Tues Dec 9 – Local News & Events, Plus an Editorial on Open Drug Use in Our Community

Owen Sound area news and submissions involving Westario, Greenbelt Foundation, BWDSB, Owen Sound Attack, Grey Highlands, City of Owen Sound, and more, plus an editorial on open drug use.

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Saginaw enters an icy Owen Sound harbour on December 4, 2025. Photo credit: David Huntley

EDITORIAL OPINION

There’s something I don’t see come up often in the growing, sometimes heated conversation about addiction, housing, and public drug use:

What happens to the people who are actually trying to get clean?

Owen Sound is not unique in facing this crisis. The visibility of drug use in public spaces — near shelters, grocery stores, health clinics, and parks — has become an unfortunate but accepted reality in many communities.

Some say this is compassion. That tolerating open use, even if not legalized, is the price we pay for harm reduction.

But there’s a deeper harm we’re not talking about.

If you were trying to break free of addiction — really trying — how would you stay clean in an environment where drug use is a daily part of the streetscape? Where you have to navigate your way past and around active use to access food supports or medical care?

Where housing programs have people using in the hallways, and on the doorstep? Where walking to work is a minefield of people openly using the substance(s) you just spent weeks or months trying to break free from?

We hear the concerns of business owners and parents about safety. We hear agencies talk about equity and access. But in the middle of this, there are people — some of whom seriously, desperately want change — stuck in systems that (however unintentionally) trap them in proximity to the very thing they’re trying to escape.

It bothers me to see someone injecting, snorting, or ingesting drugs in the open. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s also out of grief and hopelessness for them. I can’t imagine telling someone with alcohol addiction to change and recover — to smarten up, “get a real job” and go straight — then expecting them to run a gauntlet of liquor bottles and open bars. Every. Single. Day.

And yet, this is exactly what we expect of those addicted to opioids or stimulants like meth.

It’s true that this is rooted in the provincial failures of a fractured mental health and addictions system. But it’s also a municipal issue. What are we permitting, and where — and at what cost?

Yes, we need to meet people where they’re at. But that’s not a substitute for giving people somewhere to go. Somewhere that doesn’t surround them with the very thing they’re trying to escape.

Social services meeting people where they’re at doesn’t absolve the government of its responsibility to ensure those people have spaces to access, places to live, that support recovery rather than undermining it.

Right now, with open drug use woven into the same public spaces that offer housing, food, and basic care, I can only imagine what it feels like to be someone trying to quit. It must feel like there’s nowhere left to go — and nowhere left to run, either.

We welcome letters to the editor, on this topic and others that matter to you.

Submit to: owensoundcurrenteditor@gmail.com

Public Notices

• Owen Sound City Council will hold a Special Council meeting on Monday, December 15, 2025, at 2:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall, to consider a staff report respecting proposed changes to the Conservation Authorities Act.

Keep reading for upcoming events, obituaries, and local news, including updates on the collision between a pickup truck and a school bus on Highway 10 yesterday, a look at Westario’s proposed sale to ERTH and what it may mean for residents, a funding announcement to further conservation at Bognor Marsh, and a lot more.

~ Miranda Miller, Editor

Local News