Sudbury safe consumption site facing slight delay as provincial funds held up by election

A spokesperson with Reseau Access Network says the dissolution of the provincial parliament and the election campaign will delay full openingof the supervised drug consumption site in Sudbury.

The site, which has been in the works since May 2021, would allow people to safely use drugs under the watchful eye of supervised staff. The process to authorize the site cleared a major hurdle in April after representatives from the federal government approved the site construction.

Neil Stephen, Reseau's manager of consumption and treatment services in Sudbury, said they are awaiting a federal exemption from section 56(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). The exemption which Stephen expects to be issued in a few weeks will allow people who use drugs to legally consume them in a safe injection, or safe consumption site.

"With that federal exemption, we can go to the province to request that they fund the site up to about five years at a time, as health care in general is more of a provincial jurisdiction rather than the federal jurisdiction," Stephen said.

The province, however, won't sit as a government again until after the June 2 election, which means the group is a couple of months away from operating at full capacity, Stephen said.

Pending full federal approval, however, Stephen said his staff is moving into the site.

"With the assistance of the City of Greater Sudbury and their funding agreement, pending provincial approval, we will be able to offer at least partial services within a relatively short time frame," Stephen said.

"It's just waiting on that provincial approval so that we'll be able to operate the site fully as planned."

Plans for the consumption site, in the works since May 2021, has the location in Energy Court. It is an undeveloped swath of land in the city's downtown core. In June, Sudbury city council committed $800,000 for the setup.

Stephen said the hours of operation and the number of people they can supervise at once will be reduced until they get the provincial exemption.

"It's going to limit the number of people we can have in the building at any given point in time," he said.

"It's also going to have an impact on the hours of operation that we can safely operate at, just due to limited staffing and trying to prevent any burnout on our end."