Front-line organizations sound alarm after Quebec moves to limit safe consumption sites
Organizations on the front lines of the overdose crisis sounded alarm bells Thursday over a bill that would ban safe consumption sites within 150 metres of schools and daycares — and could potentially extend those same restrictions to any centre offering services to unhoused Quebecers.
A letter signed by 25 local and national organizations, including the Association des intervenants en dépendance du Québec (AIDQ) and Doctors of the World Canada, says the bill 'could hinder access to essential services' for those who consume drugs or are unhoused.
Tabled by Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant Tuesday, Bill 103 follows controversy over the 2024 opening of Maison Benoît Labre, a supervised drug consumption and transitional housing centre close to Victor-Rousselot elementary school in St-Henri. If passed, the legislation would ban safe consumption sites within a 150-metre radius of a school or daycare and give the minister authority to extend that ban to centres serving unhoused populations, such as shelters. It would also grant the minister veto power over proposed facilities, regardless of proximity to a school or daycare.
A similar ban on supervised consumption sites near schools and daycares was passed by the Ontario legislature in 2024. In March, an Ontario judge suspended its implementation pending a charter challenge.
The Coalition Avenir Québec government's bill comes at a time when overdose deaths in the province are at a high. The Institut national de santé publique du Québec reports that overdoses killed 645 people in 2024, a 20 per cent increase from 2023.
'Our initial reaction was to be stunned,' said AIDQ chair Louis Letellier de St-Just. 'This bill makes no sense and follows no logic.'
'We've weakened the work of safe consumption services, the work of organizations caring for unhoused people,' he said. 'At 150 metres, we don't have much room to manoeuvre in a city like Montreal.'
With the door left open to the ban extending to any services for unhoused people and an option for the minister to veto any proposed safe consumption site, front-line organizations are unsure of how the bill would be applied, he said.
'Personally, I'm deeply irritated,' said de St-Just, who co-founded the harm reduction organization Cactus Montreal and has worked in front-line social services for over 36 years. Carmant didn't consult with any of the 25 organizations that signed the letter, he said.
He said he understands concerns about safe consumption sites operating near schools and daycares, but that the bill is the wrong approach.
'These organizations aren't ignorant, they're not insensitive to the difficulties that their clientele can introduce to an environment,' de St-Just said. But 'they need to go where services are required.'
Ultimately, 'these are health services' that are being threatened, he said. Those providing services that respond to homelessness and the overdose crisis 'are not responsible for those crises. On the contrary, we mitigate their effects.'
Maison Benoît Labre opened in an area where homelessness already existed, de St-Just said, and took dozens of people off the streets.
'Of course there are improvements to be made. But instead of passing a bill, we could have established directives, had discussions that could have facilitated social cohesion.'
Front-line workers are bearing the brunt of the blame, he said, 'but it's thanks to them that we're able to diminish loss of life.'
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