Brampton supervised consumption site will remain open, unaffected by new Ontario restrictions

Brampton’s supervised consumption site will remain open, unaffected by new restrictions announced by the Ontario government earlier this week.

A spokesperson for Peel Region told INsauga.com that the location at 10 Peel Centre Drive, near Central Park Drive and Queen Street East, will continue operating.

It is the only supervised consumption site in Peel.

On Tuesday, the Ford government announced that it is banning the sites within 200 metres of child care centres and schools, while also implementing new requirements for existing locations.

The province said it is investing in treatment, recovery and prevention, with $378 million going to 19 new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs.

“Communities, parents and families across Ontario have made it clear that the presence of consumption sites near schools and daycares is leading to serious safety problems,” Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a news release about the announcement.

“We need to do more to protect public safety, especially for young school children, while helping people get the treatment they need, which is why we’re taking the next step to expand access to a broad range of treatment and recovery services, while keeping kids and communities safe.”

The province said crime in the vicinity of safe consumption sites is “significantly higher” compared to surrounding areas.

“Grateful for the Ford government’s focus on treatment for addictions and not band-aid solutions,” Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said in the provincial release.

“I share their concern about the proliferation of safe injection sites in area close to families and children. This needs to stop.”

The location on Peel Centre Drive in Brampton first opened in March, Peel Region’s website says, and was approved by regional council “to address the rise of overdose deaths in the region.”

It also offers primary health services and drug testing, as well as referrals to other support services for housing, mental health and additions treatment, and harm reduction teaching.

Ten safe consumption sites in Ontario must now close no later than March 31, 2025 with the new provincial rules, including five in Toronto, and one each in Ottawa, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Guelph.

Nine of those sites are provincially funded and will be prioritized to receive funding under the new system so long as they give up supervised consumption services, Jones said.

The province will introduce legislation in the fall that would prohibit municipalities or organizations from launching new consumption sites or participating in the federal government’s safer supply program that sees prescription medication given to people instead of drugs bought off the street.

Critics warned the fundamental shift will lead to more drug poisoning deaths.

For Jen la Fauci Gordon, a harm reduction worker who has been saved several times from overdoses at a supervised site, the government’s changes appear ideologically driven and will be deadly.

“It’s so callow to see those of us who quite often have the least political capital being used to score the easiest political points,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

Jones denied that the changes would lead to harm.

“People are not going to die. They are going to get access to treatment,” Jones said.

“I do not call watching someone inject an illicit drug to be health care in the province of Ontario. We need to do better, and we can do better.”

— With files from The Canadian Press