Debating what to do about encampments
At its core, Bill 6 is about giving municipalities and law enforcement the tools to manage public drug use and dismantle encampments. These are not abstract concerns. These are daily realities for people across Ontario — parents trying to walk their children to school through a park lined with tents, local businesses seeing customers driven away, and communities growing anxious as public spaces feel increasingly unsafe.
I support the objective of this legislation. We must be able to remove encampments that are unsafe, unsanitary, and unsustainable. We must be able to intervene when public drug use endangers individuals and communities alike.
When I was a City Councillor in Ottawa I led the way to ban smoking in public parks to ensure families could enjoy these public spaces without being exposed to second hand smoke. I hope we could all agree that doing hard drugs, is many, many steps above smoking.
But the legislation does not exist in a vacuum. We can’t talk about enforcement without talking about what happens after.
If all this Bill does is give police the power to clear tents and confiscate personal belongings, but leaves people with nowhere to go — then we haven’t solved the problem.
We’ve just moved it. From one park to another. From one underpass to the next.
It is entirely possible — and necessary — to hold two ideas at once:
That public spaces must be protected and remain accessible for families, seniors, and communities;
And that people living in tents are not criminals — they are often people in pain, people in crisis, people who have been failed by the very systems that are supposed to support them.
We must restore safety to our public spaces — yes.
We must crack down on illegal drug use when it threatens lives — yes.
But we must also confront the truth that many of those struggling with addiction are self-medicating trauma, mental illness, and despair.
We can be tough on crime. We can be compassionate. And we can do both at the same time — if we choose to.