'We're not going to reverse': Ontario premier, health minister defend supervised consumption site closures

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his health minister said Wednesday they will not reverse course on their decision to shutter more supervised drug consumption sites, after a letter from six former Toronto mayors urged them to do so.

Two weeks ago, the province notified seven supervised consumption sites that it would be pulling their funding, with sites set to close by mid-June. This came after the province forced the closure of nine other such sites last year that it deemed were too close to schools and daycares.

"I want to help these people, but I'm not going to sit back as you put these injection sites in the middle of communities," Ford said at an unrelated news conference Wednesday.

"There's needles all over the place. It's dangerous for kids and communities. They're in the parks. It's terrible, and we're closing them down."

Health Minister Sylvia Jones was adamant the government will not change course as it moves to an abstinence-based model known as homelessness and addiction recovery treatment, or HART, hubs.

"We're not going to reverse, we've been very clear: our focus is on the HART hubs to make sure that people have access to treatment," Jones said.

"We want to ensure that there is a pathway out of addictions, and you can't do that when you continue to fund, frankly, illicit drugs."

The province has funded 28 new hubs with all but one now operational, Jones said.

Health-care workers, advocates and homeless people have decried the closures and said they will lead to more deaths.

Six former mayors of Toronto wrote to Ford and Jones on Tuesday, urging them to change their minds.

"These decisions to close sites, which provide integrated health and social services as well as facilities to test drug supply, have caused much physical harm and death and have resulted in increased public expenditures, without resulting in any positive impacts," wrote former mayors David Crombie, Art Eggleton, Barbara Hall, David Miller, John Sewell and John Tory.

Current Mayor Olivia Chow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The former mayors pointed to an increase in non-fatal opioid overdose calls received by Toronto Paramedic Services.

The data show an 82 per cent increase in suspected opioid overdose calls between April 1, 2025, when those nine other sites closed, and January 2026. There were 160 such calls in April last year and 350 this past January.