Candidates back calls for safe injection sites
Common ground found during debate focused on mental health and addictions
Safe injection and overdose prevention sites are necessary to combat drug overdoses downtown, all four provincial candidates in Windsor West agree.
The candidates in the riding where a safe injection site is proposed spoke passionately about at an all-candidates debate on mental health and addictions Thursday night.
NDP incumbent Lisa Gretzky (Windsor West) told a crowd of about 100 people at The Other Place Catering on Walker Road that she absolutely supports the overdose prevention site. “People need to understand that any one of us could end up with an addiction ourselves,” Gretzky said. “Instead of being judgmental of those who have addiction issues, we need to be compassionate, understanding, and supportive.” Gretzky said community input is important in placing the overdose prevention site.
Liberal candidate Rino Bortolin agreed.
“We have to focus on public consultation,” said Bortolin. “We have to work with residents to destigmatize the issue so the knee-jerk reaction is not that residents don’t want it in their backyard. “There will always be some that are not supportive and have concerns. Here in the downtown core you’ll see an overdose prevention site open soon.”
In his opening statement, Bortolin said he’s had unique issues to deal with as a city councillor. “While many of my council colleagues were spending ward funds on basketball nets and planter boxes, I spent ward funds on needle boxes for the area.”
Green candidate Krysta Glovasky-Ridsdale said she has lived experience with mental health and addictions. “My issues were when I was younger with alcohol,” Glovasky-Ridsdale said. “I didn’t have the drugs available to me that are available at every schoolyard right now. If I had the same problems today, it would have had a very different outcome.” Problems with addiction are not limited to downtown Windsor, said candidates in the Essex riding.
Green candidate Nancy Pancheshan says it’s time to declare a state of emergency.
“Our community has a huge drug problem,” said Pancheshan. “At council meetings, residents don’t talk about having their mailboxes painted. They’re saying they’ve got so many needles in our parks and alleyways.”
NDP incumbent Taras Natyshak agreed that the province needs to declare the local opioid crisis a public health emergency. “This is something like we’ve never seen before,” said Natyshak. He wants to ensure naloxone kits are distributed to areas with high incidents of fentanyl usage. Each riding had a turn to debate issues of mental health and addictions. Moderator Craig Pearson of the Windsor Star asked each riding its own questions, which the candidates did not see prior to the debate.
Candidates had one minute for openings statements, 90 seconds for answers, and one minute for closing statements. Candidates were asked about reducing the stigma surrounding mental health, how to fight the opioid crisis, how to increase affordable housing, and how to decrease wait times for mental health and addictions patients.
The debate was sponsored by the Canadian Mental Health Association of Windsor-Essex County and Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare.