TORONTO — Dozens of people gathered outside Ontario's health ministry in Toronto on Tuesday, two days before the provincial election, to protest the province's plans to shut down 10 supervised drug consumption sites by the end of March.
Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative government announced last summer that it would close the consumption sites, including five in Toronto, because of their proximity to schools and daycares.
The government has also banned new sites from opening as it moves away from harm reduction to an abstinence-based approach. It aims to launch 19 new "homelessness and addiction recovery treatment hubs" — or HART hubs, as it calls them — plus 375 highly supportive housing units at a planned cost of $378 million.
Speaking at the protest in downtown Toronto, a member of the Leslieville Harm Reduction Coalition said closing supervised consumption sites is going to lead to more overdose deaths.
"Closing these sites is immensely violent and dangerous," Suzanne Fish said. "It's violent because it's going to kill people from overdoses."
Fish said the sites provide more than just supervision for drug consumption.
"These sites are tiny but powerful havens of love and care for people who are most marginalized," she said.
"You cannot close these sites and also hold that people who use drugs and people who are marginalized matter."
Dr. Ritika Goel, a Toronto-based family doctor and activist, said the drug crisis has already taken the lives of too many people in Ontario, including people she has cared for.
"In this time of crisis we need to be doing everything we can do to save lives and support people," she said. "We need to keep people alive. That is what supervised consumption sites do."
Similar gatherings were held in other cities across Ontario on Tuesday, including Barrie, Guelph, Hamilton and Ottawa. Protesters called on the next provincial government to support supervised consumption sites and do more to help homeless people.
Ontario party leaders debated earlier this month how they would deal with the addictions crisis, which is among the top concerns for many municipalities, but the issue has not been at the forefront of the campaign.
The Greens led by Mike Schreiner were the only major party to commit during the snap campaign to reverse the current government's policy and keep supervised consumption sites open.
Asked at his platform launch what it says that his party was the only one to make such a pledge, Schreiner said, "It tells us that there's a crisis of caring in Ontario."
Opioids killed more than 2,600 Ontarians in 2023, the last full year of data available.
Many people who struggle with addiction also have difficulty accessing affordable housing. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario found in a recent report that more than 80,000 people in the province were homeless last year.
Toronto's medical officer of health said last month the closures of supervised consumption sites will spur an increase in overdoses and emergency calls.
Dr. Na-Koshie Lamptey urged the province to consider increasing access to the service.
The incumbent Progressive Conservatives have said they will not consider that, and would instead forge ahead with the new hubs and planned restrictions, citing safety concerns raised by families near the sites as the driving force in that decision.
The government ordered reviews of 17 consumption sites across the province following the killing of a Toronto woman who was hit by a stray bullet in a shooting near one of the sites.
Karolina Huebner-Makurat had been walking through her 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 outside the South Riverdale Community Health Centre.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 25, 2025.
Maan Alhmidi, The Canadian Press
