xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, sḵwx̱wú7mesh & səlilwətaɬ territory| Vancouver, BC | September 29, 2026 – In a landmark ruling that could alter the fabric of drug policy in Canada, the BC Supreme Court has found that the criminal law used to arrest and convict DULF co-founders Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx is unconstitutional. The Court ruled that section 5(2) of the CDSA violates the Section 7 and Section 15 Charter rights of DULF co-founders and people who use drugs. The  Judgedeclared section 5(2) of the CDSA invalid (of no force or effect), effective six months from today. This delay is to give the opportunity for the legislature to craft a response.  

In finding section 5(2) of the CDSA unconstitutional, the Court has issued a “stay of proceedings” against Kalicum and Nyx. This means that no convictions will be entered against them and they cannot be prosecuted again for the DULF compassion club activities that were the subject of this court case. 

“They were courageous. They were evidence-based. They pursued their program with no profit, no benefit for themselves at all, always with the sole intention of trying to reduce the terrible rate of death in this crisis,” says Tim Dickson of DULF’s legal team. “Drug policy should not rely on people as courageous as Ms. Nyx and Mr. Kalicum. Governments need to follow the evidence and make the choices to implement programs that…will work to save lives. If we care about saving lives, then we need to follow the evidence. And that is what the Court did in this case.” 

Judge Catherine Murray delivered the verdict with oral reasons for judgement, finding that “a non-medical safe supply is urgently needed to save lives” and “the DULF compassion club reduced the harms associated with the toxic drug crisis and did not negatively impact the community or public safety.“  

“It’s really encouraging that the court today has recognized some of the harm created by prohibition,” says Aiyanas Ormond of the BC Coalition of Organizations By/For People Who Use Drugs. “We now have an important opportunity to re-think the whole framework of the war on drugs, and consider alternatives, like DULF, that support health, build community, and delink addiction and substance use from the violent harms of criminalization and the black market .”  

In court, Judge Murray took time to acknowledge DULF’s co-founders directly. “Mr. Kalicum and Ms. Nyx, you selflessly put yourselves on the line for this cause. I know from watching you through this lengthy process that it has taken a toll…I applaud you for what you have done. You should be very proud of yourselves. It’s people like you who make a difference. Go do great things; I have no doubt that you will.” 

“DULF provided life-saving services when no legal alternative was available. This put them on the wrong side of the law: their lawyers argued that given these facts, it is the law, not DULF’s co-founders, that is wrong,” says DJ Larkin, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. “Today, the BC Supreme Court agreed. We are deeply heartened and relieved that the Court has recognized DULF’s lifesaving and selfless work. Thank you to Jeremy, Eris and the legal team led by Tim Dickson, Stephanie Dickson, and Kaelan Unrau for your remarkable and courageous work.” 

In November 2025, Eris Nyx and Jeremy Kalicum – two founders of the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) – were each convicted of three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking because they sourced diacetylmorphine (heroin), methamphetamine and cocaine from the dark web, rigorously tested it to ensure purity and determine potency, and sold it at cost to members of a strictly controlled compassion club. In doing so, DULF provided its members with a regulated, predictable drug supply as an alternative to the volatile street drug supply that has killed more than 18,000 people in B.C. over the past decade. 

But when political winds shifted in September 2023 and several politicians publicly targeted the club and stirred up moral panic, the same government agencies who had previously supported or tacitly permitted the compassion club’s operation abandoned DULF and the club members whose lives and health the club was protecting. On October 25, 2023, the Vancouver Police Department raided DULF and arrested its co-founders, forcing compassion club members back to the dangers of the unregulated drug supply.    

“Moms Stop the Harm celebrates the successful outcome of DULF’s Charter challenge and recognizes the extraordinary courage and determination of Eris Nyx, Jeremy Kalicum, their legal team, and everyone who stood behind them,” says J Stewart of Moms Stop the Harm. “At the heart of this case are people’s lives. Canada’s unregulated drug supply continues to cause preventable deaths, and people who use drugs deserve policies grounded in evidence, human rights, dignity and care — not punishment. We are grateful to DULF for having the courage to challenge the status quo.” 

As for the future of Canada’s drug laws, Canada now has six months to craft legislation that upholds constitutional rights. It is expected that the Crown will appeal this judgement, which would delay any legislative changes. 

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Written judgement available via the BC Supreme Court: https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/26/18/2026BCSC1855.htm

Media Contact:

Jessica Hannon

jessica.hannon@drugpolicy.ca 

The post BC Supreme Court finds Drug Law Unconstitutional, Frees DULF  appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

The toxic drug crisis is showing up in workplaces, families and communities across the country. Workers are responding to grief, injury, unsafe conditions and service gaps they did not create and cannot solve alone. Over several decades, government austerity has weakened the public systems we all rely on.^{1 2} Amid this preventable public health emergency, governments are doubling down on stigma and criminalization, causing preventable harm. Labour has a role to play in changing the tide. 

Drug policy affects all of us through how health and housing systems, public services, and communities are structured and resourced. It directly shapes workplace conditions for workers across the country. When governments under-resource our public systems, they displace their responsibility for managing systems failure onto the backs of workers. Across sectors—including library services, health care, municipal services, social services, education, emergency response, shelter services, transit and skilled trades—workers are encountering a consistent structural pattern: public systems are demanding more for less, while workers are expected to hold together what policy has broken. 

This Crisis is Preventable and Policy-driven  

The unregulated toxic drug supply is the predictable outcome of policy choices. Criminalization has pushed the production and sale of drugs into unregulated markets where there are no consumer protections, no quality controls, and no reliable information about ingredients.^{3 4} The result is a preventable mass death and injury crisis that impacts everyone. And it is showing up in workplaces.  

How governments choose to approach drug policy influences working conditions across health care, housing, income supports, and public services. It also determines whether governments invest wisely in these systems or continue to default to harmful enforcement, exclusion and crisis response. Government policy has created risk, and workers are being left to manage the consequences. Today, workers are responding to overdoses, grief, trauma, unsafe conditions, service disruption, and increasing complexity in systems that are already strained.

Workers in Impossible Positions

Years of austerity have reduced the supports available to people, all while expanding frontline workers’ responsibilities.

Across sectors, workers are increasingly required to manage the visible consequences of poverty, homelessness, toxic drug supply, mental distress and unmet care needs, often without adequate staffing, training, or public systems support. That can look like library workers regularly responding to overdoses, or municipal workers being directed to take down tents where people are sheltering in public parks.⁵ It’s an unfair and untenable situation for everyone. But over and over, we’re told to blame the people who are suffering, or the workers who are responding under impossible conditions. The only people who benefit from that blame game are those with the power to change the systems.

People who use drugs, experience poverty, or are unhoused still hold rights to life and dignity. Workers in public-facing or high-pressure jobs still hold rights to safe and fair working conditions. Rather than accept governments shifting blame and system strain onto individuals and workers, we must keep them accountable to uphold those rights.

Labour Knows How to Punch Up  

Labour has a long tradition of challenging power and standing up for people harmed by system failure. From pushing for the expansion of public health care, the development of public childcare systems, and sustained improvements in workplace health and safety standards, the labour movement has refused to be distracted by the tactic of scapegoating individuals for systemic issues. Achieving these wins for everyone was only possibly by maintaining focus on the real issues: structural and institutional responsibilities. 

