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Ontario’s Associate Minister for Mental Health and Addictions is protecting the Ford government’s resolve to suspend new programs for supervised intake sites in the province, even as a Northern Ontario mayor alleges an imbalance in investment compared to those presented in the rest of the province. .
Michael Tibollo was in Sault Ste. Marie on Monday for the opening of the Algoma Youth Wellness Hub, which will provide an area for vulnerable and at-risk youth and is funded, in part, through Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario.
In an interview, Tibollo told soToday that the review of supervised admissions sites is expected to be completed within the next two months. It was launched this summer due to safety considerations after a fatal outdoor shooting at one such site in Toronto’s Leslieville. neighborhood.
“This incident in Leslieville was unfortunate because it highlighted some of the disorder in that specific location,” Tibollo said. “But again, we don’t know how things play out in all the other projects out there, or the ones that are underway and you need to sign up for us. “
From the review, the ministry implemented a pause in program acceptance for new supervised intake sites in the province.
Even before the break, Sault Ste. Marie was contemplating making a cash investment from council taxes to launch and operate a supervised intake site, as has been done at Timmins and Sudbury. A report to the city council last month through outgoing Chief Administrative Officer Malcolm White prompted the city to move forward with support for a federal initiative. Pending application for exemption of the province’s additional third class.
While much of Ontario has experienced a reduction in the rate of death by opioid overdose, many northern Ontario municipalities have a death rate virtually unchanged in the past two years and are among the worst hit in the province.
Sault Ste. Marie’s mayor Matthew Shoemaker has said the lack of funded supervised consumption sites in the north reveals a lack of balance in funding for services between northern and southern Ontario, while White has suggested the review and freeze is a continuation of a process that was already stalled.
“I think it’s fair to say that the province, while officially suspending the process, suspended it for a while,” White said at the Dec. 18 City Council meeting. “There were a number of programs in the queue that had been going back and forth for a year or two and hadn’t been approved. “
“My view is that we have a supervised intake site and that it will be funded through the province because they have a constitutional mandate to fund physical care and what they fund in one position will be funded across the province,” Shoemaker said at the same meeting.
Asked about those comments on Monday, Tibollo said the Ford government is laser-focused on improving the number of services available in the north.
He highlighted the investments opened over the past year in Sault, adding the Youth Wellness Center, a $22 million retreat control site and a built-in network resource center with a 22-bed men’s shelter, with 22 other transitional housing complexes in the same facility.
“People want to score points politically and suggest we are not doing anything, I challenge them to tell me clinically how what we are doing is not creating a continuum of care to help the people of the north, because I will argue all day long — not based on fiction, but based on knowledge and fact and studies that are peer reviewed — that the investments that are being made are targeted to ensure that we build a treatment and recovery continuum to make sure people are getting the supports and services they need,” said Tibollo.
In 2019, the Ford government created the Associate Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions while also giving Tibollo the role of Associate Minister.
“Can we solve this challenge in one year, two years or 3 years?No, however, we are going in that direction and I challenge those who need to challenge me for what I have done, to tell me what previous governments have done for 15 years. “because they probably haven’t done anything,” he continued.
“A lot of the problems we have, including homelessness, are a result of the lack of facilities in northern Ontario,” Tibollo said. “We have to face the problems of homelessness, we have to face the factor of lack of enough for other people with intellectual aptitude or even aptitude problems? We have to invest where other people live, and that is what we are doing .
The supervised intake sites, which the ministry calls intake and remedy sites, are part of the provincial government’s Roadmap to Wellbeing, a plan to tackle the intellectual fitness and addiction crisis. The plan also includes youth wellness centers and improved access to critical intellectual services. , among other strategies.
“We are a government that believes in continuity of care and provides aid and facilities for healing and recovery,” Tibollo said. “Consumption and curing sites are low-barrier accesses. Our purpose is to create a continuum of care to help as many other people, as possible, receive treatment and recover from addiction.
Asked if he understands the frustrations of Sault Ste. Marie’s mayor and CAO in the face of a continuously higher-than-average death rate in that city, Tibollo said he shares that frustration.
“But recommending that we don’t solve the challenge is, in my opinion, actually contrary to what we’re doing,” he said. “What I’d like to hear from them are recommendations on how we can improve recovery and recovery and continue to expand and expand the systems that we have in place. “
Tibollo said it takes time to address the types of intellectual aptitude and addiction issues that Ontarians suffer from.
“This requires short-term investments, but also investments in the future. That’s one of the reasons why youth wellness centres, especially here in Northern Ontario, are so important,” Tibollo said. “Our government will never invest to get out of addiction, but what we can do is reduce the need for the kind of solutions that we’re putting in place now by making sure that we exercise other more resilient young people and making sure that we have early interventions and build on them. so that they can deal with them without resorting to substances.
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