OTTAWA – It has been two years since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled a Vancouver safe injection site could remain open.
Global News has learned the federal government will introduce new rules Thursday that will make it more difficult to set up new supervised injection drug sites.
New legislation will include 20 tough new criteria that will have to be met before any new injection facilities will be approved by Health Canada.
Among the criteria will be mechanisms to ensure communities are consulted and have a say about whether they want a safe injection site.
Sources tell Global News these changes will make it harder to establish a supervised injection site in any Canadian community.
The rules need to be tightened up, sources say. Currently, they believe the application process is too easy..
A government source told Global News, “(we) are concerned that a supervised drug consumption site can be created in a residential neighbourhood without any clear criteria or consultation. We will be taking action to fix this to better respect communities and their residents”.
The Supreme Court in September 2011 overruled the Harper government’s tough-on-crime agenda by upholding British Columbia‘s right to operate Insite, a supervised injection site for drug addicts in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
The justices agreed with the facility’s supporters, who argued that closing the facility would violate the rights of addicts living in one of the country’s most desolate neighbourhoods.
The ruling rejected the federal argument that the facility fosters addiction and runs counter to its crime-fighting agenda.
The site opened in 2003 to curb overdose deaths and mounting HIV rates in Vancouver and records some 800 visits a day by people injecting their own heroin and cocaine.
After the Supreme Court ruling, groups in a number of other cities including Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal have said they are interested in setting up their own safe injection sites.
So far, no new ones have been established.
– with files from the Canadian Press
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