We can support safety through stable public systems that support both workers and communities, including: 

• Workplace protections and supports  
• Accessible health and social services 
• Adequate staffing and training  

Amid the toxic unregulated drug crisis, labour must resist narratives that pit workers against people in crisis. Labour must punch up and stay focused on institutional and policy responsibilities.  

Stigma Turns Policy Failure into Individual Blame

Stigma is a political tool. When those in power label a group of people as dangerous, irresponsible, or undeserving, it is easier for them to justify exclusionary and punitive policies, rather than fund the structural investments we so desperately need. This approach inaccurately reframes systemic issues—housing, a toxic drug supply, poverty, and services gaps—as individual failures. It positions people in crisis as the problem and forces workers to manage the consequences of policy failure.

In this context, visible suffering becomes the focus of public conversation, with some people stoking fear and blame to drive their own agendas. Governments promise control. Workers are told to manage the consequences. People in crisis are pushed further from safety. And everyone becomes less safe.

To make our workplaces and our communities safer, we must challenge the stigma governments use to justify bad policy.

Public System Gaps Create Private Markets

When our public systems are under-resourced, the needs they are designed to meet don’t disappear. People still need housing, care, treatment and harm reduction. Workers still need staffing, training and safety supports. Without robust public funding, private markets expand to fill the gaps left by austerity policies.

Public systems are relying more and more on private, for-profit companies to provide services like treatment, monitoring, assessment, security and workplace testing.^{6 7} Often these providers operate with uneven accountability and limited system oversights.⁸ That puts people at risk.

Labour has a direct stake in resisting the shift to privatization. Public workers know what happens when governments underfund services, outsource responsibility, and ask private markets to solve the crisis their actions helped create.^{9 10} It is not efficient. It is not safe. It is just a more expensive way to abandon people while asking workers to keep smiling through the collapse.

Safety is a Labour Principle

Drug policy is already shaping workplace conditions, service delivery, and occupational safety across sectors. The Ontario provincial government under Doug Ford has defunded and restricted supervised consumption services across the province, effectively cutting union jobs while pushing more demand and strain onto other workers. Groups like the Ontario Federation of Labour have come out against these harmful policy choices, recognizing the role supervised consumption services play in preventing deaths and injuries and protecting frontline worker safety.¹¹

These conditions are structural, not incidental, in the workplace. A labour-informed response requires:  

• Rejecting stigma as a framework for policy or workplace response
• Strengthening public systems as the foundation of safety
• Ensuring adequate supports for workers
• Insisting governments address the causes of crisis rather than downloading the consequences onto workers

It also means standing with people who are most often blamed, displaced, criminalized, or abandoned.  Those who hold decision-making power want us to believe that the unregulated toxic drug crisis is a story of individuals. But labour has the values, history and traditions to know better: the toxic drug crisis is a story of policy choices, public abandonment, and the consequences of treating some people as disposable. What we need is solidarity. The only way to create real safety for everyone is through collective action, public responsibility, and the refusal to let people with power divide us.

1. 1 Orly Linovski, “The Many Consequences of Austerity,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, April 8, 2024, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/the-many-consequences-of-austerity/   ︎
2. Andrew Longhurst, Damien Contandriopoulos, and Mei-ling Wiedmeyer, “Rejecting the high costs of tax cuts and austerity to our health,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, October 17, 2024, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/health-austerity/ ︎
3. Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, “Case for Reform,” Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, https://www.drugpolicy.ca/our-work/case-for-reform/ ︎
4. Magnus Nowell, “What makes Canada’s illegal drug supply dangerous?”, Prevention in Focus, CATIE, February 25, 2025, https://www.catie.ca/prevention-in-focus/what-makes-canadas-illegal-drug-supply-dangerous ︎
5. Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), “Working in an unsafe consumption site: A library perspective,” Counterpoint, October 16, 2025, https://cupe.ca/counterpoint/working-unsafe-consumption-site-library-perspective ︎
6. Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong, “How Privatization Infects the Canadian Health Care System,” New Labor Forum, vol. 32, no. 3 (2023): 42–49, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10957960231194053 ︎
7. Noah Schulz, “Health care privatization by stealth,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, January 29, 2026, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/health-care-privatization-by-stealth/ ︎
8. Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong, “How Privatization Infects the Canadian Health Care System,” New Labor Forum, vol. 32, no. 3 (2023): 42–49, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10957960231194053 ︎
9. Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE), “AUPE will continue to fight Bill 11 to protect public health care,” AUPE News and Updates, https://www.aupe.org/news/news-and-updates/aupe-will-continue-fight-bill-11-protect-public-health-care ︎
10. CUPE Ontario, “Five years into Ford government’s privatization of hospital services: longer wait-times, unequal access, and public opposition,” https://cupe.on.ca/five-years-into-ford-governments-privatization/ ︎
11. CUPE Ontario, Safe Consumption is a Labour Issue: Workers Call for the Reversal of Deadly SCS Closures in Ontario, https://cupe.on.ca/safeconsumptionisalabourissue/ ︎

The post The Toxic Drug Crisis Is a Labour Issue appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

Ontario is in a toxic drug crisis. Loved ones die every day from an unregulated and unpredictable drug supply. Families are grieving and communities are carrying the weight. At the same time, government policy choices are forcing workers across sectors to respond to preventable emergencies—in libraries, shelters, parks, community centers, emergency rooms, and other public spaces. 

The Ford government’s decision to close CTS pushes preventable emergencies into public spaces and puts even more pressure on workers and already-strained public services. CTS are a necessary part of a full spectrum of services and supports that our communities need to be well: that includes harm reduction services, access to a range of voluntary, evidence-based treatment options, and basic needs like safe housing, adequate income, connection to culture, and robust public health care. The Ford government has claimed their HART Hub model justifies closing lifesaving CTS amid a crisis. In doing so, they incorrectly argue that HART hubs, which mandate abstinence as a goal, are an adequate crisis response on their own. The truth is, some people who use drugs do not need or want treatment, or are not ready or able to seek it out. Their safety and lives still matter. There are many pathways to well-being: we need to expand those pathways, not narrow them. 

As of May 2026, more than a year after their initial announcement, communities report that many HART Hubs are still not fully operational.  

CTS Closures Are a Workers’ Issue 

CTS keep our communities safer: they shift drug use out of public spaces and into safer environments, prevent deaths and injuries, and connect people with care. For people often shut out of mainstream care, CTS offer not only basic health services, but accessibility, dignity, and connection to longer-term supports. These are proven services with decades of evidence showing their effective role in our health system. 

By closing CTS, the Ford government is moving drug use from supervised, safer spaces into washrooms, parks, shelters, libraries, and emergency rooms, leaving workers across sectors to respond without adequate resources or support.  

Paramedics have been clear that CTS reduce pressure on emergency services by safely managing overdoses, freeing up ambulances to respond to other calls. Library, municipal, and school board workers have spoken out about how without supervised consumption sites, they have been thrust onto the frontlines, administering Naloxone and navigating medical emergencies and complex situations at their workplaces. Nurses and other workers in hospitals, already managing unrealistic workloads without necessary supports, are now managing care in emergency rooms and ICUs for people experiencing overdoses – care that previously happened at supervised consumption sites.  

