The Ford government’s encampment crackdown bill has come to pass.
The Ontario legislature has passed the Safer Municipalities Act, which aims to break up homeless encampments and would allow police to confront, arrest and fine anyone they suspect of using drugs in public.
Bill 6 allows fines of up to $10,000 for people found to have broken trespassing or public-consumption laws. Breaking the new consumption law could also mean a six-month jail sentence.
“Parks and public spaces are for families,” Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Rob Flack, who introduced Bill 6, previously told The Trillium. “They’re for kids. They're meant to be enjoyed for fun, not fear.”
The bill passed third reading in a 74 to 39 vote Tuesday.
As votes for the bill were being counted, Aren Nelson stood up from their gallery seat in the house and told MPPs the legislation was “killing people” before being escorted out by a legislature guard.
Nelson, who previously lived in shelters, told The Trillium they became furious watching MPPs pass Bill 6, which they believe is “directly attacking” unhoused people who live in encampments and particularly those using drugs.
“We're people and I don't understand why the government can't see that,” they said.
The new law is vulnerable to a Charter challenge, according to Harini Sivalingam, director of the Equality Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
“Bill 6 impacts fundamental rights and freedoms of some of the most vulnerable people in our province,” she said. “It will give police the power to remove an individual from their home in encampment, regardless of whether or not they have somewhere to go. It also will subject people who are unhoused to fines that they can't afford to pay for remaining in an encampment after being told to vacate.”
An Ontario court has found that unhoused people’s rights are violated if they’re forced to leave an encampment when there are not enough shelter spaces, she added.
The government’s decision to close supervised injection sites in combination with Bill 6 is likely to have the effect of further isolating drug users from support networks, which is life-threatening in the case of an overdose, she added.
A legal challenge would likely concern the Charter rights to the life, liberty and security of the person and equality, and would likely come from legal advocacy groups who defend the interests of unhoused people, and the CCLA would likely be interested in supporting the case, Sivalingam said.
“We feel that the government is seeking shortcuts that will actually impact important rights and freedoms, instead of investing in long-term and meaningful solutions to address the very real crises of homelessness and addiction to substances that communities are facing,” she added.
“These are very complex social problems, and we know that they do require long-term solutions, but not quick fixes like Bill 6 that will only end up criminalizing people who are the most vulnerable members of our society.”
The bill was initially introduced last year with the support of mayors of at least a dozen Ontario municipalities who asked Ford to pass legislation to break up encampments.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown was one of the mayors who called for the Ford government to intervene on encampments and told The Trillium after Bill 17 passed that he supports the province’s efforts to “protect public spaces.”
“We have seen our encampments riddled with addictions and sometimes weapons,” he said in a statement. “I am glad the province is finally taking it seriously.”
According to the province, there were at least 703 encampments in Ontario as of March 2025.
Asked about criticisms of Bill 6, Flack spokesperson Alexandra Sanita pointed to $75.5 million in funding the province pledged this year to help municipalities create more emergency shelter spaces and affordable housing units.
Sanita also pointed to plans to create 28 new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs.
“These hubs will add 560 highly supportive housing units and connect people to the addiction and mental health services they need while supporting their transition to stable, long-term housing,” she said in a statement.
Diana Chan McNally of the Encampment Justice Coalition has been outspoken in opposing the bill, including taking part in a demonstration at Queen’s Park against the Safer Municipalities Act last week.
She told The Trillium after the bill passed that it will deliver higher policing costs and less community safety as officers are pulled away from “serious crime.”
“What Ontarians won't see is an end to encampments, but rather an endless game of whac-a-mole that pushes vulnerable people from park to park with no housing — the only real solution to homelessness — in sight,” Chan McNally in a statement.
The bill was opposed by most NDP and Liberal MPPs but was supported by Grits Jonathan Tsao and Stephen Blais.
“I think we can all agree that using hard drugs in public shouldn't be allowed,” Blais told The Trillium. “Hard drugs are illegal and so if you do hard drugs in public, and you're warned about it, and then you continue to do that, then there are consequences for that.”
He also said he believes Bill 6 is giving municipalities what they requested and it will be up to cities and service providers to ensure unhoused people aren’t moved from parks to jails.
“If the municipalities want the tools to move people along, okay, here are the tools,” Blais said. “Now you have an obligation to provide the space to move them in somewhere more appropriate.”
— With files from Jessica Smith Cross
Correction: A previous version of this story referred to Jonathan Tsao as an "Ottawa-area" Grit. He represents a Toronto riding. The Trillium regrets the error.
