Holding signs and photographs of loved ones who have lost their lives to overdose, advocates and community members rallied in downtown Toronto Saturday in opposition to the Ford government’s plan to defund supervised consumption sites.“These sites save lives, and the closure of these sites is just gonna cause death,” said one demonstrator who was among dozens who turned out to voice their concerns and listen to a rotation of passionate speakers near two facilities on the verge of shutting down later this summer in the Sherbourne and Queen streets area.“The challenge with the current provincial government is that they try to force us into having an either-or scenario,” said CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn. “Safe consumption saves lives, harm reduction saves lives, it shouldn’t be a choice between one or the other, it should be both, and.”The closures of the Moss Park and Fred Victor supervised consumption sites come after the Ford government announced last month it would cut funding to all provincial locations, replacing them with new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment hubs, also known as HART hubs. The government says the hubs take an abstinence-based approach to addiction recovery. But community workers say this decision will only cause more harm.“There’s so much that goes on in these sites that’s just about connecting with people, learning about people, building trust, people who have no other place to go to be recognized and known,” said Noel Glover, a community health worker with the Moss Park Consumption and Treatment Services.Related:Premier Doug Ford, health minister defend supervised consumption site closuresToronto’s donor-funded consumption sites bracing for fallout of Ontario funding cutsHarm reduction advocates call Ford government decision to end consumption site funding ‘cowardly’The first supervised consumption site in Ontario opened in 2017. By 2024, the provincial government passed legislation banning sites from operating within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres, arguing they raise public-safety concerns. But officials say the closure of the sites will only create more issues.“We are going to see a spike in different things, a spike in needles all over the places, a spike in long waits at the hospital lines, because most of those people who are coming to us are not going to be going to the hospitals,” explained Fahad Amir Afrika, a harm reduction worker at Fred Victor.The seven defunded sites across Ontario have been tasked with a 90-day wind-down period. Funding for the Fred Victor and the Moss Park Centres comes to an end on June 13th.“We are the bridge to the group of people that has been abandoned, that has been deserted. A group of people that most people think are not human enough,” said Afrika.On Friday, the Ministry of Health announced the government is ending funding for the last remaining provincially funded supervised consumption site in Kingston, which will close on September 30 and transition into a HART hub.