Drugs & Gambling: Two Under-the-Radar Policy Issues in Ontario
Throughout the 2025 Ontario election period, you’ve seen plenty of content from ARPA on two of our key issues: euthanasia and gender identity. Other key provincial issues from ARPA’s perspective include policies related to abortion, prostitution, pornography, conscience, education, and elder care. Our aim is to highlight whenever anything noteworthy happens on these issues. But it’s been a quiet election on all these issues, and actually a fairly quiet three years since the 2022 provincial election.
But there are two issues which the government has addressed recently that we would like to address briefly. The first is Ontario’s pivot in its approach to the drug overdose crisis. The second is its policy on gambling.
Ontario’s Drug Crisis
Until last year, Ontario promoted safe supply, supervised consumption sites, and harm reduction as the approach to dealing with drugs in the province. “Safe supply” refers to publicly funded, publicly provided drugs. Supervised consumption sites are places where addicts can use (illegal) drugs while medical personnel watch and assist in case of overdose. Safe supply and supervised consumption sites are key components of harm reduction policies, which seek to avoid overdose and death from drug use by providing less potent and cleaner drugs rather than by prohibiting drug use. Harm reduction focuses on helping people stay alive despite drug addiction, rather than helping people overcome drug addiction.
Safe supply and harm reduction have manifestly failed. The data show that they make communities less safe. Ontario’s health minister recently noted that violent crime was up 146% near Ottawa’s supervised consumption site, and homicide was 450% higher near Hamilton’s supervised consumption site in the urban core. Neighbourhoods near supervised consumption sites saw an increase in break-ins, shootings, robberies, and homicide. In addition, government-provided safe supply drugs are often sold in the community so addicts can afford stronger drugs, meaning safe supply can contribute to more drug use.
At the beginning of December, the Ontario government passed a new law seeking to address the drug overdose crisis, shifting from a harm reduction approach toward an abstinence-based model. In early 2024, Ontario had 25 supervised consumption sites, known as Consumption and Treatment Services. Bill 223, an omnibus bill titled the Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act, banned consumption sites within 200 metres of a school or daycare. Consequently, 10 of Ontario’s supervised consumption sites will close by the end of March. The government will not approve any applications for new sites. Municipalities and local public health boards will also need approval from the provincial government to participate in the federal government’s safe supply program.
In line with a new focus on recovery, the province is launching 27 homelessness and addiction recovery treatment (HART) hubs and nearly 400 highly supportive housing units. The treatment hubs will emphasize recovery, care, and meeting basic needs, while also providing social services and employment support.
Although the Ontario government has not pivoted entirely away from supervised consumption and safe supply, Bill 223 was a big step in promoting recovery and care.
The NDP opposed the Ford government’s move to close the supervised consumption sites, and the Greens promised to reopen them. The Liberal party, however, supported the government’s Bill 223 and promises to expand treatment, recovery, rehabilitation, and wraparound supports to reduce opioid use and help people recover from addiction.
If you’re interested in reading more about the drug crisis and responses to it, check out ARPA Canada’s 4-part article series about the issue.
Gambling in Ontario
Ontario’s approach to gambling has impacted many people’s lives. Gambling, of course, is nothing new, but current technologies make it easy to engage in at any time and in any place. Users can now gamble 24/7 online. In 2021, the federal government legalized sports betting and permitted provinces to regulate such activity, something which Ontario quickly took advantage of.
Prior to 2022, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) had a monopoly on gambling in Ontario. Online gambling through the OLG alone grew from an average of 31,000 customers per month in 2017/18 to nearly 257,0000 per month in 2021/2022. Then the Ontario government ended OLG’s monopoly and opened up the market to private online providers in 2022, creating iGaming Ontario to provide a framework and provincial oversight. By 2024, iGaming Ontario had 1.9 million active player accounts.
Ontarians wagered an estimated $18.7 billion in the 2nd quarter of 2024, a 32% increase from 2023. Gambling accounted for 2.1% of all economic activity in Ontario last year. Online gambling from private providers generated revenues of $738 million in the 2nd quarter of 2024, an increase of more than 35% over the previous year. The Ontario government collects 20% of iGaming’s revenue.
But gambling is a moral issue that causes real harm. According to Statistics Canada, over 300,000 Canadians were at moderate-to-severe risk of problem gambling in 2018 – three years before sports gaming was legalized federally and four years before iGaming started. While there are supposedly measures in place to help prevent gambling addiction, it remains a significant problem that can lead to marital breakdown, financial hardship, suicide, crime, reduced health, and increased substance use.
Government cannot wash its hands of the harm while collecting gaming revenues and allowing the industry to proliferate. Those already struggling with poverty are among those most at risk of becoming problem gamblers. The Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling recently noted that “gambling poses a threat to public health, the control of which requires a substantial expansion and tightening of gambling industry regulation.”
In 2023, four NDP MPPs introduced a bill that would have prohibited the promotion of online gambling sites through advertising, with the threat of penalties ranging from $25,000 to $1 million. Unfortunately, the bill did not advance beyond first reading. Last year, Ontario prohibited the use of athletes in advertising to promote gambling, but the government has not addressed advertising more broadly.
The Progressive Conservatives initiated these recent changes in provincial gambling policy and made iGaming Ontario an independent crown corporation in 2024. However, the issue of gambling has not been addressed in any of the major parties’ platforms.
Ontario Election
Both of these issues have a significant impact on the lives of many Ontarians. As with various other provincial issues, policies around drugs and gambling have received little attention during the Ontario election period. As Ontario heads into the final days of the election period, pray for the next government as they address these two issues alongside so many other provincial policy priorities.
