Tories, city spar over drug exemption request

Province pans plan to allow narcotics, while health officials refuse to back down

- ROB FERGUSON AND ALYSHAH HASHAM

Toronto is refusing to back down from what Premier Doug Ford's government calls a "dangerous" push to have Health Canada decriminalize illegal drugs.

The battle lines hardened Thursday after Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Solicitor General Michael Kerzner released a blunt two-page letter to Toronto medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa.

It was a formal notification that Ontario is "100 per cent opposed" and warned of consequences if Toronto's proposal to decriminalize small amounts of illegal drugs for personal use is not scrapped.

"I have no intention of doing that," Toronto board of health chair Chris Moise declared hours after the letter was released publicly.

"If Toronto Public Health fails to rescind its misguided application, we will be forced to explore all options available to us," Jones and Kerzner warned in the letter.

"We've seen what happens in other jurisdictions. We don't want to have more accessibility of illegal drugs, of illicit drugs, of dangerous drugs in our streets," the solicitor general told reporters later.

Moise acknowledged the federal government has said the application will not be granted without provincial approval - effectively stalling it.

Both Moise and Mayor Olivia Chow defended the decriminalization approach as a small part of a plan to tackle a crisis that is killing more than 500 Torontonians a year.