Ontario’s overdose plan is half-right

The Ontario government has taken two steps forward in tackling the opioid crisis — and one big step back.

After a two-month review of the province’s overdose prevention sites, Health Minister Christine Elliott announced this week that the province will continue funding these facilities — which her boss, Premier Doug Ford, had earlier said he’s “dead against.”

Ontarians can applaud Elliott’s sane, compassionate decision, which has every indication of being grounded in scientific facts. It’s reassuring to know she could convince the premier his initial opposition to these sites was misplaced.

The public can also welcome Elliott’s plan to have these sites place more emphasis on providing drug users with rehabilitation and treatment services. These facilities were originally created as temporary, safe-injection sites with the overall goal of preventing drug overdoses.

They’ll still do this.

But if the Progressive Conservative government is intent on doing even more to help addicts break their drug dependency, in addition to keeping them from immediate harm, all power to it.

What’s puzzling as well as disappointing, however, is the seemingly arbitrary decision to freeze the number of these overdose prevention sites and, moving forward, allow no new ones.

While the health minister supports overdose prevention sites, she said the province will fund no more than 21 of them, and the existing facilities can apply to continue operating under the new model. How strange.

The blatant contradiction at the heart of this vital health-care policy will leave the public uncertain whether to smile or cry.

To be sure, both the premier and health minister deserve credit for preserving a program that has saved hundreds of lives. Ontario, like many other parts of Canada, is gripped by an epidemic of opioid abuse. There were more than 1,200 opioid overdose deaths in this province last year, out of nearly 4,000 in Canada.

How best to deal with this growing problem has been fiercely debated. While many health-care workers insist it is primarily an issue of public health, other people view the situation through a legal prism and are uncomfortable when a special federal government exemption allows any facility to help administer illicit drugs.

In August, premier Ford’s concerns about the overdose prevention sites led to a freeze on the opening of new ones to allow a government review of them. Fortunately, this review was not merely a cover for the premier to close the sites.

Health minister Elliott consulted doctors, police, drug users and their advocates.

She must have heard voices like Toronto Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa, who has said the scientific literature as well as practical experience shows “that supervised injection sites and overdose prevention sites provide many health benefits, including reducing overdoses and saving lives.”

Based on such evidence, Elliott made her call.

But if she agrees these sites are worth keeping, why limit funding to only 21 of them? Is lack of money the problem? If so, Elliott should make that clear. Or, after being criticized for many of its earliest decisions in office, was this government looking for a peaceful compromise to settle a difficult controversy.

Sadly, Elliott’s action plan does nothing for many rural areas and smaller communities such as Barrie, Guelph and Thunder Bay, which badly need overdose prevention sites, according to Sarah Ovens of the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society.

Let’s hope this week’s decision isn’t the final one. Given that the health minister accepts the redeeming value of these overdose prevention sites, she should be prepared to support even more of them.