Nine supervised consumption sites in Ontario located near schools and daycare centres have been closed and transitioned into addiction hubs as planned, despite a court order saying they could remain open.
On Tuesday morning, the deadline for supervised drug injection sites within 200 metres of schools or child care centres to accept government funding to move to a new, abstinence-based model passed.
The nine publicly-funded sites that met the criteria accepted and transitioned, while on site without government funding will continue to operate in Toronto.
The transition marks the end of a months-long process triggered last summer when Minister of Health Sylvia Jones announced an effective ban on supervised consumption sites located within 200 metres of schools and daycare centres.
Toward the end of 2024, her government passed a law which ordered 10 sites across Ontario located within that radius to close on or before March 31. Nine of them were offered funding to transition into a new model of addiction recovery, a 10th was not.
The lone site not offered funding — which was not publicly funded before, either — launched a lawsuit aiming to have the law thrown out and the deadline to close extended.
It won an injunction on Friday allowing it and any other supervised consumption site near a school or daycare to remain open for the time being. A decision on the constitutionality of the law itself has not yet been made.
While the site which filed the case — the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site, run by the Neighbourhood Group — will remain open, the other nine will close.
That’s because they have accepted government funding to transition into recovery hubs on Tuesday, April 1. The funding is contingent on a pledge to end supervised drug consumption.
The move to recovery hubs without drug injection facilities is part of a broader policy shift the Ford government is ushering in, saying allowing people to continue to take drugs has not fixed the opioid crisis.
In addition to the nine sites transitioning, the government is launching 19 extra homeless and addiction treatment sites — called HART Hubs. A total of 28 will ultimately be in operation.
The government will spend a total of $550 million on the hubs, which will include 560 supportive housing units for people struggling with addiction. The funding is roughly four times more than the same organizations received to run supervised drug consumption sites.
The hubs will operate as intensive and coordinated addiction recovery spaces, with access to services, health care, referrals and ongoing support. The government has committed to funding startup costs for the current year and also cover operating costs like salaries, leases or utilities for the new sites.
More than 80 non-profits applied to set up new hubs across the province, with 19 ultimately selected.
The sites have been welcomed by advocates and critics of the government, who have called for the government to increase funding for the program.
Bill Sinclair, who runs the only supervised consumption site located near a school or daycare that will remain open, said the increase in the number of new hubs was positive and an indication the government was accepting the extent of the opioid crisis.
“I am so glad that they were so generous and that there are going to be so many,” he said in an interview.
“I think that throughout the last year, the magnitude of the problem (has become clear). They’ve heard from so many mayors, from so many cities that are struggling.”