Workers need public services that prevent emergencies–not policy decisions that make those emergencies more frequent and severe.  

This Is a Rights Issue 

People who use drugs have the right to life, health, dignity, safety, and equal access to care. These rights do not disappear because a person is poor, unhoused, Indigenous, racialized, disabled, queer, or criminalized. 

The Ford government is moving in the wrong direction. Amid this crisis, Ontario should be expanding access to lifesaving care. Instead, the province is closing CTS, restricting evidence-based harm reduction, and increasing punitive responses to people who are unhoused or visibly poor. Our elected leaders are choosing to criminalize and punish the people most exposed to provincial policy failures. 

Encampments, public drug use, and visible suffering are symptoms of deeper crises. They are not solved by tickets, arrests, displacement, or forcing people out of sight. Criminalization makes people less safe, pushes people away from support, increases stigma, and adds pressure to public systems that are already overburdened. 

We need approaches that address the roots of this crisis: a toxic drug supply, poverty, lack of housing, and under-resourced public services.  

Solidarity Means Refusing Abandonment 

CUPE has a long history of fighting for public services, workplace safety, human rights, and the dignity of people harmed by political choices. Drug policy belongs in that same fight. 

Solidarity means refusing the idea that some people deserve care while others deserve punishment. It means recognizing that workers responding to drug poisonings, workers who use drugs, and community members facing the toxic drug crisis all deserve safety, dignity, and support. 

We can build real safety through public systems that work: CTS, harm reduction, voluntary evidence-based treatment, safe and supportive housing, income supports, low-barrier health care, mental health supports, Indigenous-led services, and well-resourced public systems. 

A serious provincial response requires every tool that keeps people alive and supports community well-being.  

CUPE Members Can Fight Back 

The Ford government must re-open CTS, restore and expand harm reduction services, fund voluntary and evidence-based public treatment, invest in housing and low-barrier care, and stop criminalizing people already suffering under flawed systems. 

Closing CTS will increase preventable emergencies in public spaces and place even more pressure on workers across sectors who are already carrying the impacts of a failing system. 

Drug policy is a worker issue. It is a rights issue. It is a solidarity issue. 

The post Ford’s CTS Closures Download the Crisis onto Workers appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

Joint statement demands accountability, federal infrastructure, and binding commitments to make human rights real for everyone in Canada.

Regina (May 21, 2026) — As federal, provincial, and territorial representatives gather at the Forum of Ministers on Human Rights this week, the newly-formed Civil Society Forum for Human Rights in Canada is calling on governments to take immediate and concrete action on human rights implementation.  

The Civil Society Forum delivered their statement to the Honourable Minister Marc Miller, responsible for human rights implementation at the federal level, the Honourable Minister Rebecca Alty, and the Honourable Rob Oliphant, along with Attorneys Generals from several provinces and territories — stressing the statement’s importance as a guidepost for human rights implementation at all levels of government. 

“The timing of this Ministers’ Forum is critical. People across Canada are facing violence, discrimination, homelessness, environmental harm, and persistent inequality,” says Zoë Craig-Sparrow, Vice-President of Justice for Girls. “Canada participates in international review processes and receives recommendations, but domestically there is no implementation framework and no clear accountability mechanism. For Indigenous, racialized, migrant, low-income, women and gender-diverse persons, and disabled communities, these failures have life-and-death consequences.”

“Human rights cannot remain as simply words on paper. We need to close the gap between promises and action,” says Michèle Biss, Executive Director at the National Right to Housing Network. “When human rights go unimplemented, it shapes everything — people are excluded from decisions that affect them, and governments use narrow interpretations of their obligations in court to avoid accountability under the Charter. Governments at every level must step up to protect and save lives.”

Six Demands for Immediate Action

The Civil Society Forum is calling on governments to act on six priorities:

1. Transparent and accountable Ministers’ Forum — Establish a public mandate, clear decision-making processes, and a follow-up mechanism to track implementation commitments.
2. A legislated national human rights implementation framework — Develop a legal framework, with civil society input, to translate Canada’s domestic and international human rights obligations into lived reality no later than December 2027.
3. A federal Department of Human Rights — Create a dedicated central body, working in coordination with the Departments of Intergovernmental Affairs and Justice, to champion human rights implementation and ensure cohesion across all levels of government.
4. Economic, social, and cultural rights as binding legal obligations — Affirm these rights are justiciable and align legislation, budgeting, and policy accordingly — including ratification of the American Convention on Human Rights and the Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ahead of Canada’s UN review in early 2027.
5. A formal role for municipalities — Formalize local governments’ participation in human rights forums and implementation processes, given their frontline role in delivering programs that engage these rights.
6. Stable, ongoing funding for civil society engagement — Establish a civil society engagement fund, with contributions from each Forum member, to support treaty reporting, monitoring, and implementation work.

“As governments around the world openly challenge human rights, Canada has both the opportunity and the responsibility to demonstrate a different and more productive path forward, both in its interactions with other nations and through meaningful implementation at home,” says DJ Larkin, Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

 “We are united in our shared belief that all human rights are indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated,” says Meghan Doherty, Director of Global Policy and Advocacy at Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights. “And that systemic changes to Canada’s human rights infrastructure are necessary for the realization of any and all of our human rights.”

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Media Contact:
Jessica Tan
Communications Lead
National Right to Housing Network
Jessica@housingrights.ca
613-621-4575

About the Civil Society Forum for Human Rights in Canada

The Civil Society Forum for Human Rights in Canada is a group of civil society organizations, advocates, and academics united around a shared vision: a Canada where human rights are not merely aspirational, but legally binding, fully funded, and felt in the daily lives of every person in this country.

Signatories

• Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights
• Alex Neve, Professor of International Human Rights Law, University of Ottawa
• Amnesty International Canadian Section (English-speaking)
• Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St Thomas University
• Canadian Centre for Housing Rights
• Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children
• Canadian Drug Policy Coalition/Coalition canadienne des politiques sur les drogues
• Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
• Charter Committee on Poverty Issues
• Colour of Poverty – Colour of Change
• Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa
• John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights
• Justice for Girls
• Maytree
• Mining Watch Canada
• National Right to Housing Network 
• Righting Relations Canada
• Sandra Wisner, Director, International Human Rights Program, The Henry N.R. Jackman 
• Faculty of Law, University of Toronto 
• Social Rights Advocacy Centre
• South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario 
• The Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
• The Helix Foundation for Children and Youth

Backgrounder:

Despite being a signatory to numerous international human rights treaties, Canada has no formal infrastructure to implement recommendations from United Nations human rights bodies. This means that when the UN identifies gaps in Canada’s human rights record — on housing, health care, Indigenous rights, and more — there is no legal obligation, dedicated institution, or funded mechanism to act on them. The result is a persistent gap between the rights Canada promises and the reality people experience.

