Euan Thomson
@elsthomson
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Certified dog's breakfast sous-chef He/him • #LandBack • 🍉 Analysis @ Drug Data Decoded ⬇️
Mohkinstsis (Calgary)
Joined March 2011
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Pinned Tweet
"Alberta police chiefs organized support for UCP election campaign"
🧵 A strategy document obtained through a freedom of information request reveals a coordinated effort by Alberta's top police brass to maintain drug criminalization "before the May election." 1/
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Witnessing drug use is not a safety risk. Witnessing drug use is not a safety risk. Witnessing drug use is not a safety risk. Witnessing drug use is not a safety risk. Witnessing drug use is not a safety risk. Witnessing drug use is not a safety risk. Witnessing drug use is not
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When people insist on lifting restrictions, what they're really saying is we should stop protecting vulnerable citizens.
And that is fascism, plain and simple.
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Why are there CPS officers wearing thin blue line pins at the drag protector event
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SCOOP: Last Door Recovery Society was handed control of patient data from all publicly funded recovery facilities in Alberta by an agreement w/ the govt & Alberta Health Services, prompting violations of informed consent & questionable handling of patient data privacy. 🧵 1/
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#Calgary
Police data show 90% of property crime is committed by a small number of repeat offenders who spend the proceeds on drugs.
Worth repeating many times:
To solve 90% of property crime, just give them the drugs.
We're talking $50 a day - 1/8 of one police officer wage.
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@ABDanielleSmith
Actually, harm reduction saves lives.
1. Identify harms to youth (e.g. unprotected sex, lack of education).
2. Meet them where they're at (e.g. condom dispensing, sex ed).
3. Measure outcomes (e.g. teen pregnancy & STI rates).
It's good policy. What's your solution?
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SCOOP 🧵
Documents reveal Edmonton Oilers executives pressure the City and Police to clear unhoused people from near Oilers property, weaponizing decampments and water source relocation to address 'safety' concerns. 1/
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I've seen some amazing things in activism.
I will never NEVER forget the courage of the young women leading the stand against Calgary Police on Thursday night.
So inspiring. Get behind them Calgary — these are the heroes you've been waiting for.
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Stampede = Piles of cocaine about to hit Calgary.
Stay safe folks: inadvertent fentanyl poisonings can occur with cocaine use. (I lost a friend this exact way.)
Don't let your friends use alone and pack Naloxone! Hope all those corporate booths plan to keep a kit on hand.
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The Vancouver Police Chief admitted there's been a DECREASE in complaints about public drug use since decriminalization took effect.
A DECREASE.
So why is that not the headline?
Why are police steering criminalization policy?
“We've actually seen a decrease in public complaints around public consumption.
“But that doesn't mean that circumstances don't arise where people rightfully have concerns around public drug use, and we're still responsive to that.”
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Red Deer just made history as the 1st council in Canada voting to close an overdose prevention site.
Ignoring decades of research, the mayor asserted this will empower his city to become "free from addiction."
The implications are federal. ⬇️
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Obviously not going to stay quiet on this disgusting announcement by
@jkenney
so here goes. Hope you enjoy it Premier. 🧵 1/
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ON "NO INJURIES REPORTED" STATEMENT BY UofC PRES. McCAULEY, MAY 10:
I spoke w/ the UCalgary student beaten and arrested beside me at the May 9 Calgary Police assault on campus.
He was handed off by CPS to EMS for his injuries & taken to hospital.
CPS lied; UofC repeated it. 1/
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Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed
One fell off and bumped his head
Mama called the doctor, the doctor said
"You're goddamn right this is a harm reduction thread" 🧵
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Reposting w/ correction:
Taken moments after being released by Calgary Police at McMahon Stadium, owned by *UCalgary* and used as staging ground for assault by CPS on UCalgary freedom of expression on behalf of university admin.
Facial injuries: multiple punches to head by CPS.
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Whole towns are burning down because of political decisions but ok
Instead of political attacks maybe take all that energy and direct it to the citizens of Jasper. Let’s all come together as Albertans to support them and the city in every way we can
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1. UCP legislate against supervised consumption sites.
2. UCP refuse federal dollars for safe supply piloting.
3. UCP legislate against safe supply entirely.
4. UCP blame the feds for skyrocketing unregulated drug toxicity.
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@shuvmajumdar
Wow, incredibly embarrassing disinformation.
In actual fact, there are zero documented deaths from safe supply programs in Canada. People are dying from *unregulated* drug supplies.
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All I can think of right now is Calgary city council standing united with Smith while she bribed Calgary with a hockey rink one month before the election.
#yyccc
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🧵Couple thoughts about yesterday's announcement by the UCP and what it means for Edmonton and Alberta more broadly.
1. This is not a compassionate pivot, it is a crackdown jointly orchestrated by Edmonton Police and the UCP. It is a consolidation of power. 1/
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What a beautiful thing. Well done UCalgary students.
Go support if you can! Quad by the rec centre.
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Living in Alberta is a comorbidity.
