saving services, arguing that it’s in the best interest of children and [the] best interest of safety is actually ludicrous.”
Zoë Dodd, a Toronto harm reduction worker, echoed her statements.
“This announcement, it’s really serious,” she said in an interview with CBC Toronto ahead of the announcement Tuesday. “We’re playing politics with people’s lives and the result of that will be death.”
Dodd said many people in her life have died as a result of the toxic drug supply.
“You cannot treat your way out of that,” she said.
The province cited “significantly higher” crime in the vicinity of these sites. In Toronto, reports of assault in 2023 were 113 per cent higher and robbery was 97 per cent higher in neighbourhoods near these sites compared to the rest of the city, according to the release.
The province said it will introduce more addiction recovery supports and new treatment hubs as part of the new set of changes.
It will also table legislation in the fall that would prohibit municipalities or organizations from launching new consumption sites or participating in the federal government’s safer supply program, which sees prescription medication given to people instead of drugs bought off the street.
The move follows two reviews of the sites that the government ordered in the wake of the killing of a Toronto woman, who was hit by a stray bullet from a shooting near one of the sites.
Karolina Huebner-Makurat had been walking through the southeast Toronto neighbourhood of Leslieville shortly after noon on July 7, 2023, when she was shot as a fight broke out between three alleged drug dealers.
Restrictions will have adverse effect, advocate says
Chan McNally said she thinks the move will do the opposite of improving safety.
“People aren’t going to disappear immediately. They’re going to still be in the area,” she said.
“So what people are going to see [is] more drug use actually outside and in their communities and it’s unfortunate for everybody. We will see lots of people, thousands of people actually dying as a result.”
A recent policy paper on opioid use from AMO had the municipalities calling for a more collaborative approach and said that consumption sites save lives.
“Supervised consumption sites are an important component of Ontario’s harm reduction approach,” the association wrote.
“A recent study of supervised consumption sites in Toronto found that a city-wide reduction in overdose mortality rate of 42 per cent after the implementation of supervised consumption sites.”
In 2018, the province put in place a cap of 21 such sites in the province but has only funded 17. There are other supervised consumption sites around the province that have received federal approval but no provincial funding, and two of them in northern Ontario recently closed due to a lack of funds.
Asked at an unrelated news conference Tuesday about the new restrictions, Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw said he will look into the province’s move.
“I’m going to wait and see the details. It is something that is obviously going to be needing examination by us, and we’ll take it under consideration,” Demkiw said.