50 Comments

Vancouver is a beautiful city and Canada is a beautiful country. I hope the truckers can inspire all of the people to rally together against tyranny.

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Ha. Glasses on a duck. You are on the wroooooong substack here methinks.

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Not sure what that idiom means, but I thought the author resigned from the CBC because she was tired of the groupthink. Hugh Manatee is clearly still part of that groupthink though.

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From Zola, La Terre.

And I'm a three legged pineapple.That's what she says. Haven't seen any evidence of it yet. Doubt I will. I guess we'll see if I'm wrong.

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Inspire us to what?!!? Protest against American border regulations? Protest against the federal government over health care that is controlled by each province and territory? Wave "FUCK TRUDEAU" banners? If there was a stupider protest in recent memory, none comes to mind.

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The protests aren't that stupid... so far Trudeau ran to a cabin in the woods. Erin O Toole got fired, Saskatchewan is dropping all mandates and restrictions, Quebec dropped its ridiculous notion to tax the unvaxxed and it looks like Kenny is going to cave in Alberta. Not bad for a protest that only really got going just a week ago.

Not too shabby!

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1. Trudeau is a schmuck, but it's possible he might have COVID-19. The timing is suspicious, though.

2. Bergen is a Canadian MAGAt which will hopefully keep the CPC in the wilderness for decades to come.

3. The unvaxxed tax was a terrible idea from a xenophobic and racist province.

4. What is Kenney caving in to? The border is federal land and the RCMP will eventually move in, of course, much more gently than had the protesters been indigenous. The hypocrisy that Kenney is revealing over the blockade is important. He attacked indigenous blockades with an unconstitutional law. Now that the protesters are white men, he's pissing his pants.

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The various politicians and self-appointed experts running the pandemic response are, by and large, too chickenshit to reopen society, so someone needs to create some pressure on them to return to normalcy.

In that sense, I think the trucker protests are a success.

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Kenny just caved on provincial mandates... hilarious

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Ah, you again. You're like herpes but without the sex. Do let me know when you have a coherent thought worth reading. You can resume goose stepping around your basement with your mother's panties on your face.

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I think you're wrong about the truckers, but this comment cracked me up.

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Do you ever just stop while you're sitting on the floor in your mother's house dress, masturbating with peanut butter and realize, "I am fucking nuts"?

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My husband was an addiction therapist at Canada's largest mental health institution. He quit last year after management, again, reduced treatment. On top of that, management imposed strict requirements around use of pronouns by program participants -- like the biggest problem being encountered by someone trying to break a meth addiction is the embarassment of using the wrong pronoun. Aside from the paltry (and getting smaller!) resources being directed toward people battling addictions, we also need to talk about the lack of training/professionalism of those people charged with dispensing treatment. Right now, the woke social workers at my husband's former workplace are condescending to those with addictions. The underlying assumption by them is that their own beliefs are paramount to the treatment of those battling addictions. It's an abuse of power. It should be unlawful for anyone with the power to treat a patient to insist on a political agenda as part of that treatment.

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Feb 3, 2022·edited Feb 3, 2022

Here in Vancouver myself, and my ex husband can’t get off the stuff. He went from a family man working on becoming an Anglican priest to a sometimes homeless construction worker. He’s tried nearly everything to get back on the straight and narrow. While I appreciate treatment options and empathy for those struggling, it’s not enough. Someone needs to be investigating the cargo coming into Vancouver on a daily basis. Someone needs to be investigating the way our government profits from this. Someone needs to be investigating the casinos. Etc etc. And opening more spaces without wait lists for ANYONE who wants treatment TODAY. A drug addict ain’t gonna wait for much of anything. It’s too late. My heart breaks for all the people suffering from this crisis. We’ve lost more in BC to this than we have from covid. More should know that as well.

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I wrote this a couple of years ago for a friend who died of an overdose. I will become a paid subscriber to your podcast when the pandemic ends and I can go back to work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_w29Nwav6k

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Definitely hard to feel the love for a government that legalized pot when they claim to have our best interest in mind. I can only imagine how this will effect the opioid death rate in the next decade. Hopefully some of these programs you mentioned will really gain momentum to help counteract this!

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Legalizing cannabis was a good thing, but the way that it was implemented was crappy. Small growers are only just getting into the legal side of the business. Cannabis use will not worsen the opioid crisis as there is no lethal dose of cannabis possible.

