It’s hard to overstate the need to help the mentally ill and addicted access health services in Ontario.

So a bill introduced by the Ford government this week to establish a Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence, which promises to help them do just that, sure sounds like a welcome step.

As does a section of the legislation that sets out the province’s plan to join a class-action lawsuit launched by British Columbia to hold drug manufacturers and wholesalers accountable for their roles in the ongoing opioid crisis.

The government has even said it will invest any award from the litigation directly into front-line mental health and addiction services.

Still, with the Ford government, nothing is ever quite as advertised.

Consider, first, the fact that no money has been budgeted to establish the agency and in making its announcement the government couldn’t say what its annual budget will be or how many people will work there.

Second, the promise to use any money it manages to get through litigation on front-line services is all well and good. But right now it’s the government that needs to fund those services and, so far, the Ford government’s track record on that is not good. Particularly on addiction services.

It doesn’t get anymore front line than supervised injection sites, where addicts have access to clean needles to prevent the transmission of deadly diseases and someone on hand to reverse an overdose if need be. Staff can also help addicts access counselling to get off drugs.

And yet the Ford government has cut the number of approved supervised injection sites to 15 from 21. And they did it at a time when more sites, not fewer, are needed.

In 2017 nearly 4,000 Canadians died of opioid overdoses — 1,100 of them in Ontario — and the crisis is only getting worse.

We know that supervised injection sites have successfully reversed thousands of overdoses in Ontario so imagine how many more lives could be saved if there were sites everywhere they’re needed.

The very people the province claims its centre for excellence will help may well be dead and beyond aid if it doesn’t reverse its backward decision on supervised injection sites.

And in more slip-sliding on the addiction front, the Ford government has also refused to enact the Health Sector Transparency Act.

It was passed by the previous Liberal government to shine a much needed spotlight on how drugs — such as opioids — are marketed to doctors through free dinners, trips and other benefits.

Considering an estimated 75 per cent of those who are addicted to opioids got hooked through prescriptions from physicians — who were misinformed about the highly addictive nature of those drugs through those marketing programs — you would think the Ford government would enact it.

On mental health, the province’s “front line” track record is little better.

For example, it is changing the definition of “disability” in the Ontario Disability Support Program that will make it more difficult for people with mental health issues to qualify for support. And since the government also cut the planned 3 per cent welfare increase in half they’ll be left struggling just to feed themselves let alone deal with their mental health challenges.

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A mental health and addictions centre of excellence may turn out to be a useful tool to help people navigate Ontario’s health system, or it may simply be more smoke and mirrors from the Ford government. It’s too early to tell.

But what’s already easy to see is that any centre of excellence will have an awfully limited impact if it’s not backed up by the front-line services people need.