Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi is advocating for a healthcare-first approach to addressing what the city councillor has called a “dramatic” rise in public drug use in the riding, particularly in Chinatown, as the neighbourhood adjusts to the closure of a local harm reduction facility.
Naqvi was re-elected to represent Ottawa Centre in last week’s election and told Ottawa Compass that housing, downtown revitalization and healthcare are top of mind as he prepares to return to Parliament Hill.
These priorities overlap in a few areas, he said, one of which is addiction and drug use. In Chinatown, one of the neighbourhoods in his riding, there has been a reported increase of public drug use.
Ariel Troster, city councillor for Somerset Ward, issued a public statement in March addressing concerns from residents and pointed to the closure of the Supervised Consumption Site and Safe Supply program at the Somerset West Community Health Centre (SWCHC) under new provincial guidelines.
“While the community health centre will soon re-open as a HART Hub, offering addiction treatment, frontline care and supportive housing, the closure of the only option for safe consumption has led to a dramatic increase in public drug use – something Coun. Jeff Leiper (Kitchissippi) and I raised the alarm about when this provincial decision was first announced,” Troster wrote.
She has been working with newly-elected MPP Catherine McKenney to advocate that Northwood Recovery Clinic, which recently moved from Hintonburg to Somerset West, offer “wraparound” services that consider concerns of local residents.
“Even if a clinic has the best of intentions, they will never have the same integrated resources as the Somerset West Community Health Centre,” Troster wrote. “This is a structural problem created by the province, one that we will beg them to help us solve.”
But the issues facing Somerset Ward fall into federal jurisdiction, too.
“We need to really make sure that we are, from a healthcare perspective, providing the appropriate care for those individuals who are suffering from substance misuse and disorder, but also keep our community safe,” Naqvi told Ottawa Compass.
In his previous term, Naqvi positioned himself as an advocate for downtown Ottawa and the issues facing the downtown core in the wake of the pandemic and the “Freedom Convoy” protest.
Naqvi launched and chaired the Downtown Ottawa Revitalization Task Force throughout 2023 and 2024 in efforts to develop community-led plans for the downtown core.
He has also pointed to his work securing funding from the federal government to support ongoing treatment programs and initiatives in downtown Ottawa — this includes almost $4 million, announced in March, from Health Canada for an outreach program to address the toxic drug crisis.
But with the closure of the SWCHC’s harm reduction programs, Naqvi said he plans to expand the ANCHOR program and the HART hubs, a program run by the province that is meant to fill the gap left by the closures, both of which Nawvi called a “good non-police response to mental health and substance misuse calls.”
Data from The Alternate Neighbourhood Crisis Response (ANCHOR) program began Aug. 15, 2024 and has released data from the first 11 weeks of the program.
In the first 11 weeks, 1,310 people called 211 to reach ANCHOR, and 626 of those calls resulted in an ANCHOR Crisis Response Team being dispatched.
Of the remaining calls, 594 were addressed by CNEO/211 Community Navigators and did not require dispatch and 72 were redirected to 911. In 92 percent of cases, no police intervention was required, the data showed.
It’s one of many programs that Naqvi said he plans to prioritize at Parliament Hill in efforts to address the crisis.
“I worked with both [SWCHC] and Centretown Community Health Center, along with the City of Ottawa, to get that $4 million,” said Naqvi. “It’s so that we can provide support for those individuals, so that they are not overdosing on our streets, and not loitering or being a nuisance to small businesses in their neighbourhood, but so that we’re providing them appropriate care and treatment.”
He said he also heard from residents throughout his campaign that Canada-United States relations and U.S. President Donald Trump was a major concern for voters, an issue he said he’s uniquely positioned to support due to his professional background in international trade law.
Part of this approach as the Ottawa Centre MP will include supporting local businesses, he added.
“All of us are impacted by these unjustified tariffs. Ottawa is a unique place. It’s different than a factory or a border town or a rural community that’s maybe reliant on agriculture, but it does have an impact on our small businesses,” he said. “I have many main streets in my in my riding, and small businesses.
“So I look forward to doing that work with our business improvement areas to make sure that we’re not only encouraging people to support local businesses who are right down the street, as opposed to the Amazons or Costcos of the world, but also creating opportunities for the small businesses to support locally made goods.”