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The government only legalized it to gain votes and taxes. We will have to agree to disagree that pot use won't increase other drug use - as I have personally seen otherwise.

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There is no evidence of cannabis as a gateway drug. Actual peer-reviewed studies. Anecdotal evidence is irrelevant. We do not agree to disagree. You're simply wrong.

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If you say so, random pothead from the internet.

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Here is a summary paper based on 11 studies and peer reviewed by 5 experts on addiction and substance abuse. https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/q/2019/qa-cannabis-gateway.pdf?sc_lang=en

P.S. Here's a tip: when you're trying to assert a point without data, and you start calling people names, you have lost the argument.

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Looking up and grabbing links to send would require more time and effort than I care to give. That doesn't make me wrong, it makes me to uninterested to give a shit.

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"I can't go to the pub and shoot whiskey with any bros. It is because of SAFETY."

So something GOOD has come out of that mess of contradictory "safety" rules.

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Politicians don't care since the homeless and drug addicts don't vote. I know perfectly normal people die from taking drugs. These so-called safe injection sites are just a way to pretend that the government is doing something. It would take an intervention to get people off the street.

The best thing is to never start drugs or even experiment with them.

If you are having a bad day, sleep it off. The next day may be better.

Unfortunately, many people are feeling hopeless and some use drugs and/or alcohol to deal with the pain. Don't do it! The pain will return with a vengeance.

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Great interview… I’ve been in the trenches of mental health and substance use work in various ways for 20+ years. I started as a undercover floor walking security guard mainly arresting substance users who stole as a way to support their habit, found my way into a role as a jail guard, saw the absolute futility of the revolving door of the system, got into support work and now work as an ED of a large mental health serving NPO where I get create meaningful and effective ways of supporting people.

People don’t care about the drug poisoning deaths because it doesn’t affect the privileged in a way creates enough impact to change the minds of the majority. It’s still thought of as a fringe minority happening, and people are burnt out by life, the pandemic and numbed to this harsh reality.

Policy policy policy… decriminalize, treat the health issue, provide a safe supply that gives people opportunity to change their lives instead of being beaten down by a life of compounded traumas and charges that relegate a person to hopelessness and further suffering. Raise the voice of experience and employ that expertise to help others.

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What are the death stats in Vancouver since the change to injection sites?

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Tara Henley, you are a true trail blazing leader. Thank you for the work you continue to do in “lighting up” the actual issues our actual leaders and too scared to discuss.

I actually don’t want to believe they are scared but rather don’t know how to approach communication/conversation/discussion and have it moderated in healthy and positive ways.

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Deep state take here… on purpose or just allowed to continue? Treating the problem costs a considerable amount of up front investment that generates next to zero economic return and we all know the gov doesn’t invest in long term fixes. Nor does it easily change policy. The system isn’t threatened by dying drug users. It ignores them because it’s more cost effective. The truth is always simpler than all the noise.

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Have to agree with Jason. Tara needed to push back on the ridiculous notion that society is inherently a white led racist enterprise.. Woke nonsense IMO

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No I haven't shudder at the thought of what that video will be about..

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Feb 4, 2022·edited Feb 4, 2022

Went and checked, and yeah, I think I saw that bit before... in a similar vein I did watch a comedy bit by Russell Peters. Mr Peters was saying much the same thing.

... All I can say is if Canada was as racist as the fellow being interviewed accuses it of being then we whites would not have opened the borders to all the black, brown and yellow people that are flooding the country right now.

These intersectional views of race need to be confronted head on...

They are not helpful.

The ctrl-left and the alt-right have same views about race for the same ends and the same means. They both seek to divide rather than unite. It takes just one drop of brown in the eyes of the alt-right and one drop of brown for the ctrl-left to make person not white.

One feeds of the other and as long as these notions go unchallenged in the cultural war the strife and division will continue.

I think it was a missed opportunity in this interview..

Just my two nickels...

(ed. it used to be cents but inflation had its effects)

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deletedFeb 4, 2022·edited Feb 4, 2022
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We are all in line for replacement.

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Howling at the moon here. Sit back and enjoy the decadence.

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Well stated. Thank you for that. If we don't allow diversity of view points we decrease the likelihood of finding solutions to meaningful problems. With open-mindedness the best ideas can rise to the top and we are less likely to be manipulated because of limited understanding.

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Feb 3, 2022·edited Feb 3, 2022

Do you think this is a recent phenomenon or are you just describing how knowledge works in the context of being human.

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