‘I don’t see a plan’: Belleville, Ont. and why it declared a social-issue emergency

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that he spoke with Belleville, Ont., Mayor Neil Ellis on Friday morning, after the mayor took the drastic step of declaring an addiction, mental health and homelessness emergency in the community.

Premier Doug Ford said that Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith is on the ground in Belleville while Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Michael Tibollo added that the situation is of “grave concern.”

Mayor Ellis said the city and its emergency services are being stretched thin because of a range of social issues.

“We need the support not only to alleviate this in the community but it has been taxing our resources,” Ellis said.

Ellis said there were 16 overdoses on Tuesday; just two days later there have been six more.

“When you declare an emergency … if there’s any access to funding it makes you more of a priority issue,” Ellis said.

Trudeau, Ford and Tibollo addressed the situation in Belleville on Friday following an unrelated health-care announcement in King City.

“Minister Ya’ara Saks, our mental health and addictions minister, spoke to Neil yesterday, I believe, and we’re going to be working with the tools we have at the federal level,” Trudeau said.

“This phenomenon of toxic drug supply is not just hitting our biggest cities, they’re hitting small towns and communities across Ontario, right the country, and it requires us to step up and respond because these are tragedies that are hitting far too many families and communities that don’t have the resources available that are even there in large cities to some degree.”

Ford said that he believes in a “multi-pronged” approach that includes going after drug traffickers and funding treatment centres.

“We have to go after the drug dealers that are putting, you know, the fentanyl and opioids and it’s killing people,” he said.

“We’re working hand-in-hand with the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, we’ve put over $3.8 billion in. I’ve been a big proponent for many years about making sure we build more treatment centres, partnering up with the federal government to build more treatment centres.”

While the federal and provincial governments did not outline any concrete action that will be taken, Minister Tibollo said, “We’re working on putting together the pieces that are necessary not just for what’s happening in Belleville but we all know that those drugs travel along the corridor and eventually find their way up north and unfortunately sometimes into remote communities as well.”

Maury Flunder, the chair of Belleville’s business improvement association, said the growing list of social issues in Belleville’s downtown area is the number one concern according to a recent survey of merchants in the area.

The BIA runs an outreach program called Welcoming Streets aimed at helping Belleville’s vulnerable population access support.

Flunder said despite the efforts of the BIA and the municipality, the crisis is getting worse.

So far, many downtown businesses are doing well, according to Flunder, but he worries people may start avoiding the area.

“The perception from a large part of the community is certainly they don’t want to come down at night, for example, and you know, who wants that?” Flunder said.

Ellis said calls for service to both police and the fire department went up by 18 per cent in 2023 over the previous year.

Some of that increase can be attributed to population growth but Ellis said the growing housing, addiction and mental health crisis was also a big part of that increase.

In a media conference Wednesday morning, Belleville police Chief Mike Callaghan said that the downtown core is safe and that the service has plans to hire eight more officers this year.

“There are two officers right now assigned to the downtown core and our community response model, as well as we have members walking the beat… There is some private security involved as well,” Callaghan said during the Wednesday morning media briefing.

The emergency declaration is one part of Belleville’s mayor’s attempt to get the upper levels of government to come up with a comprehensive plan to address the housing, drug addiction and mental health crisis Belleville and many regions across the province and country are facing.

“The gold standard is housing first, wraparound services, whether it be mental health services, drug addiction services and how do we get there? I don’t see a plan,” Ellis said.

Ellis said within the last couple of months Belleville emergency services also had to respond to 90 overdose calls in the span of one week.

With files from Global News’ Jacquelyn LeBel.