Harm reduction advocates say the Ford government’s decision to end funding for all supervised consumption sites later this year is “wrong” and “cowardly” and will lead to many more overdose deaths.
The Fred Victor Centre and South Riverdale Community Health Centre – the last two provincially funded sites in Toronto – were informed by the Ontario Ministry of Health on Friday that it would no longer be providing them with provincial funds as of June 13.
A letter sent to both Toronto sites says they have until April 10 to provide a wind-down plan as well as strategies to transition clients to other community-based treatment and recovery supports.
“The staff have just learned the news, and they are delivering it to staff and clients now who are understandably devastated,” said a spokesperson at the South Riverdale location, which operates a site at 134 Sherbourne Street, tells CityNews.
Janet Butler-McPhee, co-executive director of the HIV Legal Network in Toronto, says “people will die” as a result of the forced closure of supervised consumption sites.
“It seems that late on a Friday afternoon, when they thought no one was watching, Ontario is now forcing the closure of many of the remaining sites by pulling remaining provincial funding. While we don’t know further details at this point, we do know that people will die without access to the life-saving care they receive at these sites,” she said during a hastily called news conference late Friday.
“We are already in a devastating crisis that has been going on for more than a decade now,” said Zoe Dodd, a co-organizer of the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society, who called the province’s decision “absolutely appalling.”
“What the government is choosing to do today will cause deaths. We’ve seen a doubling of overdoses in the city of Toronto, we’ve seen the toxic drug supply change …and the government is removing the structures that keep people alive.”
The decision also affects publicly-funded sites in Ottawa, London, Kingston, St. Catharines and Peterborough.
The Neighbourhood Group in Kensington Market and Casey House are not affected by the provincial order as they are currently privately funded.
