Fearing reprisal, Region of Waterloo committee defers motion to write letter in support of CTS

Advocates are pushing for more action in response to recent CTS closures. CTV’s Krista Simpson has more on the request to Waterloo Region councillors.

Waterloo Regional councillors need more time to consider the potential repercussions of penning a letter in support of Consumption Treatment Service (CTS) sites.

During the Community and Health Services Committee meeting on Tuesday, Councillor Pam Wolf put forward a motion asking council to write a letter to the province requesting immediate funding and support to keep Kitchener’s CTS site open and operational.

The site at 150 Duke Street closed its doors on March 31 after the province ordered the closure of 10 supervised consumption treatment sites that had been operating within 200 metres of schools or daycares.

That order from the province is now before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice as a judge reviews a constitutional challenge. Justice John Callaghan granted a court injunction that would have allowed the sites to stay open while he made his decision.

However, many sites, like the one in Kitchener, said it was impossible to continue operating without government funding.

The province ended funding for supervised consumption sites and instead offered four times that funding amount for an abstinence-based model, known as Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs. While HART Hubs do offer some addictions treatment services, they do not offer supervised consumption.

“Provincial funding for HART Hubs cannot be used for drug injection services and will be contingent on the organization not seeking to continue those services,” Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones said last month.

Jones also said the province would not allow new consumption sites to open or allow existing sites to move.

Emotional delegations

Members of the community appeared before the committee, imploring councillors to send the letter and try to get the site reinstated.

“With a drug poisoning death occurring across Waterloo approximately every two-and-a-half days, time is very much of the essence. It is urgent,” Michael Parkinson from Waterloo Region Drug Action Team said.

“At the core, the motion is about sending a letter to the province. A letter. That’s it. That’s the request. It is difficult to image any rationale or any number of deaths and injuries that could substantiate defeating a simple request to send a letter. To say a CTS client is going to die soon is not theoretical or overstating the case. The lives of local constituents are very much on the line,” Parkinson continued.

Lindsay Sprague, the Director of Community Programs for Sanguen Health Centre stood at the podium and said the CTS site in Kitchener had recorded more than 60,000 visits while it was in operation and helped 2,000 unique visitors.

She said despite the injunction, without provincial funding, there was no viable path to reopening the site.

“We are here today asking you to see beyond the narrative that pits treatment against harm reduction. This is a false and harmful dichotomy that doesn’t recognize how treatment and harm reduction compliment each other and are necessary to serve a person with a substance use issue,” Sprague said.

She added she is pleased to see funding for the HART Hubs, but said harm reduction services were also needed to offer a full range of care.

Violet Umanetz, Sanguen Health Centre’s Director of Consumption and Treatment Services, was visibly emotional as she took her turn to speak.

“We closed because we were told we could not relocate our site and that we would no longer be funded. We were forced to give up our exemption and our lease, terminate the employment of our entire team of 60 staff, including people with lived experience, and the only thing we could tell our clients as we shuttered the doors last week was, ‘Good luck,‘” Umanetz said.

Ralph Schmidt said he worked at Kitchener’s CTS, but he was also a client.

“I owe my life to the wonderful staff at the CTS. I overdosed a few times, and I might not be here today but for the grace of God and the staff that worked there,” he explained, his words broken by tears.

“I most likely will be burying my friends due to this ruling the provincial government has done,” he continued.

He begged councillors to help get the CTS back up and running.

“The CTS is a wonderful place with staff that really care about the people they help. People want to call the CTS a ‘drug den’ – they don’t know what its all about. It’s just a safe place to use and there are different supports there. The nurses have saved my life, and the support staff helped point you in the right direction from everything from food to healthcare,” Schmidt said.

Another delegate, Kevin White, spoke of the friends he had lost to overdoses.

“[The CTS] is a vital and valuable service and a letter to a province that will not respond is not enough. It needs to go public. Please raise your voices beyond a letter. Yes, send a letter. Send all the letters you can, but please speak out constantly,” White said.

Could a letter put funding at risk?

After the delegates had their say, councillors began to debate the motion before them.

Some feared sending a letter could have repercussions for the HART Hubs that are still just getting started in the region.

“With the legislation [the province] passed last year, municipalities and boards are not permitted to support CTS, including writing letters of support unless approved by the Minister,” Waterloo Region’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said.

“The Minister’s public comments have been very consistent since then. Which is that the government is not going to reverse its decision on CTS and will be moving forward with HART Hubs and they have publicly stated, more than once, that funding for HART Hubs would be withdrawn if organizations try to continue CTS operations,” Wang said.

The discussion led to some heated moments around the horseshoe.

“What’s up to us, is to have the guts, the courage, to stand up for democracy. To stand up for our rights as a council to say what we feel and to stand up for these people who, many of them are facing death,” Wolf said.

Her fellow councillors worried about what would happen if the HART Hub funding was rescinded, leaving people struggling with addictions with even fewer local services.

“I can’t risk your lives. I can’t take away the HART Hub as well as CTS. I can’t. You can call me a coward. You can call me undemocratic or whatever you want to call me, but its my responsibility as best as I can do it. If I can’t have CTS then I’ll have the HART Hub, because I have to give you something. I am going to vote against the motion because I believe I can’t risk your lives. That’s irresponsible of me,” Councillor Sue Foxton said.

Ultimately, the committee decided to defer to decision to gather more information about potential reprisals. The motion will be discussed again at a council meeting on April 23.