• https://maytree.com/publications/strengthening-canadas-implementation-reporting-and-follow-up-for-international-human-rights-commitments/
• https://maytree.com/publications/canada-must-strengthen-its-mechanisms-for-the-domestic-implementation-of-civil-and-political-rights/

The post Canadian Civil Society Organizations Unite in Call for Human Rights Action at Minister’s Forum  appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

Since that date, at least 18,000 people have died from unregulated drugs in the province, and more than 50,000 from opioids and/or stimulants across Canada.^{3 4} This crisis is defined first by staggering and ongoing loss of life. People who use drugs and their families have borne its deepest harms: death, grief, ongoing suffering, and life-altering brain injury. Frontline workers who have dedicated their lives to this work also carry deep and lasting harms, including trauma, family disruption, inadequate mental health support, and the burden of working in flawed systems that leave them responding to preventable suffering without the needed tools and resources. Communities have been left to carry these effects, while public systems face significant strain through rising hospitalizations, emergency medical services calls, and pressure across health and social services.

Though this is a B.C. anniversary, the issue is national. Since B.C.’s declaration, Alberta declared a public health crisis in 2017, the Yukon declared a substance use health emergency in 2022, and numerous First Nations governments and councils declared related states of emergency (including but not limited to Carcross/Tagish First Nation, Dene Tha’ First Nation, Athabasca Tribal Council, Sipekne’katik First Nation, Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, and Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation). Ten years after B.C.’s declaration, the loss and grief continue in communities across the country, made worse by stigma, misinformation and politicization.

In B.C., declaring a public health emergency allowed for medical health officers to collect and analyze more detailed, real-time information on both fatal and non-fatal overdoses across the health system.⁵ Previously, limited information on overdoses was only reported if someone died. The declaration allowed medical health officers to collect information related to any overdose in the province where emergency personnel or health care workers respond, including location, the drugs used, and how they were taken. The expanded authority connected to the emergency declaration was conferred by the province’s Public Health Act. This is an important distinction between B.C.’s declaration and, for example, the Yukon’s, which was largely symbolic, lacking authority tied to specific legislation.

With the authority of the emergency declaration, then Health Minister Terry Lake issued ministerial order 488/2016 in December 2016, ordering Emergency Health Services and the regional health boards to provide overdose prevention services “in any place there is a need for these services, as determined by the level of overdose related morbidity and mortality.”⁶ Within weeks, approximately 20 overdose prevention sites opened across the province, with many more operational within a year.^{7 8} The speed of this response demonstrates what is possible when there is political will and decision makers act with real urgency. Despite this initial service expansion, the order was never enforced and largely depended on individual health authorities’ willingness to act proactively, leaving communities across the province without access to life-saving services.⁹

Beyond the specific authority it conferred, B.C.’s emergency declaration held symbolic weight. For many people, it was a meaningful recognition of their lived reality. It offered a sign that perhaps the province would act with the seriousness and urgency required in an emergency. In the ensuing months and years, the province increased investments into some frontline services, oversaw the rapid opening of overdose prevention sites, created the Overdose Emergency Response Centre, and initially moved to expand access to safer supply. Ten years on, the urgency of the declaration seems to have ebbed away, alongside the government’s willingness to put the authority it confers to use.

Charting the past ten years, it feels impossible to separate the personal from the political, the specific grief of individual losses from the collective, cumulative exhaustion of so much loss. This is compounded by witnessing the ongoing crush of a system that actively harms people, and the ways decisionmakers continue to prop it up. It is deeply wrong to have to argue that the people we love should be able to live, receive care and support, and have the things they need to be well.

In recent years, we have witnessed a regression: some opportunistic public figures have peddled mis- and disinformation, driving the rollback of evidence-based harm-reduction measures that save lives, prevent unnecessary harms, and support safer, healthier communities. Governments and policymakers have caved to stigma, othering people who use drugs and veering away from evidence-based approaches and life-saving interventions.

Alongside the pain, this past decade has also seen deep care and compassion, mutual support and reciprocity within communities, solidarity from unlikely corners and intertwined movements, and persistence in the face of immense hardship—and we must recognize and uplift those bright spots. We believe in a future where all people, no matter their relationship to substance use, can access safety, well-being, autonomy and community. It does not have to be like this. People create law and policy. People can change it.

To understand how this reality came to be, we must look at the systems and structures that create and uphold it.

• Our current drug laws create an unregulated, toxic drug supply. This drives preventable death and injury. Policing and criminalizing drug use and restricting services then increases risk, displacement, and preventable harm.  
• Our system of prohibition is sustained by politics that reward punishment-first narratives and short-term fixes over evidence-based, life-saving action and systems-level shifts.  
• The unregulated toxic drug supply means proven approaches that reduce death and harm are vital for community well-being: these include supervised consumption sites, drug checking, naloxone and safer supply. These supports and services are a necessary part of an approach to substance use that includes fact-based education, universal access to voluntary, non-profit evidence-based treatment, and ensuring all people have their basic needs met through safe housing, universal health care, income supports and more.  
• Ultimately, stopping the harm, grief and loss of this public health crisis requires that we shift from control and punishment responses (including policing and forced treatment) to health and rights-based systems. We must protect and expand services, centre the leadership of people with lived and living experience, and ensure people have safe homes, access to care, and adequate income to meet their needs. Ultimately, we need to build a pathway from the harms of prohibition toward legal regulation for safety.

The Vision for B.C. Drug Policy maps a path to a future beyond prohibition, anchored in the guiding principles of autonomy, choice, and compassion. Co-created by a provincial working group of civil society organizations and people who use drugs, the Vision lays out four key areas for reform:

• Drug Regulation: The Vision advocates for responsible regulation of drugs to displace the toxic unregulated drug supply  
• Decriminalization: Emphasizing the need to separate policing from substance use, the Vision aims to empower individuals to seek support without fear of criminal sanctions.  
• Addressing Substantive Equality: Recognizing the intersectionality of drug-related issues, the Vision seeks to tackle root social problems perpetuating cycles of poverty, homelessness, family separation, and social exclusion.  
• Detox, Recovery, and Treatment: Focusing on voluntary choices, the Vision calls for evidence-based programs and services to reduce the trauma and death associated with the current unregulated treatment landscape.

The powers conferred by the public health emergency declaration are still valid: our elected leaders must act to fulfill its spirit and intention. This includes enforcing the Ministerial Order for overdose prevention services “in any place there is a need.”

On this anniversary, we send our love, sorrow and rage to everyone who is mourning, who is angry, who is weary, who is trying. We remember and honour the people we have lost. We acknowledge the thousands of people living with grief who continue to work toward a better future, all while some who hold power manipulate the issue for political gain, cut funding and restrict evidence-based services, and politicize and criticize life-saving work. We call upon the province of B.C., alongside all provinces and territories, to act with the urgency a public health emergency requires.

Shifting from harmful policies toward a vision for the future grounded in autonomy, choice, and compassion is an act of love and care for all. We must hold to our vision for a better future and fight for it: that future is only possible if we act.

Events Marking 10 Years of B.C.’s Toxic Drug Public Health Emergency

Across Canada, communities will mark this anniversary. We’ve collected a handful of events below. If you’d like to share another with us, please email info@drugpolicy.ca

10 Years of the Toxic Drug Crisis
Hosted by Len Pierre Consulting, this webinar features Marnie Scow exploring Indigenous approaches to harm reduction through teachings rooted in relationship, responsibility, and community care.

