The loudest voices advocating for supervised injection sites in Toronto in a committee room at city hall on Monday were those who could not be there in person.
Brooklyn McNeil, 22. Brad Chapman, 43. A loved one who collapsed in a Tim Horton’s bathroom and never made it out alive.
The stories of Toronto residents who died of overdoses on Toronto streets were heard for hours by board of health members, told by their friends, family and support workers at an emotional meeting that saw an overwhelming push for what advocates say would be a life-saving measure.
The board unanimously agreed, signalling a new approach to harm reduction as a public health problem — one that has yet to be implemented in Ontario.
Members backed a recommendation from outgoing chief medical officer of health, Dr. David McKeown, to move forward with three sites proposed within existing community health centres on Queen St. W., near Yonge and Dundas Sts. and in Leslieville. Final approval will be sought at council next week.
“Brooklyn McNeil was not an exception. People are dying every week,” said John MacDonald, a harm reduction worker at Eva’s Satellite homeless shelter where McNeil — a Thunder Bay native who struggled herself with addiction and mental health from a young age — had become an advanced peer worker.
She died of an overdose on June 22. She would have been 23 on Tuesday.
“She’d still be alive if there was a safe injection site. She didn’t even really have a chance to live anywhere near a full life,” MacDonald said. “Every week we’re getting emails about someone overdosing and dying. It’s going to get worse unless we have safe injections sites. They may not save everybody, but even one life — it’s worth opening them.”
McNeil had planned to speak Monday in support of supervised injection. Instead, video of her previous speech in March asking for quick implementation of such sites was replayed for members.
“I think Toronto and for that matter Canada has reached a tipping point when it comes to supervised injection services,” said Councillor Joe Cressy, who chairs the Toronto Drug Strategy Implementation Panel and has pushed for supervised injection since arriving at city hall. “That tipping point is being demonstrated certainly here today at the board of health where residents and business owners and renters and homeowners are coming together to say we need this service.”
“Frankly, it’s too late for too many, but it is coming.”
If council approves the implementation of sites, the health providers at Queen West Central Community Health Centre at Queen St. W. and Bathurst St., at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre at Queen St. E. and Carlaw Ave., and at the Works city-run facility near Yonge and Dundas Sts. will apply for federal exemption under drug laws to run those services with the city’s backing.
McKeown earlier said the soonest the sites could apply for federal approval would be early this fall.
The sites will also be seeking provincial funding to staff the services.
Business owners, residents and those with experience with drug use came to the board of health Monday to advocate for supervised injection services.
“We will always be a neighbourhood that welcomes people, not turns them away,” said Andrew Sherbin, chair of the Leslieville Business Improvement Association.
Shamez Amlani, from the Queen St. West Business Improvement Area, agreed. In a city “that does so many things wrong,” he said, “here we have a chance to do something very, very right.”
The board also heard from the sister and mother of Brad Chapman, a father of three and grandfather to a 6-year-old. Chapman died of an overdose on a downtown street near one of the proposed injection sites.
“Had (supervised injection services) existed last year, my brother Brad would still be alive today,” Leigh Chapman said. “I’ve heard people say that the war on drugs is a war against drug users. Brad was most certainly in the trenches and unfortunately did not survive. But others can and will survive if you used the strong evidence base for SIS to inform your decision to save vulnerable people like Brad from an unnecessary and untimely death.”
And there was Cindy Reardon, who herself has struggled with addiction, for the first time telling the story of how she lost her girlfriend when she was just 26.
“She fell in the bathroom of a Tim Horton’s and she died in my arms,” Reardon said. “I think that had we had a safer place to go — a safer place to use, education, contact — that my girlfriend would not have died so needlessly.”
Councillor Gord Perks, who championed safe injection and other harm reduction strategies as the former chair for the Toronto Drug Strategy, came to thank those who shared those stories.
“You are the best of us,” he told them. “I, for one, am sorry we haven’t done more and done it sooner.”
Public consultation found overwhelming support for the sites among those surveyed, including in neighbourhoods where the sites would be located.
Mayor John Tory is poised to back their implementation at council when it meets starting July 12, an added boost to the board’s endorsement.
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