Even brief anger is bad for your blood vessels (and cardiovascular health), results from a randomized trial
@DaichiShimbo
P.S. don't let the results get you angry 😉
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Yet another Canadian safe opioid supply program evaluation showing tremendous outcomes for participants, the health care system and the community.
The data continue piling up.
Need to see more?
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For those playing the 'not a student' / 'outside agitator' trope: I am proud to have supported UCalgary students who stood their ground last night as CPS lied and rule-changed.
Some of these students have had to watch their families get obliterated for 7 months + more. Have you?
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Direct quote from clerk: "This ticket doesn't exist in the system. It is garbage. It is trash. You just saved $600."
Thankfully, I submitted FOIPs for bodycam footage and other evidence immediately after the police assault. Might as well begin prepping my OIPC complaint on that.
At the court for my date w/
@CalgaryPolice
Cst Morris, badge 6027, who gave me a $600 Trespass fine at UCalgary on May 9.
As of June 12, no ticket in crown prosecutor hands. Weird! Is it maybe... CPS is trying to duck disclosure? We'll find out!
Pretty sure this is the place...
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Email just went out to UCalgary asserting 'counter-protesters' as a trigger for UCalgary supporting police brutality vs protesters. I observed no counter-protest.
I also take issue with "police report no injuries." Writing this from Chumir ER. Nobody asked after pummeling us.
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Why allow Poilievre and Smith dominate conversations on drugs, crime and public safety when non-police, consent-based alternatives cost next to nothing and actually work?
Here's my pitch to
#yyccc
this week on
#SafeSupply
for crime prevention:
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Good news. OPHELIA FUCKING WON.
Ophelia Black's lawsuit hearing against the Alberta Government just finished. The ruling is at 1PM Mar 2.
She seeks an injunction against the new regulations halting community health providers from prescribing opioids to people at high risk of unregulated drug poisoning. 🧵
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🧵 Developed with
@N8V_Calgarian
,
@Terrilltf
and
@treatysix
, this weighs heavily on every part of my being.
We make the argument that the spectre of genocide hangs over what we have been calling the toxic drug crisis. 1/
#abpoli
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Dear
#yeg
businesses:
If you don't like public drug use, demand supervised consumption sites.
If you don't like public defecation, demand washrooms.
If you want people to look out for you, start by looking out for them.
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I had some choice words on the collapse of the Alberta Model of drug policy for Global today.
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Premier, you've spent 3 years stripping people's access to health care: supervised consumption, needle distribution and injectable opioid agonist therapy. Your assertion would be funny if not for all the death.
And after 3 years of chest-thumping, where's all this treatment? 5/
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Scoop: the Alberta government gave $1.7 million in sole source contracts to a private addiction recovery house in BC for an app that obscures patient outcome data from the public, the health system and the government.
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Premier, what smoke must you be standing in to not see how you normalize alcohol use with your sky palace SCS? You're giving booze bad branding with how normal it's become around
#ableg
.
THAT is drug use. And if you ever seek help, its lower stigma will make that easier. 2/
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The UCP Compassionate Intervention Act is based in pseudoscience, exploitation and stigma. Kill it, Alberta.
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Had a student reach out and say "thank you for sticking by and standing ground with me, you're the only reason I didn't get seriously injured by the cops."
Which, like—FUCK THE COPS, this person is too young for this—but here is the
#1
reason I could ever give to show up.
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Premier, if you can show a single piece of evidence that suggests decrim will increase any item you've listed here I'll be impressed. The scientific evidence runs entirely to the contrary.
But we know you'd rather listen to your paw patrol buddies on the "evidence". 4/
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🧵 A strategy document obtained through a freedom of information request reveals a coordinated effort by Alberta's top police brass to maintain drug criminalization "before the May election." 1/
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🧵I submitted a FOIP to the Ministry of Mental Health & Addiction for correspondence in the Ministry that includes my name, from 2021 to 2024.
There are 190 pages but they only released 37. Here are a couple: 1/
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Will someone inform the police that their job is to enforce laws that citizens deem appropriate for safety, not to make the laws as well?
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Over a year after inking the deal, the AB Ministry of Mental Health & Addiction has yet to announce the recipient of its largest contract.
$20-30 million is going to a 'recovery community' & training centre, plus youth & prison programming based in Gunn.
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Can someone explain to me like I'm five the ways in which this Alberta pension "debate" isn't simply another seizure of public assets by oil and gas, this time to secure a steady stream of future investment?
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This is a good time to remind folks that drug seizures by police are associated with *higher* overdose deaths.
It's the opposite of what we are told by authorities after each bust.
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Drug poisoning deaths continue dropping in BC, following a trend since decriminalization. Meanwhile, zero youth deaths occurred from hydromorphone alone between 2017 and 2022.
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The arrest of a journalist observing an encampment eviction seems precedent-setting by Edmonton Police. I don't think I've ever heard of this in Canada.
