{"id":208201,"date":"2019-04-02T23:49:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T03:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=208201"},"modified":"2019-04-02T23:49:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T03:49:53","slug":"doug-ford-slams-ndp-leader-for-raising-his-brothers-addiction-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/02\/doug-ford-slams-ndp-leader-for-raising-his-brothers-addiction-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Doug Ford slams NDP leader for raising his brother’s addiction issues"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cI found it so disturbing yesterday when the leader of the Opposition wanted to get personal and bring my family into discussions,\u201d the premier said of his brother, Rob Ford, who entered rehab while he was mayor of Toronto after months of revelations about drug and alcohol use. (File Photo<\/a>: @fordnation\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2014 Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday it’s \u201cdisgusting\u201d that NDP Leader Andrea Horwath would reference his late brother’s struggles with addiction, which she cited while criticizing his government’s decision to close several overdose-prevention sites.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found it so disturbing yesterday when the leader of the Opposition wanted to get personal and bring my family into discussions,\u201d the premier said of his brother, Rob Ford, who entered rehab while he was mayor of Toronto after months of revelations about drug and alcohol use.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was pretty disgusting. Rob, my brother, had an issue in front of the whole world. He dealt with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The province announced on Friday that while 15
\noverdose-prevention sites had been approved under a new model, six
\npreviously licensed sites were not given the green light \u2014 including
\nthree in Toronto. Two of the Toronto sites will start winding down
\noperations and a third is on hold because it’s still under review.<\/p>\n

Horwath says experts have warned that people will die because of that decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this premier particularly, who we know had a family member that had serious drug addiction problems, to turn his back on all those families who are worried about their loved ones who are going to possibly lose their lives because they don’t have access to safe facilities to utilize their drugs is absolutely, it’s horrifying,\u201d she said Monday. \u201cAnd I say shame on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Doug Ford’s response to those comments, Horwath said the entire world felt sympathy toward Ford and his family, and that’s what she meant.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Ford spoke about it in question period Tuesday, several harm reduction workers unfurled a banner reading, \u201ccuts will kill\u201d and shouted, \u201cit’s a public health emergency and we’re begging you to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were then ejected by legislative security.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a health service,\u201d said Kelly White, a co-ordinator of one of the Toronto sites whose funding was cut. \u201cOur budget is $20,000 a month, which for the life-saving work we do is a drop in the bucket.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, Ford cited conversations he had with a neighbourhood association, which was concerned about four sites in close proximity, in defending his government’s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to try to help these people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s, ‘OK, yeah, help ’em, but not in my backyard.’ That’s the reality of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health Minister Christine Elliott said not having too many sites in one area was one of the criteria she used to approve or deny applications, but she denied that NIMBYism was the reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are looking at are where are the greatest areas of need,\u201d she said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

White said that the downtown Toronto area is the greatest area of need because that is where the deaths are occurring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not bring drugs to this neighbourhood,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are here to serve these people and to save their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest numbers from Public Health Ontario indicate 629 people died of opioid overdoses in the province in the first six months of last year \u2014 an increase of 80 over the same period a year earlier.<\/p>\n

There were also 6,688 opioid-related emergency department visits in the province in the first nine months of 2018 and another 1,544 hospitalizations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday it’s \u201cdisgusting\u201d that NDP Leader Andrea Horwath would reference his late brother’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":182559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-allison-jones","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208202,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208201\/revisions\/208202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}