Waterloo Region Drug Action Team ‘baffled’ by provincial plans to close Kitchener CTS

As the Ford government moves forward with changes to close some Consumption and Treatment Service (CTS) sites across the province, one local community group continues to voice opposition to the plan.

Plans to ban the sites within 200 metres of schools and child care centres have been discussed since late August, it was as recently as Monday that the province introduced the Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act, while also requiring municipalities and local boards to “seek provincial approval before supporting new supervised consumption sites.”

Those measures would include the closure of a number of CTS sites across Ontario, including one in Guelph and the site in Kitchener at 150 Duke St. W.

The Waterloo Region Drug Action Team (WRDAT) previously decried these measures and the closure, as a community organization composed of local residents with “interest, experience and expertise in resolving a wide range of drug-related issues.”

In a release, WRDAT argued the act is “widely expected to make things worse” for community health and safety, as they argue that internal government documents “have advised that the act ‘does not deal with either concept.'”

“The Waterloo Region Drug Action Team detects no visible support for defunding the one Consumption and Treatment Service in Waterloo Region,” reads an earlier release.

“Support from two municipal councils, the daycare across the street, faith groups, health and medical providers alongside other organizations and individuals, together with favourable crime data in the CTS neighbourhood contradict the fact-free, opinion based radical drug policy emerging from the Ontario government to date.”

Previously outlined plans from the province include a sizable investment in 19 new Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs, though WRDAT argued that such sites would be “no substitute for the CTS.”

“We encourage local media to reach out to area MPPs, as we are baffled by an Act that threatens the lives of constituents, creates harms for both individuals and neighbourhoods and adds more work – not less – to staff of overburdened health, social, non-profit and first-responder systems.”

WRDAT added that they expect an increase in public substance use, needle litter and drug debris and overdoses should the Kitchener CTS site be closed.