Montreal group demands safe-injection site

Montreal homelessness advocacy network RAPSIM is leading an initiative to pressure the Quebec government to establish a safe-injection site in the city similar to the controversial Insite clinic in downtown Vancouver (pictured right).

"The benefits of supervised, safe injection sites are innumerable," the organization's Nicole McNeil told the Montreal Mirror recently. The sites, she said, "do worlds of good so far as harm reduction is concerned."

"After holding a press conference in August to ask the minister [Health Minister Yves Bolduc] to reconsider his decision not to provide supervised injection services and after writing to him about the same question, without receiving any response, it's now with a petition, the support of other groups and people that we hope our demand will be heard," Marjolaine Despars wrote in a statement (Word document format) on behalf of RAPSIM earlier this month.

The group is now collecting signatures for its petition, which is available on its website to be downloaded, filled out and mailed in.

Mr Bolduc announced in August that the Liberal government wouldn't create a safe injection site, despite a ruling from a British Columbia judge that found Vancouver's site to be constitutional. The previous health minister, Dr Philippe Couillard, a neurologist who has since left public service for a job with an investment firm, had said during his tenure that he was interested in starting an injection site.

In August, Mr Bolduc's decision to take a step back from Dr Couillard's enthusiasm prompted criticism from the Parti Québécois's Bernard Drainville. "This decision was made in ignorance, not by science or the facts," he told the Montreal Gazette. But the subject has not come up at all in the ongoing campaign for the December 8 provincial election.

Photo: Insite, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority

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