As Niagara Region’s only safe drug consumption site faces closure, advocates fear more people will die

Advocates fear the looming closure of the Niagara Region’s sole safe drug consumption site will result in a spike in overdose deaths and cases of blood-borne infections such as hepatitis C and HIV.

The Health Ministry informed Positive Living Niagara, which operates Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS), that Ontario government funding for the St. Catharines site would end in 90 days.

“There will be people who die because of this,” Talia Storm, program director of Positive Living’s StreetWorks program, said in an interview.

CTS is among seven supervised drug consumption sites in Ontario set to have their funding cut in the coming weeks.

On Monday, Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a news release that the province is now focusing on treatment and recovery from addiction through Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs. The government “remains clear that the focus must be on treatment, recovery and safer communities,” the release said.

Last year, 10 other sites, including the only one in Hamilton, were forced to close due to a new rule introduced in 2024 that bans these facilities within 200 metres of schools or daycares. 

Storm said 100 per cent of CTS’s funding comes from the province, so Positive Living plans to close the site.

The consequences, based on what has happened in other Ontario communities where safe consumption sites have been shuttered, won’t be pretty, Storm said.

“The outcome has been quite terrible in those communities in terms of public substance use, increased overdoses, increased deaths and increased syringes in the community.”

At CTS Niagara, which is open daily, people bring their own supply of street drugs to inject or consume them under the watchful eyes of Niagara Emergency Medical Services paramedics, who are trained to respond immediately to any overdose.

According to Positive Living Niagara, since CTS opened in 2018, there have been 89,000 visits by people looking for a safe way to use drugs they say they need due to their addictions. During that time, at least 1,520 overdoses have been reversed.

Importance of screening drugs for safety

Harini Sivalingam, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s equity program director, said funding cuts to safe consumption sites and the resulting closures will make it more difficult for people with addictions to access “essential, life-saving” health services.

Shuttering the sites in the midst of an opioid crisis is foolhardy, Sivalingam said.

“The loss of funding for these services will disproportionately harm already marginalized communities, including Indigenous and racialized people, as well as those experiencing poverty and homelessness, who face systemic barriers to accessing health care and other supports.”

The HIV Legal Network, and the HIV and AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario said data indicate safe consumption sites reduce the risk of HIV infection from contaminated needles and save lives.

“More people will die without access to the lifesaving care they receive at supervised consumption sites,” they said in a statement.

CTS also provides referrals to addictions counselling and pathways to treatment, peer support, housing support and a host of on-site health-care services, and uses special technology to screen clients’ drugs to determine their safety.

That’s critical, given street drugs are increasingly laced with dangerous additives that are “very toxic,” Storm said.

Hospitals are overwhelmed

Storm fears people who no longer can go to safe injection sites will turn to using drugs in stairwells, public bathrooms, parks and other public locations, leaving contaminated needles behind. It’s inevitable that a spike in overdoses will tax a paramedic service and local hospital emergency rooms already struggling to keep up with demand, she added.

“The hospitals are overwhelmed right now, and this will certainly add to it.”

Despite the obstacles the funding cuts would add to keeping the CTS site open, Storm hasn’t given up hope.

“We’re certainly exploring everything that we can in order to overturn this and to continue offering services.”