By Vihaan Bhatnagar
The supervised consumption site (SCS) on 277 Victoria St. is set to close following an announcement made by the Ontario government on Aug. 20.
The announcement introduced new rules banning supervised drug consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres, ordering them to be closed by March 31, 2025.
Due to its proximity to the Early Learning Centre in Kerr Hall West, the site on Victoria Street is among the six of Toronto’s 10 SCSs closing, slashing the number by more than half.
The decision to shut down the SCSs, commonly referred to as safe injection sites (SJS), has been criticized by multiple health organizations, including the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health, HIV Legal Network and the Women & HIV/AIDS Initiative.
Liam Michaud, a former frontline harm reduction worker and a PhD candidate in socio-legal studies at York University, said the province’s new rules remove the limited tools there are to deal with the drug overdose crisis.
“People are dying from unregulated drugs,” he said. “This announcement, in one fell swoop, removes a number of the critical tools that we have within our healthcare response to the overdose crisis that are part of a broader continuum of care for people who use drugs.”
Among other services, SCSs provide referral or accessible substance use treatment, distribute safer injection education and provide naloxone, a medication used to reverse overdoses.
Johnathan Kryskow, a fifth-year economics and finance student at TMU, said it’s not ideal to have these sites so close to campus and childcare centres. Although it’s not in the best location, Kryskow said these sites “serve some benefit” and should be relocated rather than shut down entirely.
“[People are] going to do drugs, [so] you want it to be at least kind of safe,” he said.
Ella Ballentine, a fourth-year early childhood studies student at TMU, said that while she understands the idea behind closing SJSs near places where young children are, she does not agree with the province’s decision to close them.
“I’m super against [the province] closing the safe injection sites because if you give it any more thought, where are those people gonna go,” she said. “Many people are going to die. Many people are going to contract diseases. They’re people. They live in our city. This is as much their city as it is anybody else’s city.”
Ballentine said the province is not looking out for everyone’s safety when choosing to close these sites. She said the individuals who use safe injection sites are not being protected.
Many people are going to die…They’re people. They live in our. city.
Michaud, who spent over a decade working in healthcare in Montreal and Toronto, warns that the closing of SJSs means drug use will not be contained to these sites anymore and will inevitably spill out, resulting in a higher likelihood of traumatising bystanders.
“I can tell you, having responded to a number of overdoses in a controlled medical setting in a healthcare centre, that looks really different than opening a bathroom and finding someone who’s been there for 10 or 15 minutes,” he said.
Michaud warns the death toll in Ontario could increase with this decision, as well as put an additional strain on healthcare.
“[It will] hugely overburden an already overburdened emergency medical response system [and] emergency rooms, which are already in a crisis state in Ontario,” he added.
277 Victoria St., also referred to as The Works, was bought by TMU in 2023 and is set to be the new home of the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, as previously reported by The Eyeopener. According to TMU, the City of Toronto’s lease for The Works ends in April 2025 and the university will begin taking occupancy of the building at that time.
The Eye reached out to the Ministry of Health for a comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
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