Off the heels of the announcement of a State of Emergency due to the ongoing overdoses in the City of Belleville, Bay of Quinte MPP Todd Smith says the province is ready to support the city but needs to know what the city needs specifically to help address the issue.
Speaking with Quinte News, MPP Smith called the situation “upsetting.”
“It’s frustrating that one or two people can come into our city, particularly into the downtown core, and sell or give tainted fentanyl drugs to people in the downtown core and that our reputation as a city can be tarnished because of the actions of a few people,” Smith tells Quinte News.
“I know how frustrating it is for city police because they do arrest these people and within hours, they’re back out on the street doing the exact same thing. So it’s a vicious circle. It’s frustrating for the city. It’s a terrible blight on the city and it’s completely unnecessary in my mind if we had a tighter justice system that would put these people behind bars.”
Speaking on the Lorne Brooker Show on Thursday, Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis spoke of the need for more support from the provincial and federal levels of government.
Ellis said that homelessness and substance abuse are provincial issues and issues municipalities cannot solve on their own.
When asked about Ellis’s comments about needing more provincial support and what the province could do to help with the situation, Smith said that the province could always do more but that there has been a steady increase in funding for these services in the Bay of Quinte, particularly in Belleville.
“(The province has given) $35 million alone in funding for all of the agencies that are providing addictions and mental health services. We’re funding the project impact team which has mental health and addictions counsellors, working with city police and providing support to take the ease off our first responders. We’ve increased the homelessness prevention funding by 81% in Hastings County and 125% in Prince Edward and Lennox and Addington County. We’ve invested over $3 million in treatment beds. Thirty-six of the 38 beds are full and funded by the provincial government. So there’s a lot that we’re doing,” Smith responded.
“I would say tens of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested over the last number of years in addictions and mental health supports, but yet we still run into these problems and again.”
Smith referred back to “cutting the head off the snake” when it comes to those who bring the drugs into the community.
He says he has been speaking with the city about the issue but says he is looking for a clear ask about what the city needs for resources.
“There’s no clear ask from the city. I mean, I don’t know exactly what it is that they want or what they think is going to make a difference. I mean, we’re there to support the city,” Smith tells Quinte News.
“The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions is coming to Belleville on Thursday next week, to sit down with emergency first responders and those who are working in the mental health and addiction space to try and understand what a clear ask would be, if it’s the detox centre that the Belleville police have been lobbying for, is that something that the province can support that will have an impact on the situation?”
Smith says this is an issue that is not only affecting Belleville but other municipalities across the province.
“This is a serious problem in communities right across Ontario, Canada and North America and I don’t know if there’s any silver bullet that’s going to fix the problem,” Smith said.
“There isn’t a silver bullet. It’s going to take all of us working together at the federal, provincial and municipal level with the folks on the ground, grassroots, that are dealing with individuals to find solutions here.”
