Despite injunction, advocates worry Ontario drug consumption sites risk closing without funding

Sarah Petz · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 29, 2025 5:48 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago

Harm simplification workers and advocates are celebrating a tribunal injunction that volition temporarily support 10 supervised cause depletion sites successful Ontario from closing but accidental they fearfulness for their semipermanent aboriginal if the state refuses to money them.

On Friday, an Ontario justice said each sites slated to adjacent nether a caller provincial instrumentality by April 1 tin stay unfastened portion helium considers a Charter situation of the authorities that bans the sites from operating wrong 200 metres of schools oregon daycare centres.

However, a spokesperson for Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the ruling doesn't alteration the province's plans.

"Provincial backing for HART Hubs cannot beryllium utilized for cause injection services and volition beryllium contingent connected the enactment not seeking to proceed those services," Hannah Jensen said successful a connection connected Friday, referring to caller centres to assistance radical who are stateless and assistance successful addiction recovery.

That means immoderate sites whitethorn not person the funds to support operating, astatine slightest not astatine the aforesaid level, adjacent if they won't beryllium forced to adjacent by the state for now, said Diana Chan McNally, a Toronto assemblage idiosyncratic and adept successful harm reduction.

"Unfortunately, 1 mode oregon another, adjacent though we are not amerciable astatine this moment, it does mean that we volition astir apt suffer services," she said. 

McNally said the province's displacement toward an abstinence-based attraction exemplary won't code the toxic cause occupation that is sidesplitting radical who aren't coping with addiction.

"People who don't person addictions are besides dying arsenic a effect of toxic drugs," she said.

"We're talking astir kids who are utilizing for the archetypal time. We're talking astir radical who are going retired astatine night, radical who usage casually, and they're not being factored in."

Ontario announced displacement successful dealing with opioid crisis

The situation nether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was launched by the Neighbourhood Group, which runs the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site successful downtown Toronto.

That tract is funded done donations, but the organization's CEO, Bill Sinclair, said he worries astir different locations that person relied connected provincial funding.

"That is simply a challenge, that without funding some sites wouldn't beryllium capable to proceed adjacent if they are allowed to by law," helium said. "In our lawsuit astatine least, the instrumentality is not stopping us. It's conscionable a lawsuit of america having to proceed to fundraise to enactment open."

Last summer, the wellness minister announced a cardinal displacement successful the province's attack to the deadly and decade-long opioid crisis. The caller rules, which prevent the cognition of sites wrong a definite region of schools and daycares, mean 10 sites retired of 23 crossed the state would person to close.

As portion of the caller approach, the state is funding 18 caller Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hubs, oregon HART Hubs, successful summation to the 9 supervised depletion sites that agreed to go HART Hubs alternatively than look imminent closure.

Some supervised depletion sites successful the state person already closed and are transitioning to HART Hubs astatine the commencement of adjacent month. They include sites astatine the South Riverdale Community Health Centre successful Toronto's Leslieville neighbourhood and the Somerset West Community Health Centre successful Ottawa. 

Court's determination 'speaks to the spot of the evidence' 

In his determination granting the injunction, Justice John Callaghan of the Superior Court of Justice said the harm to users of the sites that could effect from closures outweighed the harm to the nationalist connected a time-limited ground portion helium considers the Charter challenge.

"It is foreseeable that galore much volition overdose, and immoderate of those volition die," helium wrote.

"Exempting the existing [supervised depletion sites] will person a important nationalist payment of preventing superior wellness risks and deaths which, successful my view, outweighs the harm caused by the continued nationalist disorder."

Sandra Ka Hon Chu, enforcement manager of the HIV Legal Network, 1 of the interveners successful the case, said she was pleased to spot the justice admit that the closures could origin irreparable harm.

"I deliberation it's surely promising. I deliberation it speaks to the spot of the grounds successful the case," she said.

Although the Charter situation doesn't code backing for supervised depletion sites, Chu said she hopes a favourable determination would propulsion the Ontario authorities to reconsider its position.

"I bash deliberation ... it's precise persuasive to a authorities oregon to the nationalist if a justice recognizes that the 200-metre rule, which volition adjacent the sites, volition origin radical to die. The information that you defund them and origin them to die, it's the aforesaid outcome," she said.

In his determination connected the injunction, Callaghan said each sites slated to adjacent nether the caller instrumentality by April 1 tin stay unfastened until 30 days aft helium decides the case.