Date: April 14th, 2026
Time: 12:00 – 1:30pm PT
Location: Online Webinar

Moment of Silence and Minute of Rage
Join The BC Coalition of Organizations By/For People Who Use Drugs in marking the 10 Year Anniversary of the Province of B.C.’s declaration of a public health emergency due to the toxic drug supply with a Provide-wide moment of silence and minute of rage.

Date: April 14th, 2026
Time: 2:00pm PT
Location: You can do this as an individual activity, in a small group, at a larger public event in your community or by joining us at the ‘In Sadness and Rage’ demonstration at the Provincial Legislature in Victoria.

In Sadness and Rage
Join Moms Stop the Harm, Doctors for Safer Drug Policy, PEERS, NANDU, SOLID and others for a rally to rage, grieve and remember.

Date: April 14th, 2026
Time: 1:00 – 3:30 pm PT
Location: Provincial Legislature Lawn, Bellville Street, Victoria, BC.

Naming a Crisis
This community arts project will feature the names and photos of people lost to drug-related harms in an audio and video installation as part of a community art show at the Victoria Arts Council space in the Bay Centre on lək̓ʷəŋən Traditional Territory.

Date: April 7 – 26, 2026
Time: 12:00 – 5:00pm, Tuesday-Sunday
Location: Victoria Arts Council space in the Bay Centre in Victoria, BC

A Service of Remembrance and Prayer
This Sunday, Amanda Jane Burrows from First United and Moms Stop The Harm will be at the Christ Church Cathedral for a service of remembrance and prayer for the opioid crisis.

Date: April 12, 2026
Time: 12:00 – 4:00pm PT
Location: 690 Burrard St, Vancouver, BC

Community Action Team: Sunshine Coast
Join the Community Action Team: Sunshine Coast for a week of events – a chance to learn, support each other, and take real action.

Date: April 13 – 19, 2026
Location: Multiple events, click here for details.

Qathet Commmunity Action Team
Join the Qathet Community Action Team to commemorate this anniversary, remember those who have died, and acknowledge the ongoing impacts of this crisis in our community.

Date: April 14, 2026
Time: 11:00am – 3:00pm PT
Location: #101 – 4871 Joyce Ave, Powell River, BC

Prince George Community Action Team
The Prince George Community Action Team has organized a demonstration to acknowledge the 10-year anniversary of the Toxic Drug Crisis in BC.

Date: April 14, 2026
Time: 11:00am – 1:00pm PT
Location: Intersection of HWY 16 & 97 (By Mr. PG)

An Act Of Remembrance
Join ANKORS East Kootenay for An Act Of Remembrance to honour and remember those we have lost to the toxic drug supply. April 14th 2026 is the 10th year anniversary of the toxic drug crisis being declared a public health emergency in B.C.

Date: April 14, 2026

Time:
At 11am the Memorial will begin
Lunch is Served at 12:30
Open Mic Begins at 1:30
Film Screening of No Fixed Address: The White Cart Memorial begins at 2PM

Location: 2324 2nd St S, Cranbrook, BC

1. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016hlth0026-000568   ︎
2. According to current data, 86 people died in January 2016. As data is collected and/or confirmed over time, it is normal for this information to change. ︎
3. https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiY2EwYTk1YjctYTYwNy00MTViLTgwZmItYjFmN2Y1MzdlNjI3IiwidCI6IjZmZGI1MjAwLTNkMGQtNGE4YS1iMDM2LWQzNjg1ZTM1OWFkYyJ9   ︎
4. https://health-infobase.canada.ca/substance-related-harms/opioids-stimulants/   ︎
5. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016hlth0026-000568  ︎
6. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016HLTH0094-002737  ︎
7. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34854162/   ︎
8. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30708237/   ︎
9. Beyond provincial order 488/2016, there is a federal authority that provides for overdose prevention sites. In December 2017, Health Canada announced that it would authorize emergency “overdose prevention sites” for provinces and territories that request them, through a section 56 class exemption. This allows for the rapid establishment of overdose prevention sites as a shorter-term response to address urgent public health needs, without the comprehensive and burdensome application process for a supervised consumption site. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2017/12/statement_from_theministerofhealthregardingtheopioidcrisis.html  https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-concerns/controlled-substances-precursor-chemicals/policy-regulations/policy-documents/subsection-56-1-class-exemption-urgent-public-health-needs-sites-provinces-territories.html  ︎

The post 10 Years in Crisis: B.C.’s Decade-Long Public Health Emergency appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

Toronto, ON | March 31, 2026––Today, exactly one year since the Government of Ontario forced nine Consumption and Treatment Services sites (CTS, also known as supervised consumption sites, or SCS) to close across the province, more than 250 organizations — led by the HIV Legal Network, the Drug Strategy Network of Ontario, and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition — have sent a clear message to the Government of Ontario. Together, they are calling on the government to respect the expert advice of organizations with unparalleled experience on substance use issues, follow the mounting evidence demonstrating the clear need for SCS, and pledge to keep individuals and neighborhoods safer for everyone by reversing the misguided decision to defund the remaining eight funded CTS sites in Ontario.

Despite claims from the province that the closure of CTS sites last March caused no problem, data shared at a media conference today highlight a troubling trend: Ontario-wide data shows a sharp increase in EMS calls (+69.5%) and emergency department use (+67%) for opioid-related overdoses in the period following the forced closure of nine CTS sites in March 2025 under the so-called Community Care and Recovery Act.

“These trends are troubling and warrant very careful scrutiny by the province,” says Dr. Gillian Kolla, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University. “The timing and magnitude of these increases are consistent with concerns that were raised at the time of the closures to the Government of Ontario by countless public health experts, including their own internal advisors. The government has an obligation to take these trends seriously and to consider what role the removal of supervised consumption services may have played.”

In the City of Toronto, EMS calls for opioid-related toxicities have increased by 82% since the closures of CTS sites, rising from 192 calls in March 2025 to 350 monthly calls in January 2026, a sharp upward shift consistent with what experts warned would happen following site closures, and starkly at odds with the prior downward trend. In Hamilton, where the city’s CTS closed in April 2025, opioid-related EMS responses rose from 66 in April 2025 to 199 in February 2026 — the highest recorded monthly count since reporting began. Taken together, these trends raise serious concerns about the flawed and ultimately inconclusive Alberta crown corporation study recently invoked by the Ontario government to justify the closures.

The eight remaining sites to be defunded in June 2026 have served 120,997 unique people and reversed 15,402 overdose emergencies, aided by exceptional client-provider relationships and an impressive suite of wraparound services, including primary healthcare, voluntary addiction and mental health treatment opportunities, specialized social supports, and more.

“As someone who has experienced both sides of the system, harm reduction is not theoretical to me — it is life-saving,” says Akosua Gyan-Mante. “I’ve gone from being a service user to now supporting others on the frontlines, and I’ve seen firsthand how compassion, dignity, and non-judgment can keep people alive long enough to access care and build stability.”

Harm reduction initiatives and SCS are also proven to reduce Ontario’s tax burden by preventing HIV and hepatitis C transmission, among other cost-saving benefits.

