Toronto safe injection site linked to killing faces lawsuit
Homeowner, business file class action
• Seven months after a mother was killed in a gunfight between drug dealers outside of a supervised injection site in Toronto, a class-action lawsuit was filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, naming the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, which operates the site, as well as both the federal and provincial ministries of health and the City of Toronto.
The two named plaintiffs — a local resident and business — claim the defendants failed to “adhere to or enforce the conditions imposed by” Toronto City Council in the 2016 implementation guide it adopted for the city’s first three supervised drug consumption sites, which included the one at South Riverdale. As a result, the lawsuit states, the surrounding neighbourhood in the heart of the east Toronto community of Leslieville experienced several public and private nuisances, including disorderly conduct, human waste, discarded needles, “the sale and use of illicit drugs, assault, theft, vandalism, property damage and trespass” — all of which caused it to suffer “harm, loss, damage” and an array of expenses.
The fatal shooting of Karolina Huebner-makurat on July 7, 2023, just metres from the supervised injection site, is included in the criminal activity cited in the lawsuit.
The defendants have not yet filed their defence.
The Leslieville class action has a number of similarities to a lawsuit filed in Vancouver’s Yaletown in June, which names a non-profit operating a supervised injection site in the community, as well as the city and local health authority. The city subsequently announced it would not be renewing the facility’s lease.
The resident plaintiff in the Leslieville lawsuit is Jacqueline Court, who has lived for 12 years with her husband and daughter on Heward Avenue, which borders the east side of the health centre. Court has not only witnessed violent assaults near the supervised injection site, according to the claim, but has also been “physically assaulted by intoxicated people” herself. Court alleges that she and her family regularly encounter people “fornicating and defecating” on and near her property and that her family “now feels unsafe walking around their neighbourhood at night, and travel by car where they would previously have walked.”
The statement of claim includes a harrowing story about an intoxicated woman who threatened to burn down Court’s house. The woman, who was later arrested, emphasized that she would be doing so while Court’s daughter was inside.
The business plaintiff, JSCS Inc., cites many of the same nuisances as Court: intoxicated individuals entering the premises, employees unable to enter and exit via the rear lane due to drug use, drug paraphernalia such as needles, as well as unconscious users blocking the doorway. Its employees, who work about 25 metres away from the supervised injection site, have been responsible for cleaning up needles and drug paraphernalia and had to “seek the assistance of police and emergency services to address individuals who are often in distress.”
The lawyer for the plaintiffs, Andrea Sanche, a partner with the Toronto legal firm Ricketts Harris who lives in Leslieville, is seeking an injunction requiring South Riverdale to “abate the nuisance,” in addition to any damages determined by the court. The plaintiffs argue that the health centre failed to operate its Consumption and Treatment Services site, called keepsix, according to rules specified by both the city and the province’s Ministry of Health.
Given that the South Riverdale Community Health Centre is located within 150 metres of two schools and six daycare facilities, which caused some community members to voice concerns about the supervised injection site before it opened, the centre made various commitments, including a zero-tolerance drug selling policy. The plaintiffs claim, however, that when neighbours brought forward their concerns about drug trafficking, loitering and violence to the health centre, its management “took no steps to address them, usually citing a lack of resources or a philosophical aversion to standard institutional
responses.” The lawsuit’s claims have not been tested in court.
In 2019, Ontario’s Ministry of Health, the primary funder of the province’s 17 Consumption and Treatment Services sites, created new criteria for such establishments, which included considering proximity to schools, licensed daycare centres and parks. Two years later, the lawsuit notes, the ministry announced a Compliance and Enforcement Protocol for supervised injection sites, which set “minimum expectations for public health programs and services.” Based on this 2021 protocol, any proposed Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) site within 100 to 200 metres of schools, parks and daycare facilities “must specify how community concerns will be addressed through community consultation, and through ongoing community engagement.” The lawsuit asserts that at no time did South Riverdale’s site suggest any “specific measures to alleviate residents’ concerns ‘that the service should not be located within a few blocks of any school.’”
The claim states the defendants “failed to take effective steps to prevent the people they invite” to the neighbourhood to access harm reduction services “from unreasonably and substantially interfering with the use and enjoyment of neighbouring properties and the operation of neighbouring businesses.”