You may remember that in September 2024, I took Ford to task for ham-fistedly closing sites within 200 metres of a school, resulting in the loss of much-needed SCSs at The Works (277 Victoria Street) as well as at the Regent Park Community Health Centre (465 Dundas Street East).
This month, the province announced they would cease funding SCS, particularly Fred Victor’s site (139 Jarvis Street) and the Moss Park Consumption and Treatment Services (134 Sherbourne Street) despite the fact that both operate at ground zero of overdose deaths in Toronto. Meanwhile, the provincial Homeless Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs that were promised in 2024 to are still not fully functional, with some reporting waitlists for treatment. In Downtown Toronto, one location is not even open yet. While the City waits for it to open, people are continuing to overdose on our streets.
Six – six – former mayors, including our former mayor John Tory, who is also a former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, came out against Ford, emphasizing that overdoses have risen by 69% since Ford forced nine sites to close in Ontario last year. Opioid related visits to hospitals are up 67% too: this is cruel, inhumane, and complete madness.
Every time the legislature is in session, 79 Conservative MPPs drive, take transit, or otherwise travel to Queen’s Park near Bay & Wellesley. They go past]people huddled on the doorsteps of empty stores, who sleep in makeshift structures in our parks and ravines, and who beg for change on our sidewalks.
Those 79 Conservative MPPs see this every day, and yet they want you to believe that the problem is safe consumption sites and not decades of underfunding and policy failures that should have addressed the rising crises of housing, addiction and mental health.
At worst, these MPPs don’t care if our residents living with addiction die. At best, they think this is normal for Toronto.
I do want to see the HART hubs open and become fully operational. But HART hubs alone are not going to be enough, and pretending otherwise will kill people.
I would love to live in a world where SCSs are unnecessary. But we have to live in reality, and the clear-cut fact that they are de facto health care centres for some of the most vulnerable and marginalized people in our society. SCSs don’t create people with addiction: they prevent overdoses, they deter needle-sharing, and they are proven to save lives.
Yours in service,
Chris Moise
City Councillor
Ward 13 - Toronto Centre