“The closure of these sites, and the wider and illogical attack on harm reduction in Ontario and across Canada, is deeply worrisome and already proving deadly,” says Sandra Ka Hon Chu, Co-Executive Director of the HIV Legal Network. “Starving supervised consumption sites of funding and pressuring people into an abstinence-only model — including HART Hubs — will not work. Supervised consumption is a key part of the response to the crisis of our toxic, unregulated drug supply: it cannot be replaced.”

“We strongly encourage the advancement of drug policies that help, not harm, individual and community health and safety,” says Michael Parkinson, Executive Director of the Drug Strategy Network of Ontario. “The Government of Ontario has a duty to ensure the life, liberty, and security of all of its residents. Intentionally defunding proven interventions guarantees dangerous and expensive results, threatening the relief we all seek and deserve.”

We are calling on the Government of Ontario to respect the evidence and immediately reverse its disastrous decision to further defund SCS and force their closure during an ongoing public health emergency of historic magnitude.

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For the Evidence Brief that shares data on the impact of 2025 CTS closures in Ontario, please see What the Evidence Says about Defunding Ontario’s Remaining Supervised Consumption Sites.

For more information on the need to scale up supervised consumption services Canada-wide, please see Scaling Up Supervised Consumption Services: What has changed in Canada?

Media contact
Dylan DeMarsh – d.dmarsh@hivlegalnetwork.ca

The post Organizations Worldwide Denounce Ontario’s Decision to Defund Remaining Supervised Consumption Sites appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

Together, we have advanced research, policy, and community engagement to address some of the most pressing issues in substance use, human rights and public health. We would like to express our deep appreciation for our time with SFU and the people who have supported our work there, and for the support of the many community members, donors, and partners who have made this work possible.

Operating as an independent not-for-profit organization will better reflect the national scope of our work and allow us to build transparent and accountable governance structures that support community leadership and impact.

 What does this mean for you?

• Our work continues without interruption. Our priorities and commitment to evidence-informed, community-driven policy change remain the same.
• Our partnership with SFU continues. We will continue to collaborate on important research and knowledge mobilization together with researchers and leaders at SFU. CDPC’s Executive Director DJ Larkin remains an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences.
• If you are a donor (thank you!), going forward you will need to make your donation directly to CDPC to support our work. After March 31, 2026, CDPC will no longer receive donations made through SFU. You can make a one-time or monthly donation here.
• We want to stay in touch. If you receive email from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, you will continue to do so. If you are uncertain and you want to ensure you’re on the list to stay connected, you can sign up here.

Thank you for being part of this work. Your support has helped build a strong foundation for this next phase, and we are excited about what we will continue to achieve together.

If you have any questions, please reach out directly to info@drugpolicy.ca

The post CDPC is now an independent not-for-profit appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

The Honourable Doug Ford, MPP
Premier, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs
Via email: premier@ontario.ca | doug.fordco@pc.ola.org

The Honourable Sylvia Jones, MPP
Deputy Premier, Minister of Health 
Via email: sylvia.jones@ontario.ca | sylvia.jones@pc.ola.org 

The Honourable Vijay Thanigasalam, MPP 
Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions
Via email: vijay.thanigasalam@ontario.ca | vijay.thanigasalam@pc.ola.org

Dear Premier Ford, Minister Jones, and Associate Minister Thanigasalam,

RE: Defunding of all supervised consumption sites in Ontario

On behalf of the organizational signatories below, we urge you to reconsider the decision to defund the last eight provincially-funded supervised consumption sites (SCS) in Ontario. The evidence in support of SCS — provided to you by internal staff and reports as well as recommendations from Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, among others — is unequivocal and validated by decades of research. SCS prevent deaths, injuries, and other negative health impacts disproportionately borne by Ontarians who use drugs; reduce the burden on overtaxed first responders, hospital personnel and social service staff; and reduce both public drug consumption and drug debris.

The eight sites facing June 2026 closure have served 120,997 unique people and reversed 15,402 overdoses while maintaining or improving community safety and providing numerous wraparound services including primary health care. These sites directly provide and/or connect people with addiction and mental health treatment opportunities and have reduced Ontario’s tax burden by millions of dollars annually through the prevention of HIV and hepatitis C transmission. Ontario-wide data following the 2025 SCS closures demonstrate a sharp increase in EMS (+69.5%) and emergency department use (+ 67%) for opioid-related overdoses, as well as an increase of deaths in private residences and outdoor settings.

SCS are an essential part of the ecosystem of community care that includes a wide variety of treatment and supports highly valued by local communities — and not available anywhere else. While HART Hubs offer some supports, they cannot replace SCS and the low-barrier, emergency care they offer when people experience a life-threatening overdose. The intentional exclusion of SCS at HART Hubs as well as the prohibition on needle and syringe distribution creates needless barriers to people accessing broader healthcare and social services. The choice to cut these services represents not only the loss of desperately needed emergency care, but also the fracturing of relationships nurtured between healthcare providers and people who use drugs — relationships that are a pathway to other supports. For example, if someone chooses to pursue abstinence, SCS can support them to connect with abstinence-based care. 

Notably, wait times for publicly-funded withdrawal management services, outpatient services, and residential addiction treatment facilities in Ontario can often be several months long, despite recommendations since 2017 for universal, evidence-based, publicly available, voluntary addiction treatment on demand. Further, the pursuit of abstinence is far from a linear process. Following a course of treatment, the immediately increased risk of life-threatening overdose is well-documented. In Ontario, treatment is also provided in the context of an unregulated industry where anyone can offer services. SCS keep people alive until treatment is available or until they can meet their own goals, including but not limited to abstinence.

Effective law and policy must be grounded in evidence, and shifting funding from SCS elsewhere is not supported by evidence or the public at large. Defunding SCS in Ontario will hurt the most marginalized people in our communities, namely people experiencing homelessness, people living in extreme poverty, and people who consume criminalized drugs. The urgent calls are clear from grieving Ontario residents, people who consume or serve people who consume unregulated drugs, health professionals, community safety experts, and more: SCS are an essential service in need of expansion, not elimination.

There is a formidable wealth of experience and expertise on issues of substance use in Ontario available to policy makers. We encourage and remain open to dialogue. 

We urge a reversal of the decision to defund SCS. 

