LILLEY: Ford chooses addictions treatment over failed ideas

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Access to addictions treatment, mental health supports, social services and employment supports as well as transitional housing. These are some of the services the Ford government is putting forward as part of its new drug policy for the Province of Ontario.

Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced Tuesday afternoon in Ottawa that the province will look to offer care and support for those dealing with addictions. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, Jones said that the current practice of funding safe injection sites isn’t working.

“When I speak with municipal leaders, substance use, mental health, and supportive housing are consistently top-of-mind issues,” Jones said.

“We’ve also heard that the status quo of drug consumption sites is not working. Parents are worried about the discarded needles that their children could pick up.”

To that end, the province is promising $378 million to establish 19 Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hubs. These sites will include what the province calls “highly supportive housing units” to help people put their lives back together.

These centres won’t be allowed to have so-called safe consumption sites or allow safe supply to be part of the program. The focus will be on addiction treatment.

As Jones was making the announcement inside Ottawa’s Shaw Centre, protestors outside were claiming the Ford government was killing people. After her speech, a reporter even asked how many people will die as a result of these safe injection sites being closed.

Let’s be clear, people are dying now and as the province has expanded such locations, the deaths have gone up, not down. Health Canada approved the first safe injection sites in the province in 2017 with three in Toronto while sites in Ottawa, Hamilton and elsewhere followed.

In 2017, Ontario had 1,270 opioid overdose deaths, a number that rose to 2,858 in 2021 before dropping to 2,531 in 2022. The final numbers for 2023 were not available but the quarterly numbers did show overdose deaths were rising last year.

“We have a system that has not worked,” Jones said.

That’s an understatement.

While the Ford government has announced they are moving in the direction of hub models for treatment, many of the so-called experts in this field have been pushing for a different direction. Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s chief medical officer, has called for a total decriminalization of drugs, a position the City of Toronto adopted when it asked the Trudeau government in Ottawa to approve a request for decriminalization.

The Ford government rejected both of those requests based on common sense and the failure of British Columbia’s experience. Eventually, the Trudeau government said they wouldn’t allow further decriminalization without provincial support.

B.C. started its experiment with full drug decriminalization in January 2023 on the promise that it would help stem the tide of rising overdose deaths. Not only did that not happen, but overdose deaths in that province also went up. There was rampant public drug use including in parks, on buses and trains.

There was little police could do to deal with complaints.

British Columbia has been at the forefront of the push to continually liberalize drug laws in this country. Yet despite adopting every new idea pushed by the supposed experts, drug overdose deaths continue to rise.

In 2014, B.C. had just 370 overdose deaths and in 2023 saw 2,569 people die from opioid overdose. This year, B.C. is on track for well over 2,000 overdose deaths again.

B.C.’s overdose death rate was at 46.8 per 100,000 of population last year, Ontario’s was 17 per 100,000. We don’t want to follow B.C.’s lead which is the direction we were heading when the Ford government was listening to the so-called experts who are really activists pushing their own agenda.

B.C.’s model is a failed model.

If we really, truly care about helping people with addictions to survive and thrive, we need to try something new, which is what Premier Ford and Minister Jones are doing.

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