Meet Lisa Toner

A few times a week I’m packing up harm reduction gear – naloxone, safer injection, safer inhalation gear – into a backpack, putting it on my back and walking, you know, anywhere between seven and 14 kilometers to provide frontline services to folks in a couple of, sort of, the regions of our downtown core.
Our geographical area is comparable to the size of the country of France. So in some of the areas that that we’re supposed to be providing services to it could easily be a three and a half hour drive, four hour drive. Roads can get closed in the winter time and create situations where we can’t even get to some of the areas that we need to provide services to.
The devastation that the overdose and drug policy crisis has caused in our community, in our province, and across the country is like nothing I could have ever imagined when I started this work. It’s so challenging to continue to watch friends, family members, community members, those who access our services continue to die of very preventable deaths as a result of the overdose crisis and feeling like me as an individual isn’t doing enough, that the government isn’t doing enough, that the response that we’re looking for – it has yet to come.