Signed,

Canadian Drug Policy Coalition
Drug Strategy Network of Ontario
HIV Legal Network
ANCS Sénégal
2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations
2039192 Ontario Inc
A Womb With A View
Aboriginal Legal Services
Access Alliance
Action Hepatitis Canada
Adam Newman MPC
Addiction Services Central Ontario
Addictions and Mental Health Ontario
Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario
Africa Network of People Who Use Drugs (AfricaNPUD)
AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa 
AIDS Bereavement and Resiliency Program Of Ontario (ABRPO)
AIDS Committee Newfoundland & Labrador
AIDS Committee of Durham Region
AIDS Committee of Ottawa
AIDS New Brunswick
AIVL
akzept e.V. Bundesverband für akzeptierende Drogenarbeit und humane Drogenpolitik
Alliance for Healthier Communities
Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa
Amnesty International Canada (ES)
Anglican Diocese of Toronto
Anishnawbe Health Toronto
AQPSUD
ARCH Disability Law Centre 
ArtHouseTO 
Asian Community AIDS Services
Association des intervenants en dépendance du Québec
Association for Humane Drug Policy, Norway
Association pour la santé publique du Québec
Awen Consulting Services (International Harm Reduction Capacity Building)
BC Civil Liberties Association
BC-Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
Being Alive/People with AIDS Action Coalition
Blood Ties Four Directions Centre
BOOM Health
Bras outaouais
Breakaway Community Services
Bronx Movil
Butterfly- Asian and Migrant Sex Worker Support Network
CACTUS Montréal
Cambridge council on aging 
Canadian Civil Liberties Association 
Canadian Federation of Mental Health Nurses
Canadian Mental Health Association – Sudbury/Manitoulin
Canadian Mental Health Association – Champlain East
Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario 
CanHepC
Care Through Chaos
Casey House
CASON
CATIE
CAYR Community Connections
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation 
Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation
Centretown Community Health Centre 
Changemark Research + Evaluation
Church of St Stephen-in-the-Fields
Clinique juridique Grand-Nord Legal Clinic
Coderix Medical Clinic
Community Health Project Los Angeles 
Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC)
Comprehensive Treatment Clinic
Comprehensive Treatment Clinic – Community Initiatives
Cornerstone Housing for Women
Cranstoun
CUPE 3903
CUPE 5536
CUPE Local 5399
CUPE Ontario
DAP Health Harm Reduction
Davenport 4 Palestine
Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood and Community Health Centre
Deliberar ORG
DIY Community Health Timmins
Doctors for Safer Drug Policy
Dopamine 
Dr Joel Voth Medicine Professional Corporation
Drug Injecting Services in Canterbury Trust (NZ)
EACH+EVERY: Businesses for Harm Reduction
East Coast Prison Justice Society
East End Community Health Centre
Elementa
Elevate NWO
Elgin-Oxford Legal Clinic
Elizabeth Fry Society of Northwestern Ontario
Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA)
European Network of People who Use Drugs CLG
Evangel Hall Mission
Families for Addiction Recovery (FAR)
Feast Centre for Indigenous STBBI Research
FightBack! KW
Flemingdon Health Centre
Fontbonne Ministries
Forearms of Change Center to Enable community
Fred Victor
Freddie
Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance
George Hull Centre for Children and Families
Gerstein Crisis Centre
Grandmothers Act to Save the Planet (GASP)
Guelph & Wellington Poverty Elimination Collaborative
Guelph Community Health Centre
Harlem United
Harm Reduction Australia 
Harm Reduction Nurses Association / L’association des infirmiers et infirmières en réduction des méfaits
Health Equity Alliance of Nova Scotia
Health Providers Against Poverty
Healthcare for All Coalition 
HealthRIGHT 360
Hepatitis C Elimination Roadmap Ontario
HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO)
HIV Justice Network
Homeless Youth Alliance
HOPS – healthy options project Skopje
House Of Sophrosyne
Housing Works, Inc.
IAVGO Community Legal Clinic 
Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC)
Indigenous Harm Reduction Network
Indonesian Harm Reduction Network
Inner City Family Health Team
Inner City Health and Wellness Program, University of Alberta
instituto RIA
Interfaith Grand River
International Network of People who Use Drugs
International Network on Health, Hepatitis and Substance Use (INHSU)
Into the Outside Mind
IRIS Estrie
Jean Tweed Centre
JM Drama Alumni
John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights
Kensington Health
Kensington-Bellwoods Community Legal Services
Kickstart Medical
Kootenay Insurrection for Safe Supply
LAMP Community Health Centre
Langs Farm Village Association (Langs)
Legal Assistance of Windsor
Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Masyarakat
Mad Studies Hub York University 
Magpies place volunteer for outreach
Mainline
Maytree
Médecins du Monde Canada – Doctors of the World Canada
Médecins du Monde International Network
META:PHI
Metzineres sccl
Mindful Nurse Gardener Inc. 
Moms Stop the Harm
Mothercraft, Breaking the Cycle
Moyo Health and Community Services
Mozia Women’s Network Society
My Brain My Choice Initiative (Germany)
National Harm Reduction Coalition
National Overdose Response Service
National Right to Housing Network
Native Child and Family Services of Toronto 
Neighbourhood Legal Services
Neighbourhood Legal Services (London & Middlesex) Inc.
Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association 
Nurse 2 Nurse Peer Support
Oasis unité mobile d’intervention
OCRINT
Ontario Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Strategy
Ontario AIDS Network
Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering (OPIS)
Ostrowski Medicine Professional Corporation
PACT de rue
PAN 
Parkdale Activity-Recreation Centre (PARC)
Parkdale Community Legal Services
Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre
PASAN (Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Action Network)
PATH: Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes 
PEERS Alliance
Penticton and Area Overdose Prevention Society (P+OPS)
People’s Health Movement-Canada
Planned Parenthood Toronto
Positive Living Niagara
Pozitive Pathways Community Services
PREKURSOR Foundation
Reach Out Chatham Kent (ROCK)
RECAP
RECLAIM Collective 
Recovery Care
Regent Park Community Health Centre
Regent Park Community Ministry
Regional HIV AIDS Connection
Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO)
Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, Sudbury & District
Réseau ACCESS Network
Respect Rx Pharmacy
Retired Executives for Social Equity
Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services
Righting Relations Canada
Shelter Health Network
Shelter Housing Justice Network
Skana Family Learning Centre
Skoun, Lebanese Addictions Center 
SLO Bangers Syrunge Exchange and Overdose Prevention Program 
Social Development Centre Waterloo Region
Social Planning Toronto
South African Network of People who Use Drugs
South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario
South Riverdale CHC
St Felix Centre
St. Michael’s Homes
Street Cats YYC
Street Haven
Street Nurses Network
Substance Overdose Prevention and Education Network (SOPEN)
Substance Use Health Network
Sudbury Temporary Overdose Prevention Society
Sunset Country Family Health Team
The Ally Centre of Cape Breton
The Centre for Psychology and Emotion Regulation 
The Gilbert Centre for Social and Support Services
The Neighbourhood Group Community Services
The Ottawa Mission
The Peterson Foundation
The Seeking Help Project
The Sidewalk Project
Thrive HIV Prevention and Support
Toronto Board of Health
Toronto Harm Reduction Alliance (THRA)
Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction
Toronto Overdose Prevention Society
Toronto’s Drug Checking Service and Ontario’s Drug Checking Community 
Tracking(IN)Justice Project
Unison Health and Community Services
Up North Harm Reduction 
Vibrant Community Health
VIRCAN Care & Research Inc.
Washington Office on Latin America
Waterloo Region Community Legal Services
Waterloo Region Drug Action Team
Welcome Centre Shelter for Women & Families
Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy
West Neighbourhood House
Women and HIV / AIDS Initiative
WoodGreen Community Services
Workers for Ethical Substance Use Policy 
Youth RISE
YWCA Toronto

The post OPEN LETTER RE: DEFUNDING OF ALL SUPERVISED CONSUMPTION SITES IN ONTARIO appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

The evidence on these issues has been well-established for decades. We note that the Alberta government is attempting to support its decision with its own flawed six-month study that contradicts the overwhelming evidence demonstrating the harmful impacts on communities when a site closes. In Ontario, supervised consumption site closures have been associated with several harms over the past year, including sharp increases in EMS-treated opioid toxicities (+69.5%)  and in emergency department visits for opioid toxicities (+67%), as well as an increase of deaths in private residences and outdoor settings.

