- comparing safe consumption sites to defibrillators in community centres is ludicrous. No one chooses to have a heart attack, all drug addicts have at some point made a conscious decision to start to use drugs.
Addiction is way more complex than "they chose to do it".
And in what other aspect of health care or emergency response do we withhold care based on the individual's choices or risk behaviour? I can't think of any.
You predict more disorder after closure, but how much disorder was already associated with the sites themselves? You are assuming these sites reduced public disorder, but provide no evidence for that claim. Therefore the prediction that closure will worsen neighbourhood conditions should not be accepted without supporting evidence. Indeed, other neighbourhoods have recovered when their sites were closed.
As a councillor 40 km away from the downtown core, you and your constituents (which certainly wouldn't welcome injection sites in their neighbourhood) are largely insulated from public drug use, disorder and trespass to property including arsonists and squatters, dealers, gang and associated gun violence, needle and crackpipe litter, open prostitution and coerced sex work, shuttered businesses -- and I am pretty sure no daycare in Stittsville was forced close due to the dangerous drug addicts and school recess doesn't require police escorts.
You have a right to your opinion, but as an elected official you should be mindful about representation especially when advocating for a policy that you are unaffected by.
The dire results you are predicting from these upcoming closures are not supported by data following from previous closures, both here in Toronto and Alberta. Also, isn't Stittsville about 40 minutes from downtown Ottawa? Try living close to one, as I and the Action Sandy Hill community group have. They called the site's impact on their neighborhood "catastrophic." Even the Ottawa chief of police has echoed these concerns to Health Canada after the community lost a daycare facility as a result of the chaos around the site.
In the post it’s noted in the report from Dr Trevor Arnason that the city is choosing to spend $500k on security for the market. The Consumption and Treatment Services at sandy hill are about $1.2-1.6 million. Genuinely curious why the city could not, given councils awareness and availability of budget (*) simply move to redirect funding from policing and security, and top up as needed, to replace provincial funding gaps. Is this what we should do? No, bc it should be funded by the province but if they won’t we should. Ditto for housing.
* we have the money if we want to. We choose to have “the lowest tax increases in Canada” and moreover have hundreds of millions for Lansdowne, roads, endless performative consultations and otherwise. We simply choose to spend our budget elsewhere. This is a choice.
- comparing safe consumption sites to defibrillators in community centres is ludicrous. No one chooses to have a heart attack, all drug addicts have at some point made a conscious decision to start to use drugs.
Addiction is way more complex than "they chose to do it".
And in what other aspect of health care or emergency response do we withhold care based on the individual's choices or risk behaviour? I can't think of any.
You predict more disorder after closure, but how much disorder was already associated with the sites themselves? You are assuming these sites reduced public disorder, but provide no evidence for that claim. Therefore the prediction that closure will worsen neighbourhood conditions should not be accepted without supporting evidence. Indeed, other neighbourhoods have recovered when their sites were closed.
As a councillor 40 km away from the downtown core, you and your constituents (which certainly wouldn't welcome injection sites in their neighbourhood) are largely insulated from public drug use, disorder and trespass to property including arsonists and squatters, dealers, gang and associated gun violence, needle and crackpipe litter, open prostitution and coerced sex work, shuttered businesses -- and I am pretty sure no daycare in Stittsville was forced close due to the dangerous drug addicts and school recess doesn't require police escorts.
You have a right to your opinion, but as an elected official you should be mindful about representation especially when advocating for a policy that you are unaffected by.
The dire results you are predicting from these upcoming closures are not supported by data following from previous closures, both here in Toronto and Alberta. Also, isn't Stittsville about 40 minutes from downtown Ottawa? Try living close to one, as I and the Action Sandy Hill community group have. They called the site's impact on their neighborhood "catastrophic." Even the Ottawa chief of police has echoed these concerns to Health Canada after the community lost a daycare facility as a result of the chaos around the site.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-finkle-this-injection-site-was-shut-down-what-followed-proved-activists-wrong
In the post it’s noted in the report from Dr Trevor Arnason that the city is choosing to spend $500k on security for the market. The Consumption and Treatment Services at sandy hill are about $1.2-1.6 million. Genuinely curious why the city could not, given councils awareness and availability of budget (*) simply move to redirect funding from policing and security, and top up as needed, to replace provincial funding gaps. Is this what we should do? No, bc it should be funded by the province but if they won’t we should. Ditto for housing.
* we have the money if we want to. We choose to have “the lowest tax increases in Canada” and moreover have hundreds of millions for Lansdowne, roads, endless performative consultations and otherwise. We simply choose to spend our budget elsewhere. This is a choice.
The province seems set on shutting down these facilities by any means possible: either by cutting off funding, or by directly revoking their endorsement to operate, like what happened to a Clarence Street site last year: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/another-ottawa-supervised-consumption-site-closes-as-province-withholds-support-1.7646739