Rampant crime and drug use. That’s what a court has heard was witnessed outside of Ontario’s so-called safe injection sites. The evidence is in a report, now filed with Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice in response to a lawsuit trying to keep the drug sites open.
The filing comes complete with photographic and video evidence showing users doing drugs, pushers are selling drugs and drug tools like needles and crack pipes littering the areas around these sites.
Last August, Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced that they would be closing 10 drug consumption sites located within 200 metres of schools or childcare centres while replacing them with treatment facilities.
“Parents are worried about the discarded needles that their children could pick up,” Jones said at the time.
A group of activists, fronted by a woman who says she uses one such centre to obtain clean needles for her drug habit, launched a court challenge. The activists claim that denying them access to government funded needles and crack pipes and a place to use them near a school or childcare centre is a violation of their Section 8 Charter right “to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.”
The province under the Ford government clearly takes a different view and has said these sites, however well-intentioned they may have been when they started, have become a danger to the communities they are in. In response to the lawsuit, they hired the firm Investigative Solutions Network Inc to collect evidence with a team led by retired Durham police officer Krish Ganeshan.
“On multiple occasions at each of the Sites, the ISN team observed what appeared to be hand-to-hand drug transactions. The drugs being sold appeared to be narcotic drugs that were injected or smoked by purchasers in the public areas outside the Sites,” Ganeshan states in his affidavit submitted to the court.
He and his team visited sites in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Kitchener, Guelph and Kingston documenting addicts buying and using drugs in the open. They also witnessed and recorded altercations between the various sites users including with weapons.
All things that neighbours of these sites have been complaining to politicians and media about for years, most of it falling on deaf ears.
Over the past several years, I’ve spoken to neighbours of the sites monitored in this report in Toronto and Ottawa and heard similar stories, seen similar photos.
“On January 10, 2025 at 2:08 PM, video evidence was obtained of a female injecting a syringe into the neck of a male before he takes the syringe and injects it into his arm near the Sandy Hill Community Centre,” the report states.
They also documented a man pulling a “tactical” knife on another user at this same Ottawa location.
“The ISN team observed that many users at each of the Sites appeared to be in a state of intoxication, including from openly using narcotic drugs by injection and inhalation. Some of the intoxicated users were agitated and others appeared to be “on the nod,” or in a state of deep drowsiness,” the affidavit states.
These scenes all took place out in the open, mostly in residential neighbourhoods where parents are trying to raise their kids in a safe environment. But that once safe environment has been altered after these unsafe consumption sites were injected into their neighbourhoods.
“Discarded needles and drug pipes were a common observation at each of the Sites. These objects were observed mainly on the ground in and around the vicinity of the Sites,” the court filing states.
In their own court filing, the activists claim that the government’s position “reinforces the unjustified and unsubstantiated stereotype that people who use drugs and who suffer from substance use disabilities are a danger to society, and in particular to children.”
No, the actions of the users of these sites would justify and substantiate that these sites and those that use them are a danger and this court filing offers up ample proof.
It’s time to move on from this failed experiment. Let’s hope the court sees the evidence and rules accordingly.
Affidavit of Krishanthakumar Ganeshan Sworn January 24 2025 (Redacted) by Cynthia McLeod on Scribd