Derek Finkle: Health Canada ignored police, parents and provinces to renew injection sites

Federal health minister Marjorie Michel, is questioned by Dan Mazier, MP for Riding Mountain, Conservative Shadow Minister for Health on why the minister and her department, Health Canada, had renewed the federal drug law exemption, which injection sites require to operate, for an Ottawa site last year when not only community associations but the city’s chief of police, Eric Stubbs, had submitted letters strenuously opposing that outcome. Credit: ParlVU 

Article content

Federal health minister Marjorie Michel was on the hot seat in February when the Conservatives’ senior member on the parliamentary health committee, Dan Mazier, grilled her about injection sites.

Article content

Mazier wanted to know why the minister and her department, Health Canada, had renewed the federal drug law exemption, which injection sites require to operate, for an Ottawa site last year, when not only community associations but the city’s chief of police, Eric Stubbs, had submitted letters strenuously opposing that outcome.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Mazier read an excerpt from Stubbs’ letter, reported on in a column of mine at the time, in which the police chief said his force was “especially troubled by the unintended but serious consequences, such as the closure of nearby childcare facilities due to safety concerns, a situation that is without precedence in our city.” He wanted to know if the minister was aware that a daycare had closed because of the injection site.

Article content

Article content

Michel was decidedly uninterested in answering this question. So, Mazier pressed on, wanting to know why the minister had “ignored law enforcement.”

Article content

Michel responded that she had read Stubbs’ letter, but that there were other factors that went into the eventual approval of the exemption renewal for the site. She didn’t say what any of those factors were; instead, the minister took cover by pointing out that it is the provinces that choose to fund such sites, and federal authorities simply follow their lead by providing the necessary exemptions.

Article content

The idea that Health Canada, in renewing the exemption for the site in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill neighbourhood, was taking its cues from the Ontario government of Doug Ford, who openly detests injection sites, is about as fantastical as Donald Trump distributing an image depicting himself as Jesus Christ.

Article content

Article content

The Sandy Hill injection site was informed on March 5 by Health Canada that its exemption was being renewed for one year. Eleven days later, the Ford government announced it was cutting financial support for the remaining seven supervised consumption sites the province still funded, including Sandy Hill’s, as of June 13, 2026.

Article content

Article content

Why would the Ford government lobby Michel and Health Canada to renew the Sandy Hill injection site’s exemption if it had imminent plans to completely sever its purse strings?

Article content

Health Canada is by no means some passive support system for provinces who decide to open injection sites. It has its own agenda, and what’s quite clear is that it doesn’t feel obligated to follow its provincial dance partners’ footsteps, as our health minister suggests, nor does it seem particularly moved by communities opposed to them because of legitimate safety concerns.

Article content

Months before community members in Sandy Hill began imploring Health Canada to turn down its site’s renewal application, the injection site I lived across the street from in the east side of downtown Toronto was going through its own exemption renewal drama.