ACCKWA signs open letter to province asking for more funding as Cambridge CTS put on hold
CBC
Cambridge's Consumption and Treatment Site (CTS) application is on hold and the organization set to operate it has joined over three dozen other organizations in an open letter urging the province to provide more funding.
Several sites in Ontario are at risk of closing at the end of March and more were hoping to open through an application process which has been put on hold.
"During the provincial moratorium on applications, we cannot proceed on a Cambridge CTS application," Ruth Cameron, executive director of the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Area (ACCKWA) said in an email statement to CBC News.
"If responded to, the requests in the letter will enable ACCKWA to proceed on an application for Cambridge."
The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition wrote an open letter to Minister of Health Sylvia Jones and Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Michael Tibollo on March 5. ACCKWA was among 51 other groups to sign the letter.
Ontario paused approval of new CTS applications after it launched a review of all 17 sites after a 44-year-old mother of two was killed by a stray bullet near a consumption site in Toronto's east end in the summer of 2023.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said the review includes consultations with public health and community engagement, as well as reviewing complaints against consumption sites.
"These reviews remain ongoing and will inform the next steps taken by the Ministry of Health including funding, location and application decisions. All new applications remain on pause," the spokesperson said.
The letter said communities like Sudbury, Barrie, Windsor, Timmins and Hamilton have been waiting years for their submitted applications to be approved.
"These delays are unacceptable and deadly," the coalition said in its letter.
Cambridge city council approved the location for a CTS at 150 Main St. in the fall of 2021.
ACCKWA stepped up to run the site in 2022 and has since been working with the region's public health and the Cambridge North Dumfires Ontario Health Team to send its application to the province.
The coalition's letter is asking for a meeting with Minister Jones on March 13, as well as an expedited 30-day timeline for responding to applications in the interim and to phase out the current CTS approach to supervised consumption services.
The NDP's health critic France Gélinas, says the province's pause on new applications discriminates against people who have mental health and addiction needs.
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