Facts back Ford’s move to protect schools, so do residents

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If you listen to the NDP and drug activists, the Ford government’s move to close drug injection sites near schools is dangerous, deadly and not backed by evidence.

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The opposite is true.

Residents living in neighbourhoods hosting these sites will tell you the real danger lies in continuing to allow them to operate near schools and children. Let’s myth-bust the most common arguments from activists intent on maintaining the status quo of increasing opioid deaths and growing crime and chaos in the communities home to these sites.

Activists argue injection sites keep needles off the streets.

But talk to Lisa from Toronto’s Niagara neighbourhood, which hosts the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre injection site by St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School, and she will tell you how parents had to be trained on what to do if their child’s foot is pierced by a needle. If these sites were truly keeping needles off the streets, why are parents receiving this training?

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In fact, parents have told me that the school’s janitorial staff has been forced to start their mornings with a drug sweep of school property to ensure there are no needles that could hurt children.

Injection sites removing needles? Myth.

Next, activists will maintain that injection sites keep users off the streets, making things safer and thus reducing crime.

Curtis and Arif, two fathers from the same neighbourhood, would disagree. Curtis’ wife and son were assaulted down the street from the site and Arif’s son was assaulted when he was crossing the street at Queen and Bathurst, where the injection site is located. These are 10-year-old children. To this day, both boys live with the trauma from those attacks.

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But those are anecdotes, what does the data say?

Unfortunately, the data backs up these horrific stories. When examining neighbourhoods that host drug consumption services, the solicitor general found that those with injection sites experience 40% more shootings, 76% higher reports of break-ins and 97% more robberies. Health Minister Sylvia Jones also revealed when she announced the policy change that Toronto neighbourhoods with injection sites suffer 113% more reported assaults than neighbourhoods without them.

These are not opinions like those being expressed by the activists, these are the cold, hard facts from police crime statistics.

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So the argument that injection sites reduce crime? Also a myth.

Other inconvenient truths for activists include that cannabis shops must be at least 150 metres from schools with strict regulations on how they can market to reduce risk to minors. Yet drug activists and the NDP think requiring drug injection sites, where people are consuming fentanyl, crack-cocaine and other hard drugs, be at least 200 metres from schools is ludicrous?

These are the same people who support outrageous campaigns like when Leslieville’s South Riverdale Community Health Centre site offered candy for used needles. This is the same Leslieville injection site where an innocent mother was tragically killed in a shooting and one of their staff was charged for obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact for aiding and abetting the shooter.

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Fortunately for both neighbourhoods, the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre and South Riverdale Community Health Centre are two of the five drug injection sites in Toronto that are to be closed for being too close to schools.

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Drug injection sites should never have been located near schools in the first place, but few have been willing to challenge this dangerous, ideologically driven experiment. Anyone who dares to speak up is vilified by activists and called everything under the sun.

And frankly, as someone who has stood up for my community, I don’t blame people for avoiding the topic when they see how we’re targeted. But leaders lead and that’s what Premier Doug Ford is doing. His government consulted people and he personally spoke to Ontarians living in these neighbourhoods, including at least two of my constituents, coincidentally both named Jenn.

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It is remarkable that it’s easier for my constituents to reach the premier of more than 15 million Ontarians than their own city councillor. But perhaps that reflects the approach of drug activists: It’s infinitely easier to pretend everything is OK when you don’t hear from the people suffering from your bad policies.

Thanks to Ford’s leadership and courage, the Niagara and Leslieville neighbourhoods, three more in Toronto, and five other communities across Ontario will be safer and those living with addiction will receive the support they need to break the cycle of addiction with the significant investment of $378 million and the creation of the Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment hubs.

On behalf of my constituents and all of the people who have been gaslit by the NDP to believe that their safety didn’t matter and that their concerns were not real, thank you, premier.

— Vuong is the Independent MP for Spadina-Fort York. The son of refugees, he is the youngest MP of Asian heritage elected to the 44th Parliament. He also serves as a naval reserve officer in the Canadian Armed Forces.

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