A Toronto-based social services agency has launched a Charter challenge against new legislation from Premier Doug Ford’s government mandating the closure of several safe injection sites.
Neighbourhood Group Community Services, the agency that operates the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site, filed the legal action with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Monday. The legal action includes two applicants who have used safe injection sites in the province.
The recently passed legislation, called the “Community Care and Recovery Act,” prohibits safe injection sites from operating within 200 metres of schools and daycares.
Under the act, the Kensington Market clinic will be required to close.
Neighbourhood Community Group is arguing the mandated shutdown violates the Charter rights of life, liberty and security of a person. The agency further claimed the legislation is unconstitutional because it encroaches on the federal government’s exclusive jurisdiction over criminal law.
Advocates from the agency said drug users in Toronto will face an increased risk of overdose if the city’s safe injection sites, also called consumption treatment service sites, shut their doors.
Neighbourhood Community Group’s legal challenge claimed the provincial government is knowingly increasing the risk of death and grievous bodily injury for Ontarians.
Without the supervised health care, the legal action said people who use drugs may resort to unhealthy or unsanitary consumption. They may also face increased risk of arrest because people are protected from drug possession charges at safe injection sites.
According to the Superior Court filing, Ontario sites saw 178,253 clients over the past four years and reversed 21,979 overdoses. More than 500,000 referrals were given for substance use treatment across the province by safe injection site staff, it stated.
Katie Resendes, one of the individuals involved in the legal challenge, personally uses safe injection sites in Toronto. She said the Ford government’s bill will “undoubtedly result in a significant loss of life.”
“Those of us that use the sites do not have a death wish as some may think,” Resendes said in a press release.
Neighbourhood Group Community Services said the legislation will “exacerbate real disadvantages that individuals from this group already suffer from.”
"Most service users are marginalized and disadvantaged. These disadvantages are even more pronounced for service users who also identify as women or who are Indigenous or are otherwise racialized,” the agency said in a statement.
“Denying these individuals access to these services will only make it harder for them to get the health services they desperately need for no reason other than the fact that they suffer from a disability that the Government of Ontario has targeted."
The Community Care and Recovery Act was tabled in November before it was fast-tracked by Ford's Progressive Conservative government and passed last week.
The act is set to take effect on April 1, 2025, and will see 10 safe injection sites across the province close. Five are in Toronto.
