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This week, Canada\u2019s largest public transit system, the Toronto Transit Commission, announced<\/a> it would be stationing crisis worker teams directly on subway platforms to improve public safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last week, Canada\u2019s largest library, the Toronto Public Library, announced it would be increasing the number of branches that offer crisis and social support services. This builds on a 2023 pilot project between the library and Toronto\u2019s Gerstein Crisis Centre to service people experiencing mental health, substance abuse and other issues.<\/p>\n The move \u201conly made sense,\u201d Amanda French, the manager of social development at Toronto Public Library, told<\/a> CBC.\u00a0<\/p>\n Does it, though?\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the past decade, public institutions \u2014 our libraries, parks, transit systems, hospitals and city centres \u2014 have steadily increased the resources they devote to servicing the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicted. In many cases, this has come at the expense of serving the groups these spaces were intended to serve.\u00a0<\/p>\n For some communities, it is all becoming too much.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recently, some cities have taken the extraordinary step of calling states of emergency over the public disorder in their communities. This September, both Barrie, Ont. and Smithers, B.C. did so, citing the public disorder caused by open drug use, encampments, theft and violence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In June, Williams Lake, B.C., did the same. It was planning to \u201cbring in an 11 p.m. curfew and was exploring involuntary detention when the province directed an expert task force to enter the city,\u201d The Globe and Mail reported<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n These cries for help \u2014 which Canadian Affairs has also reported on in Toronto<\/a>, Ottawa<\/a> and Nanaimo<\/a> \u2014 must be taken seriously. The solution cannot simply be more of the same \u2014 to further expand public institutions\u2019 crisis services while neglecting their core purposes and clientele.<\/p>\n Canada must make public order a priority again.\u00a0<\/p>\n Subscribe to Editor’s Picks. Receive our free Saturday newsletter featuring our best stories from the week.<\/p>\n Without public order, Canadians will increasingly cease to patronize the public institutions that make communities welcoming and vibrant. Businesses will increasingly close up shop in city centres. This will accelerate community decline, creating a vicious downward spiral.<\/p>\n We do not pretend to have the answers for how best to restore public order while also addressing the very real needs of individuals struggling with homelessness, mental illness and addiction.<\/p>\n But we can offer a few observations.<\/p>\n First, Canadians must be willing to critically examine our policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Harm-reduction policies \u2014 which correlate with the rise of public disorder \u2014 should be at the top of the list.\u00a0<\/p>\n The aim of these policies is to reduce the harms associated with drug use, such as overdose or infection. They were intended to be introduced alongside investments in other social supports, such as recovery.<\/p>\n But unlike Portugal, which prioritized treatment<\/a> alongside harm reduction, Canada failed to make these investments.\u00a0For this and other reasons, many experts now say our harm-reduction policies are not working.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of my addiction medicine colleagues have stopped prescribing \u2018safe supply\u2019 hydromorphone to their patients because of the high rates of diversion \u2026 and lack of efficacy in stabilizing the substance use disorder (sometimes worsening it),\u201d Dr. Launette Rieb, a clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia and addiction medicine specialist recently told Canadian Affairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet, despite such damning claims, some Canadians remain closed to the possibility that these policies may need to change. Worse, some foster a climate that penalizes dissent.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMany doctors who initially supported \u2018safe supply\u2019 no longer provide it but do not wish to talk about it publicly for fear of reprisals,\u201d Rieb said.<\/p>\n Second, Canadians must look abroad \u2014 well beyond the United States \u2014 for policy alternatives.<\/p>\n