You might be fooled into thinking it’s a prank, but a number of posters bearing the Ontario Public Health logo that popped up around Toronto on Monday are not just an elaborate April Fool’s joke.
The posters and stickers were first seen at various locations in the city like bus shelters and boarded up buildings in November, 2024. After being removed or naturally wearing off, they reappeared at various spots on March 31 – the day Safe Consumption Sites (SCS) across the province were originally set to close.
An Ontario judge granted an injunction for them to stay open for another 30 days while he considers a Charter challenge of a new provincial law that bans the sites from operating within 200 metres of schools or daycares.
The posters read “Ontario Public Health Notice – Zoning Change – Injection Site Relocation. Starting April 1, 2025, this location will become an injection site.” On the bottom right corner is a blue Ontario Health logo. On the left, a QR code that can be scanned for more information.
A poster suggesting the location it is posted in will become an injection site following the closure of SCSs in Ontario, seen on the corner of Yonge and Gerrard streets on March 31, 2025. Credit: Hannah Stahl.
The QR code opens a Linktree page with a logo that reads “Save Our Sites” along with the handle @saveoursites. It then lists numerous links to media articles and petitions related to the new provincial law which would result in the closure of 10 SCSs province wide, five of which are in Toronto.
There are no active social media accounts using the handle listed, apart from a TikTok page with no posts. As such, it is unclear who is behind the guerilla poster campaign. Harm reduction advocates say regardless of who is responsible, it’s making a poignant point.
“I’d say it’s political satire, but it’s not saying anything that’s not entirely true. The message of the posters seems to be that when you take down Supervised Consumption Sites from a community, different areas become unsupervised consumption sites like bus shelters, like abandoned buildings, alleyways or parks,” says street nurse Hannah Stahl.
“We in healthcare and frontline services and people who use drugs — we know that this is real. This is what’s going to be the case when Supervised Consumption Sites are taken away. And it goes directly against data and clinical knowledge and best practice and the lived experiences of people who use drugs and work with people who use drugs.”
Stahl says she does not know who is creating the posters, which were posted on the walls of a jewelry store in the Yonge and Gerrard Street area, the Parliament branch of the Toronto Public Library and MP Marci Ien’s constituency office, among other spots.
“It would have to be like a very well coordinated group of advocates, because they’re showing up all across Toronto and they’ve shown up several times now,” she says.
A poster suggesting the location it is posted in will become an injection site following the closure of SCSs in Ontario, seen on the from window of MP Marci Ien’s constituency office on March 31, 2025. Credit: Hannah Stahl.
When the posters first started making an appearance in November, Ontario Health told CityNews they do not support the messaging in the posters.
“Ontario Health has no involvement in these posters. We did not consent to the use of our logo nor do we condone the improper use of it,” they said in a statement.
The province gave SCSs the option to convert to Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs which do not provide safe consumption supports, but offer primary care, addiction care, mental health supports, access to employment support and other social services. A total of 28 HART Hubs are to be created across the province.
Stahl says HART Hubs are an “untested model.”
“The government is putting more than four times the amount of funding into them than what was needed to run the [safe consumption] sites, which are a proven model that have saved lives that people depend on already. [We’ve] already demonstrated the efficacy of these, and they’re actually pretty cost effective,” she says.
“But the government is throwing away all of that investment and history and trust that is really hard to build with these marginalized communities, and telling them to go to this untested program that many advocates are really skeptical is even going to work in any meaningful way.”
She adds that despite the granting of an injunction to stay open for another 30 days, funding has been pulled from SCSs that are slated for closure and they cannot continue to operate, leaving those who use them without an alternative.
On Tuesday, the Government of Ontario announced that “nine drug injection sites located within 200 metres of a school or child-care centre have successfully transitioned into and opened as new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs.“
Stahl says many of them are not fully operational.
“The [safe consumption] sites closed [on March 31] and the HART Hubs are not open yet. We’re in a public health crisis, and for right now and for the foreseeable future, people aren’t able to access even these HART hubs,” she says.
“The government is saying they’re open, but if you actually talk to the organizations, I don’t know of any in Toronto that are operational [or] anywhere close to being operational. Most of them haven’t even hired the full compliments of employees for the programs. Lots of them need to do renovations that haven’t even started yet,”
Survey finds majority of Canadian support harm reduction services
A new survey by Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE) shows that “53 per cent of Canadians support harm reduction programs and services, compared to 19 per cent who oppose them.”
The highest level of support is found among Gen Z respondents – with 63 per cent supporting harm reduction programs and services. Among Millenials, 57 per cent express support and among Gen Xers and Boomers, 48 per cent support.
In addition, the survey found that 59 per cent of Canadians agree that harm reduction programs save the lives of people who use drugs and 45 per cent feel they encourage continued drug use.
More than half of Canadians (52 per cent) support more government funding for these programs and 49 per cent want the programs to be available to those who use drugs in their neighbourhoods.
A total of 1,500 Canadian residents aged 18 or older participated in the online survey between March 12 and March 14, 2025. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of the same size yields a margin of error of ±3 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Click here for the full survey and detailed results.