Ontario bans drug consumption sites near schools, daycares
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OTTAWA — Strict new rules are coming for Ontario’s supervised drug consumption sites.
Announced Tuesday during the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference — taking place this week in Ottawa — the new policy will prohibit such facilities within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres.
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“We cannot have consumption/treatment sites be in the same neighbourhoods as schools and daycares,” said Ontario’s Health Minister Sylvia Jones during a news conference after her mid-afternoon announcement.
“We have similar restrictions when it comes to cannabis shops, and we’re strengthening to make sure that 200-metre barrier is in place moving forward.”
Operators of sites within that 200-metre zone, Jones said, will have to make a choice: either close or transition into one of the province’s new HART (Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment) hubs.
The government has promised $378 million to establish 19 of these HART hubs across Ontario.
“We have a system that has not worked,” Jones told reporters.
“We are seeing more issues in our neighbourhoods, in our municipalities, in our communities. I have heard from parents, community leaders, mayors and business leaders saying things are getting worse, not better.”
Once passed in the legislature, the new rules will result in the closure of nine provincially-funded consumption sites across the province, including four in Toronto.
Among the sites set to close are Leslieville’s South Riverdale Community Health Centre — a contentious facility and scene of last summer’s shooting death of 44-year-old mother Karolina Huebner-Makurat, an innocent pedestrian killed by a stray bullet during a gunfight.
Among those arrested in her death allegedly include a centre employee.
Other city sites set to close are Toronto Public Health’s ‘The Works’ clinic on Victoria St., the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention site on Augusta Ave. and the Regent Park Community Health Centre on Dundas St. E.
bpassifiume@postmedia.com
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