Ottawa Coun. Ariel Troster had a testy exchange with Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference this week, when the municipal official challenged the province’s rationale for closing the safe injection site on Eccles St.
During a forum where local leaders could ask questions to members of Premier Doug Ford’s cabinet, Troster, joined by Ottawa Centre MPP Catherine McKenney, accused the health minister of helping plunge Ottawa’s Chinatown into “absolute chaos.”
Last year, Jones announced the province would force 10 safe injection sites across the province to close, including the facility at the Somerset West Community Health Centre. Instead, the sites would be replaced with new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs that focused on providing various social services and housing supports.
Jones had justified the policy decision by noting how crime rates had increased in the area surrounding the Somerset injection site to 250 per cent higher than the city average in 2023, with violent crime rising by 146 per cent.
However, police data recently uncovered by CTV Ottawa suggests the crime rate was actually only 14 per cent higher than the rest of Ottawa, with violent crime actually falling by 23 per cent while the safe injection site was operational.
“I’m here to tell you that the closure of the site has rendered absolute chaos in Ottawa’s Chinatown,” said Troster, who has represented the Somerset ward since 2022.
“What are you going to do to help Ottawa’s Chinatown?”
In response, Jones said she “never, ever wants to have a mother who is killed because she happens to be in the wrong place or the wrong time in front of a safe consumption site,” referencing Karolina Huebner-Makurat, who was killed by a stray bullet outside a Toronto drug consumption site in 2023.
Jones pointed to the province’s HART hub model, which she said offers “hope instead of despair,” while Troster stood at the microphone shaking their head.
“We need to offer pathways out of addiction,” said the health minister. “We want to be part of the solution.”
Jones continued to say that the provincial government will never “encourage drug consumption” in Ontario, eliciting applause from the AMO delegates.
Following the exchange, Troster took to social media to decry Jones’ failure to support the province’s claims with substantive crime data.
“Unless she can provide the data that supports her argument, we can only assume she’s lying,” Troster said on Bluesky. “Public health policy shouldn’t be determined by fake statistics or by ideology.”
“People who use drugs deserve better. So does our whole community.”
The Ottawa Compass reached out to the provincial health ministry for comment on the discrepancy in crime data, but did not receive a response by deadline.
