Nine Ontario supervised consumption sites to close despite injunction, minister says

Supporters and harm reduction workers protest outside of the Ontario legislature in Toronto on Monday, October 21, 2024, as groups gather to protest against the Ontario government's proposal to close consumption treatment sites.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO — Nine Ontario supervised consumption sites will close Tuesday as planned, the provincial government said Monday, despite a recent court injunction allowing them to remain open temporarily.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted the injunction Friday while a judge reviews a constitutional challenge of a provincial law that bans sites from operating within 200 metres of schools or daycares. The law takes effect on Tuesday.

Only one out of 10 sites slated for closure is poised to stay open. Nine agreed to become new homelessness and addiction recovery treatment hubs, or HART hubs as the province calls them.

They will receive about four times as much money as they did under a previous funding model — but they will not be allowed to offer supervised drug consumption services.

“The nine transitioning HART hubs are opening April 1 as planned, ensuring the continuity of mental health support services when drug injection sites close on March 31,” said Hannah Jensen, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Sylvia Jones.

“All nine hubs have received startup funding and the ministry will continue to work with them to finalize their operational budgets by mid-April.”

Late Friday, Justice John Callaghan said all sites that were slated for imminent closure could remain open until 30 days after he decides the case, finding that the potential harm to drug users should the sites close outweighed the risk of public disorder nearby.

Shortly after the decision, Jones’s office told The Canadian Press the province would move forward with an abstinence-based treatment model as part of the new law, which also bans the distribution and collection of needles and other drug paraphernalia.

The Neighbourhood Group and two people who use its consumption site, the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site, had taken the province to court last December, alleging the law violates both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution.

They argued in court last week that the law violates the right to life, liberty and security of the person.

The Kensington Market site, which will remain open, does not receive provincial funding and will not transition into a HART Hub — so it is not handcuffed like the other sites, said CEO Bill Sinclair.

“More than 21,000 overdoses have been reversed in the last five years at all these sites, and collectively across the province, many lives are saved and people are walking around now because our doors were open,” Sinclair said.

“So we’re glad to be able to continue to provide life-saving services.”

One of two sites run by the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Sites will also close for good on Monday night, despite the organization celebrating the court injunction last week.

The consumption site in Toronto’s Queen West neighbourhood will have to shutter its doors Monday, said the site’s executive director, Angela Robertson.

Taking advantage of the court injunction would mean losing the money the site is set to receive for the HART hub conversion, she said.

A federal exemption allowing the site to provide supervised consumption expires Monday, she added, and it can’t be extended without funding being secured.

Robertson said the site’s clients are being told to move to a sister site in the Parkdale neighbourhood that will continue to operate because it is not within 200 metres of a school or daycare and therefore doesn’t fall under the new legislation.

It was a difficult weekend for users of the site, she said.

“It’s hard because the clients heard the news of an injunction and clients came to the service this weekend believing that we have 30 more days to remain open,” Robertson said.

“That’s how clients heard the news and we’ve had to dash their hopes.”

A site in Kitchener, Ont. is in the same situation as the Queen West site. Sanguen Health Centre’s federal exemption expires Monday and it cannot get more funding from the province if it continues to allow drug use, so its doors will also close.

The Sanguen Health Centre vowed to continue the fight to save its supervised consumption site.

“While we would reopen immediately if we had the necessary exemption, facility and funding, we will continue working diligently to restore these critical services, should the legal challenge ultimately prove successful,” said Julie Kalbfleisch, a spokeswoman for the centre.

The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario called on Premier Doug Ford for a last-minute reversal.

“Premier Ford has the power to make one of the most consequential decisions in his career — to save lives — by rescinding the government’s legislation to shut down (supervised consumption) sites,” said RNAO President Lhamo Dolkar in a statement.

“We are urging our premier to do so, immediately.”

More than 2,600 Ontarians died of opioid overdoses in 2023, the last full year of data available from Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner.

Court heard last week that more than 21,000 overdoses have been reversed at supervised consumption sites across the province since they became legal in 2019.

The province is investing $550 million to fund a total of 28 HART hubs across Ontario, along with 540 new, highly supportive housing units.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2025.

This is a corrected story. An earlier version incorrectly stated the amount of funding and number of new hubs planned by the province.

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press