Ontario Premier Doug Ford called out a City News reporter after being asked why he thinks selling cannabis and so-called “safe supply” injection sites should be located away from school zones but will allow alcohol at a convenience store close to a school.
City News 680 News Radio reporter Richard Southern confronted Ford at a press conference in Brampton Tuesday, pointing to an apparent double standard Ford has with allowing alcohol sales in convenience stores while being opposed to drug consumption sites near schools.
“Your government prevents the sale of cannabis close to schools and will soon prevent safe consumption sites from operating close to schools this Thursday. However, more than 4100 convenience stores will start selling alcohol–many of them are located close to schools,” Southern said. “Why are two drugs not okay to be located close to schools yet alcohol as statistically more dangerous (is)?”
Ford said the comparison was unfair.
“You’re comparing a convenience store to a safe consumption site–injection sites. Last time I checked, the convenience stores don’t have needles lying around the front of their stores,” Ford said. “They’re well equipped. They’ve dealt with everything from tobacco to lottery tickets now beer and wine, and they’re going to be very responsible, but there’s absolutely no comparison.”
Ford expedited his plan to allow convenience stores to sell booze, with some of them being allowed to offer drink-in areas during this summer’s historic Liquor Control Board of Ontario strike. One of the key grievances of the LCBO strike was the concern that the Ontario-funded liquor store workers would lose jobs due to the allowance of booze sales in convenience stores.
The couple of week-long LCBO strike ended at the end of July.
The Ontario Progressive Conservatives announced its crackdown on supervised drug consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and daycares last month. In the same announcement, Ford promised to invest an additional $378 million in homelessness and addiction recovery hubs.
The announcement said four supervised consumption sites in Ottawa, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Guelph would be closed “no later than March 31, 2025.”
“I’ve never had more phone calls and support about closing down the safe consumption sites–I call them unsafe consumption sites–and reinvesting and making sure that we support these people or approximately $378 million to get them social assistance, to make sure that they have housing, and that they have addiction treatment beds and detox beds,” Ford said. “So that’s what we’re focusing on. And we’re going to continue supporting these people, getting them back on their feet.”