[URBAN NOTE] "Lessons for Toronto on harm reduction from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside"

[rfmcdonald]

NOW Toronto's Malone Mullin reports on what Toronto can learn from Vancouver about the latter's safe injection sites.

In Toronto, three existing needle exchange hot spots, including The Works at Yonge and Dundas, have applied for federal approval to install three to five injection booths at each facility and a “chill-out” room staffed by at least one peer.

Ward 20 Councillor Joe Cressy, who chairs Toronto’s drug strategy panel, defends the site design, pointing to a study that concluded smaller, integrated sites were the city’s best option. Cressy blames federal red tape for any complaints about slow progress and pared-down services.

“We are in the middle of a rapidly escalating overdose crisis, and the research is that [safe injection sites] will save lives,” he says in a phone interview. But “we currently have an overly subjective and onerous federal process that needs to be abolished.”

He’s referring to the Respect For Communities Act, which imposes 26 conditions an injection site must meet before it’s federally sanctioned. The Harper government passed the act in 2015 as a means of ensuring community-wide involvement, but critics wince at the lengthy approval process. Cressy notes the two years of years of planning and consultation that went into the Toronto sites.

Health Minister Jane Philpott announced in September that she would act to remove unnecessary barriers to injection site approval. At least nine communities across the country have faced similar roadblocks in bringing these sites to fruition. Toronto city council itself first discussed injection sites 11 years ago.