Ford government to end funding for supervised consumption sites, advocates say — including two in Toronto
Posted on March 19, 2026 in Health Delivery System
Source: TheStar.com — Authors: Omar Mosleh
TheStar.com – GTA
March 16, 2026. By Omar Mosleh, Staff Reporter
The Ontario government will stop funding all supervised consumption sites in the province, effective June 13, according to advocates.
The move will result in more deaths, they warn, at a time when the city is seeing an increasingly tainted drug supply.
In Toronto, Moss Park Overdose Prevention Site at Queen and Sherbourne and the site at Fred Victor at Queen and Jarvis will lose their funding, according to letters sent to the site directors that were obtained by the Star, which means the locations will likely close unless they obtain private funding.
In the letter, the province said the decision “reflects Ontario’s commitment to prioritizing treatment, recovery and supports that help individuals move toward long-term stability while protecting Ontario communities.”
Keith Hambly, CEO of Fred Victor, said the organization is “deeply disappointed in the Government of Ontario’s decision to terminate funding for all remaining supervised consumption sites in the province.”
“We hope the government will reinvest these significant funds into the community, to strengthen rather than dismantle the supports that help keep people alive,” he said.
In a Friday press conference held by the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, Zoë Dodd, a co-organizer with the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society, said the news will likely result in the closure of other publicly funded sites in Ontario, which would include Ottawa Inner City Health and Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, as well as sites in London, Kingston, St. Catharines and Peterborough, unless they obtain private funding.
The Ministry of Health did not confirm the closures by publication deadline.
Dodd called the news “absolutely appalling” and said the province’s HART Hub model, which prioritizes getting people into treatment and housing, has not been able to meet the gap in need, adding that many are still not fully operational.
The HART Hubs were created as part of the province’s plan to move away from harm reduction and get people into treatment and housing. But experts say they’re not a suitable replacement for a life-saving service that prevents people from dying until they’re able to get into treatment.
“People can’t get the care they need as they try to get in emergency departments and wait times are still long for treatment,” Dodd said.
“This decision today is deadly.”
Sites see more visitors in wake of other closures
The move will leave three remaining privately-funded sites in Toronto: Street Health at Dundas and Sherbourne, Casey House at Jarvis and Isabella, and a site in Kensington Market operated by the Neighbourhood Group Community Services.
Visitors to the Kensington Market site have doubled since the Community Care and Recovery Act resulted in the closure of nine other sites in Toronto nearly a year ago, said Bill Sinclair, CEO of TNG Community Services.
“We also saw more people out on the sidewalks, people in the parks and the laneways … and having to respond to overdoses in our bathroom for the first time in six years,” he said. “I think it just demonstrates the overwhelming lack of health services that people are facing.”
At Casey House, a specialty hospital that operates a supervised consumption site for in-patients, CEO Joanne Simons said they’ve also seen a surge in demand and they’re concerned about whether they’ll have enough capacity to serve new clients.
Ford has called sites ‘failed policy’
While the provincial government did not immediately confirm the closures Friday, Premier Doug Ford has been telegraphing his displeasure with the injection sites he has long called a “failed policy.”
“This was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread — it’s the worst thing that could ever happen to a community to have one of these safe injection sites in their neighbourhood,” Ford said in June 2024 when he announced the first wave of closures.
The letter sent to site directors in Toronto says the province is providing the sites 90 days’ notice “in order to support an orderly transition for clients so they can access other community health services, including through Toronto Region’s local HART Hub.”
The sites are being asked to provide a plan for how they will transition clients to other community health services and realign their services to promote rehabilitation.
Gillian Kolla, a drug policy expert and assistant professor of medicine at Memorial University, said the province hasn’t explained how it will mitigate the impact of the closures, characterizing the move to ask the organizations to plan for the transition as “gaslighting.”
“I think it is, frankly, completely reprehensible to try and turn this on the site operators, who are providing a crucial service … The province recognizes there will be tremendous impact from closing these sites.”
With files from Robert Benzie. Omar Mosleh is a Toronto-based reporter covering social issues for the Star.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ford-government-to-end-funding-for-supervised-consumption-sites-advocates-say-including-two-in-toronto/article_5ab58e5e-d433-4a6b-a32b-831d05b6b777.html
Tags: ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, pharmaceutical
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