I once had to manage a poisoning for someone in this program where the "coach" tried to blame everyone but himself for the incident (which was largely his fault). 🤢
Here's that 2018-2020 history of Dr Rob Tanguay, one of two physicians named to Preston Manning's COVID review.
Since then, he's very much held the course... 1/ safesupply.ca/one_of_alberta…
(sorry for the wait)
In 2020, he helped the UCP justify closure of life-critical supervised consumption sites as a panelist on a wined-and-dined provincial review committee.
He later expressed something resembling regret. 2/ cbc.ca/news/canada/ca….
Next, he co-founded the cross-Canada Newly Institute for privatized psychedelic therapy, mainly geared toward police and military veterans with PTSD.
Before opening, they were valued at $15million in seed money. In other words, the guy's loaded. 3/ newsfilecorp.com/release/94601/…
Coming out of the gates with addiction/mental health framing, which is extremely corrosive, as it ignores the primary reason why people are dying: a poisoned unregulated drug supply.
Milliken: "addiction, homelessness, and public safety issues" -- they're doing everything they can to conflate these three things.
This is wrong: by far, the people in greatest danger are those whose basic needs aren't being met, and it's because we turn our back on them.
This column is part of an attack on systematically marginalized Calgarians on the eve of #YYC's provincial announcement of a Calgary task force to deal with public safety.
Tuesday's #YEG announcement set up clear violations of municipal power. Expect similar tomorrow. 🧵 1/
A favourite Rick Bell pastime is conflating the "drug site" (supervised consumption site -- the only guaranteed death-free way to use unregulated drugs) with public safety concerns.
It's wrong. See a criminologist breakdown why: 2/
"The drugs and the effects of the drugs" are not the problem, they are a symptom.
The problem: our refusal to meet basic needs and response to drug use that facilitates surviving awful conditions.
And violent crime isn't trending upward. Look: 3/ calgary.ca/cps/statistics…
We've got EPS Chief McFee talking about "zero tolerance for open-air drug use" in a city of a million with two underfunded supervised consumption sites and no safe supply program that would allow people to use safely on their own.
Now of course David Staples given the mic to ask about involuntary treatment for "people who refuse treatment", one of his favourite talking points.
Next, "we all know Indigenous ppl are overrepresented in the justice system..." dovetailing into an argument for forced treatment.
In this week's critical @edmontonjournal piece, @JunkerAnna reported over 80 deaths per 100,000 in two of three areas of Lethbridge.
Meanwhile, First Nations neighbouring the city, including Piikani and Kainai, are being DEVASTATED by poisonings. 3/8 edmontonjournal.com/news/local-new…