Ontario Premier Doug Ford vows to fight Toronto’s drug decriminalization request

Open this photo in gallery:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he will fight the City of Toronto’s request to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs tooth and nail, after British Columbia’s Premier reversed course on a similar experiment and asked the federal government to prohibit public drug use.

Toronto also applied for an exemption similar to B.C. to decriminalize the possession of drugs for personal use, as it tries to deal with an opioid overdose crisis that is killing thousands of people a year.

The goal, Toronto’s public-health unit says, is to treat addiction as a health issue, not a criminal matter. Health Canada is still studying the city’s request, which was made in 2022 and endorsed by its medical officer of health and police chief.

Amid a public outcry, B.C. Premier David Eby announced last week that his government would ask Health Canada to amend the province’s exemption from drug laws, which took effect last year, to allow the police to take action against people using drugs in public spaces, including hospitals and restaurants, by compelling them to leave, seizing their drugs or arresting them “in exceptional circumstances.”

Adults in B.C. would still be allowed to possess up to 2.5 grams of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine or methamphetamine, Mr. Eby said on Friday, if they use the substances at home, in a tent in a sanctioned park or at a supervised drug-consumption site.

Mr. Ford, appearing in Ottawa on Monday at an unrelated event, was asked if Toronto should continue with its application, given B.C.’s announcement.

“Drop that application. It’s turned into a nightmare,” the Ontario Premier told reporters at Ottawa City Hall.

Mr. Ford said he had talked to B.C.’s Premier about the issue and that governments should instead invest in drug treatment centres, noting new spending in the area in Ontario’s most recent budget.

“That’s what we should be doing. Not legalizing hard drugs. Like, you’ve got to be kidding me. Like, letting people do cocaine, and crack and heroin? You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mr. Ford told reporters. “I will fight this tooth and nail.”

The Premier also noted that the U.S. state of Oregon had also recently completely reversed its own experiment in decriminalization. Oregon abandoned its policy amid public pressure and as overdose deaths spiked higher. Mr. Ford said the state’s experience and that of B.C. shows the plan does not work.

“You need to help these people,” said Mr. Ford, whose late brother Rob Ford’s term as Toronto mayor a decade ago descended into chaos amid his alcohol and drug abuse. “Give them treatment, support them. That’s what we need, not say, ‘Here’s some more drugs to take.’ Sometimes I wonder where people’s brains are. I really do. It’s unbelievable.”

Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw has endorsed the city’s plan. In a statement on Monday, a spokeswoman for the chief, Stephanie Sayer, said he was monitoring the experience of other jurisdictions and working with Toronto Public Health on a “health-centred approach to address the opioid crisis.” Toronto Police also made only 15 arrests for single counts of possession in all of 2023, she said, and most were related to other charges.

Mr. Ford made similar comments as he made on Monday on talk radio last year, when Toronto updated its application to Health Canada after consultations with experts and front-line workers.

Last month, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones dismissed a call for the decriminalization of simple possession from the province’s chief medical officer of health.

Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health, was not available for an interview. In a statement, Toronto Public Health said the city needs more supports and services for people with mental-health and addictions issues. The agency also says its plan “does not include proposed changes to the current laws on public use.”

However, its submission to Ottawa only says decriminalization of simple possession would not apply in child-care centres, elementary and high schools, and airports, to align with provincial legislation on alcohol, cannabis and drug use.

André Picard: Drug decriminalization is not to blame for all of our social woes

The Editorial Board: The first goal of drug overdoses policy: Keep people alive

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Eby said on Monday that he hopes other jurisdictions will learn from his province’s mistakes. While he maintains that addiction should be treated as a health issue and not a criminal one, he said there need to be limits on public consumption of illicit drugs.

“There are important lessons to be learned about where we are today that don’t need to be repeated in other places,” Mr. Eby told reporters at an unrelated news conference in Langley, B.C. “It’s very clear that the public drug use that we’re seeing, the problematic conduct that we’re seeing in communities, is unacceptable to British Columbians. It’s unacceptable to me. And we had to address it.”

If his request for an amendment is granted, Mr. Eby said he would direct Crown prosecutors and police to enforce the adjusted law narrowly, to focus on drug users who cause a “threat to public safety” or are endangering themselves.

After the pilot began, B.C. tried to make drug use illegal in public places with its own legislation. But harm reduction advocates challenged it in court and a B.C. judge issued a temporary injunction, agreeing that the law would cause “irreparable harm” if it took effect before a legal challenge was decided.

The decriminalization issue led to a series of pointed exchanges during Question Period in the House of Commons on Monday.

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre linked the turmoil in British Columbia to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying he was not “worth the drugs, disorder, death and destruction” after granting B.C. an exemption in 2022.

“The B.C. NDP government has reversed course and asked the federal government to recriminalize some hard drugs. Why will the Prime Minister not recriminalize these deadly drugs?”

Federal Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks said the federal government is reviewing B.C.’s exemption request.

At another point of Question Period, Mr. Poilievre asked if Mr. Trudeau would refuse the demand of Toronto to replicate the “decriminalization nightmare” in British Columbia. Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon, who took the question, did not directly respond to it.