With Premier Doug Ford hinting provincial moves are afoot to restrict supervised drug consumption sites, municipalities say more help is needed on mental health, addiction and homelessness.
“I’ll be very frank, I’m not sold on these safe injection sites that are in neighbourhoods and needles are all flowing around — it’s a haven for drug dealers,” Ford said last week in Thunder Bay.
“Let’s get these people the support they need and build more detox beds and I know our ministers will be making announcements shortly regarding that,” the premier said.
That suggests Ford’s cabinet members will be unveiling changes around consumption and treatment service (CTS) sites at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Ottawa next week.
On the eve of that confab, Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett commissioned a provincewide poll, which she shared with the Star and will be distributing to other civic leaders at the convention, that found 78 per cent of respondents want Queen’s Park to earmark special funding for mental health and addiction services.
“It’s a catastrophe that we are in right now,” said Liggett, stressing “there’s not a single mayor or councillor in this province” who isn’t wrestling with mental health and addiction crises in their communities.
“We’ve been spinning in circles for years. We’re all struggling with what needs to be done,” she said in an interview Thursday.
Liggett, whose city does not have a CTS site, said she hoped the poll by Campaign Research, the same research firm used by Ford’s Progressive Conservatives, would give mayors “some guidance” on addressing mental health and addiction across Ontario.
Asked what “should be prioritized with new funding,” the poll found 34 per cent of respondents felt youth and adult mental health services, followed by 26 per cent for mental health crisis intervention services, 15 per cent for rehabilitation programs and facilities, nine per cent for community supports such as Alcoholics Anonymous and eight per cent for in-patient detox centres.
Some 45 per cent said “governments must spend much more on mental health and addiction services to make significant progress on getting ahead of this ever-growing problem” while 33 per cent said “the overall problem isn’t a lack of funding” and 22 per cent were unsure.
Campaign Research surveyed 2,027 Ontarians July 30-31 using the Maru Blue online panel. While opt-in polls cannot be assigned a margin of error, for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would have one of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The firm found 67 per cent believe “that Ontario’s laws needed to change to allow families and physicians to provide mental health and addiction treatment to involuntary patients” with 14 per cent opposed to such mandatory intervention and 19 per cent unsure.
But Health Minister Sylvia Jones said two weeks ago she has “concerns that involuntary treatment would not lead to the outcomes that we want.”
“Having said that, when we see the opportunity and the need for intervention, and people are willing to take on those treatments to make a difference, that’s when we can show them our government is committed,” Jones said on July 31.
Campaign Research also found 68 per cent of respondents would like to see more ”drug-treatment courts” that provide judicially supervised rehab instead of incarcerating people with addiction issues related to their criminal activities.
Only 16 per cent opposed the expansion of such courts and 16 per cent weren’t sure.
Liggett said drug-treatment courts are “a tool that is underused” because they can help people tackle their addiction while avoiding jail.
“We have to reach those that have that capacity (for rehabilitation),” she said.
Mental health issues and addiction are also big factors in the rise in homelessness — AMO estimates there were 1,400 homeless encampments across Ontario last year.
The largest such tent encampment in Toronto is in Dufferin Grove Park, where local residents have repeatedly complained to the city and local councillor about drug use, fires, garbage, broken glass, public urination and other unsanitary conditions.
Encampment dwellers insist they have nowhere else to go because city shelters are full or unsafe and Toronto housing is expensive.
Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said he expects to hear about such concerns in some of his 35 scheduled meetings with municipal leaders over two days at the AMO conference.
“We’re going to continue to have robust conversations and talk about the shared priorities that we have — and of course, homelessness, mental health and addiction, building more homes, building infrastructure,” Bethlenfalvy said Tuesday.
Liberal MPP Adil Shamji (Don Valley East), an emergency room physician who has worked with homeless people, said the province needs to improve the overall delivery of mental health and addiction services.
“I have seen how red tape, bureaucracy, and, frankly, a lack of clarity about who has the power to fund certain programs and services does create a quagmire that slows down getting help to the people that need it most,” Shamji said Wednesday.
“That process needs to be clarified.”
While Ford has long been wary of supervised consumption sites — especially after mother-of-two Karolina Huebner-Makurat was killed by a stray bullet outside the South Riverdale Community Health Centre CTS in July 2023 — advocates argue they are safer for addicts than injecting in alleyways where fatal overdoses are common. Some research has shown the sites can save lives.
The city of Toronto has 10 safe injection sites, six of which are provincially designated as a CTS site and are subject to Ontario public health standards.
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