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The Ontario government is banning supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres – a policy shift that will shut down 10 of 17 supervised consumption sites across the province, including at Ottawa’s Somerset West Community Health Centre in Centretown.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones made the widely anticipated announcement Tuesday at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference at Ottawa’s Shaw Centre.
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She said her government has heard from many parents who are concerned about their children’s safety around supervised consumption sites. She noted that “violent crime” is up nearly 146 per cent near the Somerset site on Eccles Street.
“Our first priority must always be protecting our communities, especially when it comes to the most innocent and vulnerable.”
In addition to closing more than half the existing supervised consumption sites in the province, the Ontario government will prohibit any new supervised consumption sites from opening, or the participation in federal funding for safer supply initiatives.
It is unclear whether that would impact the remaining two supervised consumption sites in Ottawa, at Inner City Health and the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre.
Jones also announced a $378 million investment to set up 19 new homelessness and addiction recovery treatment hubs that will provide primary care; mental health services; addiction care support; social services and employment support; shelter and transition beds; supportive housing; and other supplies and services, including naloxone.
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Those hubs will not provide safe drug supply, supervised consumption or needle exchange programs.
Locations such as Somerset West, where supervision consumption sites are being closed, will be given priority to apply to become one of the hubs, she said.
Even before the formal announcement, supporters of supervised consumption sites were raising concerns that the move would increase the already growing number of overdose deaths across the province.
Representatives of the centres that house supervised consumption sites in Ottawa are expected to respond to the announcement. Changes are to take effect next March.
Representatives of Horizons Ottawa staged a protest outside the announcement in the Shaw Centre, saying the decision will lead to needless deaths. The head of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, Doris Grinspun, was quoted as calling the policy shift a “death sentence” for people who use drugs.
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