It is fashionable among our decision-makers to blame citizens when a cohabitation project goes sour. We then diagnose “not in my backyard” syndrome, a contagious disease, which can even mutate into intolerance – oh the dirty word! — which must be denounced loud and clear. The antidote that we are offered? Change your outlook and tone to promote better cohabitation. But does cohabiting mean tolerating everything?
Going out to the park under police escort as we do at the CPE du Petit Palais, for example, is this tolerable? Obviously not. And that’s not desirable either. The director of the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) insisted on the exceptional nature of this measure, which places the police in a role that is not theirs. Fady Dagher is right, this work is the responsibility of social workers and caregivers, not the police.
Is witnessing “disruptive events” such as violence or exhibitionism from your schoolyard on a daily basis, as at Victor-Rousselot, more sustainable? Of course not. The problem is that these situations have become normal around Maison Benoît-Labre, a day and accommodation center for 36 formerly homeless people, coupled with a site for supervised consumption of hard drugs.
In addition to its general director, the highly publicized file included public health, aid organizations, experts, as well as Mayor Valérie Plante and Minister Lionel Carmant. Refusing to conclude that it was a failure, they defended, each in their own way, the need to persist in our cohabitation efforts to repair a social fabric that has been battered like never before in this sector of Montreal.
This is an argument that is too short, if not dangerous.
Let us be clear, these specialized resources are necessary, even vital. But the good-natured progressivism with which they are adorned has the perverse effect of sweeping the flaws in our health and social services under the rug. In doing so, not only does it tell the citizen that their voice does not count, but it allows all those who are directly or indirectly involved to take responsibility for what may happen on the periphery.
The places where we welcome these clients in distress are not, however, free zones within which everything becomes permitted. Successful cohabitation requires a minimum of civic-mindedness. In the case of Maison Benoît-Labre, psychosocial support was announced and the relocation of the CPE was mentioned. These are poor crutches. What Montreal needs is a real continuum of services and care, and much greater intensity.
We have often advocated the necessary benefits of the harm reduction approach. We still believe in its virtues, the issues of dependency and homelessness undoubtedly being placed on the side of public health and not criminal justice. But as it is currently practiced with pieces of string, constant service disruptions and an energy of despair, this approach does not keep its promises in Montreal.
An undertow awaits. A good sample can be found elsewhere in Canada. The Alberta model, for example, defends the idea that harm reduction fuels a vicious cycle that essentially amounts to publicly funding addiction. The problem is addiction; the solution is recovery, explains its architect, Marshall Smith. Prime Minister Danielle Smith’s right arm has a long history of consumption and homelessness. No wonder he approaches his mandate as a mission, with all the intransigence and absoluteness that that implies.
The Ford government in Ontario has taken up the main lines of the Alberta argument, going so far as to ask the federal government to stop authorizing safer supply sites under the pretext that these open the door to resale, often to young people, in addition to encouraging outbreaks of violence. In British Columbia, the Eby government is seeking by all means to reverse its pilot project for the decriminalization of hard drugs.
The misfortune is that not very far at the end of this slope, we find a door that we have closed and that we would not want to reopen: that of pure and harsh criminalization. Research has shown that the punitive approach yields very little results, other than bitter fruit. The harm reduction approach (coupled with a solid therapeutic approach) has, on the contrary, several clear successes where the price has been paid.
In Montreal, where consultation is a failure and resources are constantly deprived, this path unfortunately seems more fragile than ever. Like our polarized – and polarizing – times, we feel that all the parties concerned are moving apart, when they should rather talk to each other and come together where collective and individual benefits meet. Otherwise, the wall awaits us.