City staring at hazy road ahead on drug consumption site

The city of Sault Ste. Marie could move forward in seeking a federal exemption that could eventually lead to the establishment of a supervised drug consumption site, but the mayor hopes the provincial government will still come to the table to fund it.

City CAO Malcolm White made a report to city council on Monday, outlining the next steps for an eventual opening of a supervised consumption site in the Sault. It was approved and received by council as information, with no current financial implications.

In the months since White and his office began working on the report, the provincial government has put a pause on new applications for supervised consumption sites in Ontario.

“I think it can be argued that the province, while it has officially paused the process, had really paused the process for quite some time,” White told council. “There were a number of applications in the queue that had been going back and forth for one or two years and had no approvals.”

The next step, said White, is to work toward applying to the federal government for an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to allow for various drugs to be used within the supervised consumption site. That process will be fairly involved, said White, and include public consultations.

He told council that, aside from staff time, the process of applying for the exemption will not have a direct cost to the city.

The process to obtain that exemption is time consuming, said White, and begins with the identification of a proposed site — which was not part of the report presented on Monday.

White noted there is currently no timeline offered by the province for when new applications can be made. 

“I think if we wait for that, in the end, we will have let a lot of time slip away and that we should at least begin the process,” he said.

The eventual proposed site may or may not require a zoning change from the city, White told SooToday. If it does, that could add another layer of public consultations required.

White noted supervised consumption sites that opened in Timmins and Sudbury with municipal funding with hopes of the province taking over are both facing closure because that didn’t end up happening.

Ward 4 councillor Marchy Bruni said he is concerned the same could happen in the Sault if one is opened here with municipal funds.

“There is a possible closure in Timmins for their site and their cost to the city is just under a million dollars but in Sudbury it’s well over a million dollars that the city does provide to keep the consumption site operating,” said Bruni. “I am just hoping the government will come forward and provide the funding for us to have a safe site for consumption.”

After months of discussions between White and various stakeholders in the community, he identified three partner agencies for the city to work with on next steps: Algoma Public Health, Canadian Mental Health Association Algoma and Mental Health and Addictions System Planning Table, a subgroup of the Algoma Ontario Health Team.

“Going thorough a process like this means more discussions and dialogues throughout the groups and in the end it will certainly results in a lot of other incremental improvements to the services that are being offered right now, so I don’t think it’s a waste of time by any means to work at this,” he said.

None of the partner agencies identified are interested in operating the site themselves, but White said they have expressed interest in assisting the city in the next steps needed to put together the provincial and federal applications needed to open one. 

APH will provide surveillance data and trends, as well as supporting community partnerships and community engagement. 

CMHA’s extensive experience in operating shelters, homelessness outreach and the Downtown Ambassador program will greatly inform the process, said White in the report.

Mental Health and Addictions System Planning Table has committed to provide guidance and community leadership support for the application process and to help coordinate the efforts of community partners.

“There is very strong alignment on the need for a supervised consumption site, especially if it is tied to linking to treatment, so if it can be a first point of contact for people to get them to different services that they need,” said White to council. “Right now the only point of first contact is the emergency department at Sault Area Hospital, so obviously if we can reduce the amount of traffic through there it’s a great thing.”

White noted taking some of that pressure off of Sault Area Hospital may be seen by some as a greater benefit than the actual site itself.

In his comments, Mayor Matthew Shoemaker echoed comments he has made in recent months about the disproportionate level of health care offered to the residents of northern Ontario versus southern Ontario.

“My view has been that we ought to have a supervised consumption site and that it should be funded by the province because they are constitutionally mandated to fund health care and what they are funding in one place should be funded across the province,” said Shoemaker. 

Until that inequity is addressed, Shoemaker said, northern Ontario residents will continue to suffer higher rates of opioid hospitalizations, higher rates of opioid overdoses and higher rates of opioid deaths.

White has previously announced he will retire at the end of January and on Monday told SooToday the supervised consumption file will be moved to Tom Vair, the city’s deputy CAO of Community Development and Enterprise Services.

“Tom has been joining me on meetings we have had, so I am very comfortable with how it will transition,” said White.