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Community members gathered in downtown Toronto Saturday afternoon for a rally and concert to oppose the province’s plan to close all supervised consumption sites in Ontario.
Coun. Chris Moise (Toronto Centre) said he worked in healthcare for more than 20 years, specializing in mental health and addictions.
“Safe consumption sites save lives,” he said. “They build community.”
Moise says when supervised consumption sites are closed, there is more burden on police, paramedics and hospitals. It also means more people will be using drugs in public, including parks and laneways, he said.
“It actually creates a lot of pressure on the system itself,” he said. “It’s also important to support people where they’re at. Not everybody is ready to actually do abstinence … People will continue to use if they’re addicts.”
In March, the Ontario government announced it would end funding for at least three provincially funded drug consumption sites, including two in Toronto. In letters previously obtained by CBC Toronto, the Ontario Ministry of Health told the Fred Victor Centre and South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Toronto that provincial funding for the consumption and treatment services sites that they operate would as of June 13.
The province said it would be moving away from harm reduction to an abstinence-based model as it launched 19 HART hubs, plus 375 highly supportive housing units at a planned cost of $378 million.
Coun. Chris Moise (Toronto Centre) said he worked in healthcare for more than 20 years, specializing in mental health and addictions. (Michael Cole/CBC)
Three drug consumption sites in Toronto, run by Street Health, Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site and Casey House, were not affected by the funding cut.
In 2024, Ford’s government also banned consumption sites within 200 metres of a school or daycare, targeting 10 sites across the province for closure by the end of March 2025.
The Stay Open, Stay Alive rally comes amid concerns around overdoses and the impact service closures could have on vulnerable communities.
The number of suspected drug toxicities treated by emergency medical services across Ontario jumped from 604 in the first quarter of 2025 to 1,024 in the third, according to data collected by Ontario Drug Policy Research Network.
In Toronto, paramedics received 387 non-fatal suspected opioid overdose calls in March, more than double the number of calls they received in March last year, the month before the sites’ closure, the data shows.
However, Ontario recorded 648 suspected overdose deaths in the first quarter of this year, down from 703 in the same period last year, according to data from the chief coroner’s office. Fatal opioid overdoses reached a high during the COVID-19 pandemic but have generally fallen year over year since then.
Advocate Jason Miles has experience with addiction himself. He told CBC Toronto he spent the better half of seven years battling addiction, mental health disorders and homelessness.
“I utilized safe consumption sites for a long time during that. And it was the only place I really felt like I belonged,” he said. “When we’re talking about these sites closing, we’re not just talking about this simple loss of a support network. We’re talking about life and death.”
The Stay Open, Stay Alive rally comes amid growing concerns around overdoses and the impact service closures could have on vulnerable communities. (Michael Cole/CBC)
After a difficult divorce, losing the ability to see his kids and a car accident that required him to take prescribed painkillers, he turned to drug use.
“It was the only thing I could do to soothe how I felt about everything. And I was in a position I never thought life was going to get better,” he said. “I thought life was over and that really fueled how I behaved and how I approached everything.”
Miles is now two and a half years sober, has reconnected with his family and found a new partner.
“[Now] I get to get out in the community and speak my message and let people know the importance of [safe consumption sites],” he said. “But I only get the chance to do that because they saved my life so many times.”
Registered nurse Keren Elumir, who works at Moss Park Consumption & Treatment Services and was present at the rally Saturday, said supervised sites also cut down on disease spread and provide stability to those who have so little of it in their lives.
“We do an awful lot of care for everything, from really complicated wounds to pregnancy to diabetes to managing withdrawal and substance use disorders to mental healthcare,” she said.
There’s enormous stigma around drug use, Elumir says.
“It’s not just societal, prejudice is everywhere,” she said. “Often for many of our people, it instills in them a real sense of shame. I don’t deserve care. I don’t deserve better.”
That’s why Elumir said she hopes Saturday’s rally shows the community they’re “worth fighting for.”
“Part of our job is to help believe for people, hope for people and convince them that they actually do deserve better. They deserve good care, they deserve respect, they deserve housing. They deserve all of the things that you and I deserve.”