In 2017, as a member of the Ottawa Public Health Board, we approved a consumption and treatment site in the Somerset West Community Health Centre. This site was chosen to support people living in an underserved community that was experiencing the second highest number of drug overdoses in the city of Ottawa. The community was exhausted and traumatized from losing their friends and family members to overdoses.
As a key piece of the approach to addictions prevention, treatment and harm reduction, it was successful in keeping our community members alive while they waited for treatment for supportive housing, family reunification, or whatever they needed to exist.
On March 1st of 2025, the site was forced to close by Doug Ford’s Conservative government, and a sharp increase in open drug use was the result.
With no access to health care professionals, housing workers, or the supports necessary to access treatment services, where people once had a place to go to use drugs they are now forced outside in public spaces. Now with Bill 6 we are being asked to accept that the only solution is to fine and jail people who suffer from addictions and who are without housing and shelter.
This approach will not make our communities safer. It will not lead people into treatment. It will not house one person and it will not end this health crisis. There are evidence based solutions, and I will continue to work with residents in Ottawa Center to keep people safe in their parks, in their workplaces and in their homes.