A motion change to Niagara’s state of emergency for homelessness, mental health and addictions has been sent back to a committee after councillors asked for more data to justify alteration to a state of crisis declaration.
Niagara Region councillors opted to toss the idea back to the public health and social service committee for more study to account for the perceived downgrade.
Welland councillor Pat Chiocchio insisted information provided during the July 11 committee meeting was inadequate to overturn the current state of emergency since there was no indication the situation has gotten better or worse.
“I think the difference between emergency and crisis is that an emergency requires immediate intervention … whereas a crisis may require an intervention,” Chiocchio explained.
The transition out of the declaration was backed up by a majority of committee members agreeing a state of emergency should be reserved for temporary occurrences affecting community services.
St. Catharines councillor Laura Ip, one of those spearheading the change, said the current declaration under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act should be reserved for short-term events and not those without an end in sight.
“You pull together your emergency operations centre, they meet twice a month, and nothing has come of their … meetings because these are not issues we can resolve without the assistance of the provincial and federal levels of government,” IP explained.
Several southern Ontario municipalities have issued similar declarations in 2023, including Toronto, Hamilton, Peterborough and Fort Erie.
Niagara Region made the declaration in March after reporting some 657 suspected opioid overdoses in 2022 and just over 1,000 in 2021.
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Ip said the benefit of altering the emergency declaration is the elimination of administrative work by the Regional Emergency Operations Centre (REOC) “being done for absolutely no return.”
Chiocchio backed his claim saying the original February council decision came after an “excellent presentation” from Niagara’s manager of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention.
“I think all of the members were really intrigued by the information that she provided us,” Chiocchio said.
“For myself, it was positive because the momentum is going now.”
Niagara’s public health and social service committee is set to meet next on August 8.
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