A community group that operates a supervised drug-use site has launched a legal challenge to Ontario’s new law that will close nearly half of the province’s locations and prevent new ones from opening, arguing the move breaches Charter and constitutional rights and will cost lives.
The Neighbourhood Group Community Services, which operates a supervised drug-use site funded solely by donations in Toronto’s Kensington market, filed a legal action Tuesday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against the province for its recently passed Community Care and Recovery Act.
The law will force the closing of 10 sites located within 200 metres of daycares or schools, with the government citing community safety issues and concerns from parents. The change means that 10 of the province’s 23 sites will have to close by the end of March and are not allowed to relocate.
The law, which was fast-tracked through the legislature, also prevents municipalities from applying directly to the federal government for an exemption to drug laws, effectively banning any new sites from opening.
The lawsuit, which also includes two applicants who use the sites, argues the closings violate Sections 7, 12 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The sections guarantee the right to life, liberty, and security of the person; protect Canadians from cruel and unusual punishment; and guarantee the right to be free from discrimination. The legal action also argues that Ontario is violating the Constitution, because only the federal government can make criminal law or “suppress conduct that it deems to be socially undesirable.”
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The lawyers are also drawing a comparison to the landmark 2011 Supreme Court ruling that ordered the federal government to stop interfering with Vancouver’s controversial Insite clinic, which also referenced Section 7 of the Charter. The decision determined that drug addicts are considerably safer administering their own injections under medical surveillance than obtaining and injecting hard drugs on the streets of the city’s troubled Downtown Eastside. Lawyer Rahool Agarwal, with Lax O’Sullivan Lisus Gottlieb LLP, who is representing the site, called the Insite case a “strong precedent” for the new lawsuit.
Community members, advocates and lawyers gathered Tuesday at the Kensington site on Tuesday to rally support for the legal action.
“This case, quite simply, is about the Ontario government favouring politics over people’s lives,” said Carlo di Carlo, a lawyer with Stockwoods LLP who is part of a group representing the applicants pro bono.
Bill Sinclair, president and chief executive officer of the Neighbourhood Group Community Services, said it’s a fallacy to suggest closing the sites will improve community safety and in fact will have the opposite effect.
“The whole point of supervised consumption sites is to make sure people have clean and appropriate materials to do their business, to get their health care and they’re using them in a safe place where needles are properly stored and properly disposed of,” he said.
“When you close safe consumption sites, the entire neighbourhood becomes an unsafe consumption site.”
Mr. Agarwal also said he hopes the application is heard quickly and said it’s possible the applicants will seek an injunction to stop the closings.
According to the application, preliminary data from Toronto Public Health shows that 523 people died in 2023 from opioid toxicity in the city, a 74-per-cent increase from 2019. A recent policy paper from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario also showed that overdose deaths fell by 42 per cent since the introduction of the sites. The group said there has been no overdose deaths at the Kensington location since its inception in 2018.
Hannah Jensen, a spokeswoman for Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones, defended the government’s decision to shutter the sites. The province has instead pledged almost $400-million for new homelessness and addiction recovery treatment centres to replace the supervised drug-use sites and will include primary care, addictions care, supportive housing, and other social services.
“Communities, parents, and families across Ontario have made it clear that the presence of drug consumption sites near schools and daycares is leading to serious safety concerns,” Ms. Jensen said in a statement.
“We’ve heard from families of the harassment, verbal and physical assault they have experienced walking their child to daycare or school. We have also heard about the phone calls parents have received that their child has picked up a dirty needle, or bag of toxic drugs in the school yard.”
Katie Resendes, 36, one of the applicants in the lawsuit alongside the site, said she has been a high-functioning addict for 16 years. She said she maintains a job and has visited the Kensington site about three times a week for the past couple of years.
Ms. Resendes said she’s known about 10 people who have died of overdoses and believes the sites keep people safe. She said it’s also not realistic to assume everyone is ready for treatment.
She said the closing of the Kensington site would affect her life significantly.
“I really don’t know what will happen, and that’s pretty scary,” she said.