As experts in drug policy, we emphasize that the rate of toxic drug deaths is directly impacted by the composition and volatility of the unregulated drug supply, which is currently outside of the oversight and control of any regulatory body. Shockingly, the Government of Alberta says now is the time to close these sites because overdose deaths have dropped “about 39 per cent” since a peak in 2023. But 602 people lost their lives in only six months in 2025. We are still in the midst of a toxic drug crisis, and supervised consumption sites are crucial to reducing overdose deaths. Eliminating a critical, evidence-based overdose prevention tool defies all logic.  

The supervised consumption site in Calgary alone responded to 475 drug-related events in the first three quarters of 2025. To be clear, these numbers represent lives that would have been lost without the availability of supervised consumption services.  

People who use drugs in Calgary and Lethbridge will lose a lifeline when these sites close in June 2026. Removing access to one of the most evidence-based, proven tools available to reduce preventable drug-related deaths and injuries is a reckless choice with clear consequences: more needless suffering. In the context of the volatile, toxic, unregulated drug supply, supervised consumption services are an essential element of a broader approach that includes access to voluntary, regulated, evidence-based substance use treatment. Increased investments in abstinence-based treatment services do not replace the unique and life-saving service provided by supervised consumption. It is well established that working towards abstinence, for those that choose to do so, is not a linear process. For example, the increased risk of life-threatening overdose following substance use treatment is well-documented. By ensuring the availability of a range of evidence-informed services, including supervised consumption, we are better able to support people and reduce preventable deaths. Harm reduction and access to voluntary treatment services go hand in hand.

We stand in solidarity with people who use drugs and their families, as well as frontline workers who will bear the brunt of harm from this policy decision. We are committed to working with allies in Alberta to advance substance use policy that is grounded in evidence and creates safer, healthier communities for every member of our society, regardless of their relationship to substance use.

The HIV Legal Network and Canadian Drug Policy Coalition call on the Government of Alberta to immediately reverse this decision.

The post Alberta’s Decision to Close Supervised Consumption Sites Will Result in Needless Death appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.

Ottawa, Canada | March 24, 2026—Yesterday, the United Nations Human Rights Committee released a report rebuking Canada’s narrow interpretation of the “right to life” and called for action to save and protect lives.

Human rights groups, including the National Right to Housing Network (NRHN), the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC), the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), and HIV Legal Network welcomed the report, which follows the Committee’s review of Canada’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) earlier this month.

“This is a significant and necessary correction,” says Michèle Biss, Executive Director of the National Right to Housing Network. “Canada has treated international human rights obligations as largely symbolic. The Committee has now made it clear: as a party to international human rights treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Canada has made binding commitments that require real action—especially in the face of preventable deaths.” 

The UN Committee expressed surprise during the review when Canada’s delegation stated that Canada does not accept the Committee’s authoritative findings that the right to life imposes “positive obligations” on governments to ensure access to essential health care, address homelessness, the drug toxicity crisis, or climate change. 

Canada has not changed its position despite the Committee consistently affirming that protecting the right to life requires states to adopt “positive measures” and to address “general conditions in society” that threaten life. “Positive measures” require states to take proactive steps to guarantee rights, rather than merely refrain from violating them. This means tackling the root causes of preventable deaths, including homelessness, poverty, and the drug toxicity crisis. Notably, Canada had previously earned an “E” grade for rejecting a Committee decision affirming these principles in Toussaint v Canada. 

In their report, the United Nations Human Rights Committee highlighted: 

• Rising drug toxicity deaths: The Committee expressed particular concern about “the very high number of deaths related to drug toxicity,” which “affects persons experiencing homelessness and poverty and disproportionately affect Indigenous persons.” Drug policies must be primarily based on “public health, harm reduction and human rights considerations.” This acknowledgment reinforces the need for a coordinated, rights-based response to overlapping crises and effective access to services, including harm reduction services. This is of particular importance at a time where both Ontario and Alberta have just announced the closure of many supervised consumption services by mid-June. 
• Lack of implementation mechanisms: Critically, Canada currently has no effective domestic mechanism to receive, coordinate, and implement recommendations from international human rights bodies. Without such a mechanism, Canada is failing to meaningfully act on guidance from the international community—including recommendations that could help address homelessness and unregulated drug toxicity to prevent further loss of life. 
• Gaps in the legal system: Canada is not doing enough to ensure that its international human rights obligations are understood and applied within its own legal system. The Committee called on Canada to strengthen awareness of the ICCPR among judges, prosecutors, and lawyers so that these obligations are meaningfully considered in domestic court decisions—an issue with profound implications for cases involving housing, homelessness, access to essential health and social services, and encampments. 
• Encampment evictions and rights violations: The Committee expressed concern about the use of extraordinary legal measures, including the notwithstanding clause, an issue that has tremendous impact on people marginalized by policy. For example, provincial governments threaten encampment residents with eviction despite positive court decisions without providing access to safe and adequate housing alternatives. 

“We strongly support the Committee’s call for Canada to take ‘all necessary steps’ to address these concerns through effective mechanisms across federal, provincial, and territorial governments, and to ensure access to remedies through domestic courts,” says Beeta Senedjani from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, speaking on behalf of a coalition of human rights groups. “We also endorse the call for Canada to establish a national mechanism to monitor implementation and to ensure that individuals can seek enforcement of the Committee’s decisions.” 

These recommendations build on the Committee’s longstanding position that the right to life requires governments to take positive measures to provide access without delay to shelter, social housing programs, and health care—a principle reaffirmed in its General Comment No. 36 and reinforced in the current review.

“We call on the federal government to respond urgently and meaningfully to the Committee’s findings,” says Biss. “We specifically await a response from Canadian Heritage Minister Marc Miller, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, and Health Minister Marjorie Michel outlining how Canada will fulfill its obligations to international human rights law and the right to life.” 

“The message from the Committee is clear,” says Senedjani. “Canada cannot continue to deny its responsibilities while people are dying preventable deaths. The right to life must include the right to live with dignity—and that starts with ensuring access to adequate housing and lifesaving health services.” 

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For further background: 

• UN Human Rights Committee – Concluding observations on the seventh periodic report of Canada (March 23, 2026)
• VIDEO – UN Human Rights Committee ICCPR Periodic Review of Canada
• Press Release March 4, 2026: Canada Challenged at United Nations Over Narrow Interpretation of Right to Life
• NGO Joint Statement Urging Review of Canada’s Position on Positive Obligations Under Article 6 (the Right to Life)

Media Contact: 

Jessica Tan 
Communications Lead 
National Right to Housing Network (NRHN) 

Email: Jessica@housingrights.ca 
Phone: 613-621-4575 

The post UN Committee Rejects Canada’s Position, Calls for Action on Preventable Deaths appeared first on Canadian Drug Policy Coalition.