Wynne avoids question on whether she would support safe injection sites for Toronto

WATERLOO, Ont. — Premier Kathleen Wynne spoke Wednesday about the importance of harm reduction policies, as Toronto looks at safe-injection sites.
The city’s medical officer of health recommended in a report this week that the sites be integrated into existing harm-reduction programs in Toronto because they will save lives.
Wynne echoed those comments after an unrelated announcement.
“I think that as a society we have to do everything we can to implement the policies like harm reduction that will save people’s lives, will make communities safer and will allow people to be functioning members of society,” she said.
The sites provide safe, hygienic environments for people to inject pre-obtained drugs under a nurse’s supervision.
When asked if she supported Toronto or other cities setting up supervised injection sites, Wynne said those municipalities and their public health units need to make those decisions.
“These are not easy questions,” she said. “But I do think that there are good models in other jurisdictions that Toronto is looking at.”
There are two such models in Vancouver, where the Insite supervised injection site became North America’s first legal clinic of its kind in 2003 as part of a harm-reduction plan to tackle an epidemic of HIV-AIDS and drug overdose deaths in that city. There have been no overdose deaths at Insite, despite more than 1,500 overdose interventions.
Toronto’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown, said the number of people dying from drug overdoses in the city has risen from 146 in 2004 to more than 200 people in 2013, which is the most recent data available.
Toronto is holding public meetings on the safe-injection site proposal.
Final approval for safe-injection sites rests with the federal government, which must grant an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
When Vancouver’s second site was approved earlier this year, Health Minister Jane Philpott said that international and Canadian evidence shows that safe-injection sites have the potential to save lives and improve health without increasing drug use and crime in surrounding areas.