Tightly regulated public meeting held to get input on Cambridge consumption and treatment site

A tightly regulated public meeting was held Tuesday evening to get input on a proposed consumption and treatment site in Cambridge.

The AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Area (ACCKWA) hosted the virtual public input and information session for people who work or live within a 200 metre radius of a proposed consumption and treatment services (CTS) site at 150 Main Street in the downtown core of Galt.

As part of the application process for the project, the province mandates they host the session.

More than 38 people attended Tuesday evening's meeting. They were provided with information about the site and were asked a series of 13 poll questions electronically including whether they agreed with the statement: "CTS decreases complaints from communities." For that question, 69 per cent of attendees disagreed.  

ACCKWA answered three questions by the community, which had to be submitted ahead of time. The group said it knew some people wanted the meeting to be in person, but they thought it best to keep it virtual for a few reasons, one being that they know the CTS can cause a lot of debate and they "want to ensure the session remains productive and conflict free."

More than 100 people have died in the city since 2018 as a result of drug-related incidents, ACCKWA said in a letter that went out to residents and businesses.

Planning has taken years

Politicians and groups in Cambridge have talked about the need for some kind of facility, now called a consumption and treatment site, since at least 2017. Region of Waterloo Public Health launched a public survey in Oct. 2017 to ask residents from across the region for their thoughts on safe consumption sites. At the time, then-mayor Doug Craig spoke out about the growing problem of discarded needles in the city.

The idea of a CTS has received pushback from previous Cambridge councils, which voted initially to keep any such site out of the city's downtown cores. 

The topic has also been a divisive topic for people living in the city and protests were held both against and in support of a site in July 2018.

In June 2019, city council agreed to move forward with the search for a consumption and treatment site location. Then in Oct. 2021, city council agreed the site should go at 150 Main St., a regionally owned building where public health and social services are already located.

In May 2022, it was announced ACCKWA would run the consumption and treatment site.

A consumption and treatment site currently operates at 150 Duke St. W. in Kitchener.

'Keep people alive'

Ruth Cameron, the executive director of ACCKWA, said Tuesday's session was meant to hear the concerns of community members, which they must then address in the application to the province to open the consumption and treatment site. 

"First off, we need to keep people alive," Cameron told CBC News ahead of the public session. "Second, we need to keep them well." 

Cameron added, "It is really important that the supports available at a CTS be available in a really drop-in, convenient way for people to literally meet them where they're at, at the moment when they're ready."

ACCKWA has submitted an application to the province to open the site, which would offer a number of services, including allowing people to safely consume their own substances.   

"A CTS site is always located based on data that shows where the greatest need is occurring within the community, and we know from the data collection that is done by EMS through our public health unit that the concentration of overdoses that are taking place in Cambridge are taking place in Galt in very close proximity to 150 Main St.," Cameron said. 

City council had approved the site location, she explained. 

Not a safe supply site

Cameron emphasized that the CTS site isn't a safe supply site. 

"Those two services are absolutely separate from one another," she said. "Unfortunately, there's been a conflation and unfortunately some misinformation that has gone around." 

A consumpterion and treatment site "in no way supplies any individual with substances," Cameron said. "That is absolutely not permitted."