Adam Zivo and Josh Dehaas: Four ways to solve our growing crime crisis

The province needs to get serious about running its courts more efficiently so that cases are heard on time. There is no excuse for courts frequently starting late due to technical problems, staff struggling to find files, and adjournments over shortages of translators or security guards. 2. Make more ankle-monitoring bracelets available for those awaiting trial Another big reason fewer people are behind bars is the 2017 Supreme Court decision R. v. Antic, which clarified that justices can only deny bail as a last resort. While that’s good for the liberty of the accused, the practical reality of Antic is that it means far more criminals are out on the streets committing crimes in the months or years between the bail hearing and the trial. The province could do a better job of preventing those who are out on bail from committing more crimes by making ankle-monitoring bracelets much more readily available when bail is granted. This would reduce the risk that people on bail will commit more crimes, since they know they’re very likely to get caught. 3. End the “safe supply” experiment that’s fuelling addiction and organized crime Substance abuse is one of the main drivers of criminality. Not only do illicit drugs severely impair judgement and enable risky or violent behaviour, but the cost of maintaining an addiction often means addicts have little choice but to commit crimes. For over a decade, Canadian policymakers have tried to fix the national addiction crisis by prioritizing radical “harm reduction” experiments—including supervised consumption sites (SCSs) and “safer supply”—at the expense of prevention and treatment. This strategy has failed. While the Ford government has reduced the number of SCSs, it has failed to put a stop to the bigger issue of “safer supply” prescribing. This experimental addiction strategy, which became widely available in 2020, distributes free addictive drugs as an alternative to the potentially more toxic street supply. There is no credible evidence that this saves lives, and ample evidence that a safer supply of opioids is being diverted to the black market, enriching organized gangs, and flooding streets with taxpayer-funded pills that often lead to new addicts. Annual seizures of hydromorphone, a heroin-strength opioid that is the drug-of-choice for most safer supply prescribers, exploded by over 3,000 percent in London between 2020 and 2023, while Waterloo and Niagara Region saw 1,000 percent and 1,500 percent increases, respectively. Ending safer supply and redirecting funds to evidence-based addiction treatments like methadone and Suboxone could be a more effective way to get drugs off our streets, starving criminal organizations, and preventing new addicts. 4. Use the notwithstanding clause to force treatment if needed When elected officials pass legislation intended to curb crime, activist judges have a tendency to thwart these reforms by inventing new, questionable Charter rights. Ontario should move ahead with tough-on-crime policies like pushing those using drugs in public into treatment, even if it means invoking Section 33 of the Charter, the notwithstanding clause, which immunizes legislation from being overturned by courts for five years at a time. Critics have said that the use of the clause undermines fundamental freedoms, but that argument presupposes that the judiciary is not making up rights. When judges use eccentric interpretations to impose their policy preferences, the notwithstanding clause becomes a perfectly reasonable response. That’s what happened in B.C., when a provincial judge ruled that addicts may have a Charter right to use illicit drugs anywhere in public unless the province is blanketed in supervised consumption sites. That’s also what happened in 2024, when an Ontario Superior Court inexplicably ruled that the Region of Waterloo cannot evict homeless encampments unless shelters are made “accessible” by permitting open drug use. The Ford government’s new Safer Municipalities Act bans consuming drugs in public places and allows police officers to “direct” a person consuming drugs in public to addiction treatment or other services in lieu of getting a ticket. The province likely would have gone further than merely allowing police to “direct” them to treatment if they didn’t expect to face a Charter challenge. Why not commit to building treatment centres and forcing people who use hard drugs in public to choose between jail and treatment? Use the notwithstanding clause if necessary. These obviously aren’t the only solutions to growing crime and disorder in Ontario, and they deserve to be debated, but we hope this list will remind people that there is a lot more the province can do to cut crime and to make our streets safe again.