I just spoke with Brandi, EPS have arrested and charged her and are threatening to keep her for 24 hours. Instead of picking up her daughter, she’s waiting to find out if she will have to sleep in jail.
#JournalismIsNotACrime
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Huge props to the small group who crossed Macleod to set up the beachhead between the anti-2SLGBTQ protesters and the street.
Within minutes, enough of us joined to push them into irrelevant space.
Another good tactical teaching moment
#yyc
!
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As shown in this video, the people Calgary Police beat up the other night were predominantly women.
(Women were the majority who stayed to stand against Calgary Police. Where are all these mavericks who will dress up as cowboys in two months?)
This was my view at the University of Calgary protests. I'm the one in the black cap at 0:12 in.
We were there to speak out against Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Still arm in arm and singing, I was beaten by riot police. They assaulted me with ...
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Win or lose, Oilers ownership are still suing an unhoused drop-in centre (over a $5 million donation commitment) while their EPS and UCP pals warehouse people from the streets, likely to make way for further Ice District development.
But Go Oilers, etc!
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I find it fascinating that in Alberta, basically all of the abstinence-recovery organizations are run by men, while basically all of the harm reduction organizations are run by women.
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Unbelievable statements from
@MountRoyalU
prof in this CTV piece. Why so keen on protecting police vs safety of protestors? 🤔
And to clarify,
@CTVMarkVillani
interviewed me at hospital, where they confirmed concussion from battery by police — tad more serious than "scrapes." 1/
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Vancouver certainly hasn't been de-policed and VPD effectively works without oversight. Alberta is now almost caught up with BC in drug death rate. And "de facto" decrim is a fairy tale because cops still use drug laws selectively against racialized and poor communities. 3/
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New piece: I obtained an AHS document that helps detail how Alberta addiction services are Christian-dominated and extremely limiting in their abstinence scope.
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You can burn my PhD thesis where it sits on your morally bankrupt shelves, President Flanagan.
New study shows U of A graduates have lasting impact around the world | Watch News Videos Online
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I shouldn't be getting my nerves up on doctor's orders to heal my CONCUSSION delivered by CALGARY POLICE but I am just seething over this.
@BillFlanagan
RESIGN.
Creating panic around "a box of needles" has GOT to be the lowest Flanagan sinks in all of this. You see what he's doing here right? Tethering public fear of drug use to the encampment.
I bet it was a box of naloxone. There was heaps of it at the UC camp.
Disgusting.
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Premier, we are all thrilled that the BC baby step toward decriminalization threatens you so much. I mean, how are you going to continue bullying Indigenous communities into accepting resource extraction projects when you can't lock them up for drug possession? 9/
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The constant police drumming of methamphetamine in public safety discourse is a major safety risk for unhoused people.
Do not buy into it. Ask: how do so many unarmed outreach workers get on just fine out there, day and night?
Is it, perhaps, more about how we treat people?
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“When the youths were allowed phone contact with their families, the calls were... from inside Mr. Kenney’s vehicle on a cell phone on speaker, with Mr. Kenney in attendance. They were warned...not to talk negatively about the facility"
#CareIsNotCoercedAB
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Actually, harm reduction saves lives.
1. Identify harms to youth (e.g. unprotected sex, lack of education).
2. Meet them where they're at (e.g. condom dispensing, sex ed).
3. Measure outcomes (e.g. teen pregnancy & STI rates).
It's good policy. What's your solution?
This is simply outrageous.
There is no such thing as safe meth or crack use. We will be reviewing funding agreements with the organization who felt it was appropriate to teach Medicine Hat teenagers how to use illicit and deadly drugs.
Link to story:
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Facilities noted the contradiction: if My Recovery Plan is voluntary for clients but mandatory for facilities, doesn't that create an ethical quagmire where facilities must pressure clients into using the app?
This played out as clients refused consent to share personal data. 6/
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Who's being protected or served by this?
Dozens of cops, traveling in packs up to 8-strong (4th photo). For a peaceful march.
Why do we allow this? What becomes of these 1000s of photos?
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Most people in Alberta understand their government is up to some bad, bad stuff.
But I don't think it's clear to most the degree to which the worst of it remains hidden by the govt's weaponization of the FOIPP Act.
@charlesrusnell
details it: 1/
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🧵 Alberta drug poisoning deaths have been quietly updated. The government has completely stopped talking about deaths, apparently banking on the public losing interest in biggest killer of working-age people in the province.
Initial report for September is 142 total deaths. 1/
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New standard of care just dropped for Alberta Ministry of Mental Health & Addiction interviews.
Phenomenal job by
@cbcrob
@CBCCalgary
not giving an inch to misleading narratives.
MUST WATCH. Starts at 4:30.
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Creating panic around "a box of needles" has GOT to be the lowest Flanagan sinks in all of this. You see what he's doing here right? Tethering public fear of drug use to the encampment.
I bet it was a box of naloxone. There was heaps of it at the UC camp.
Disgusting.
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Be sure to snap up this month's
@albertaviews
— the cover story is my breakdown of Alberta's abstinence-oriented drug policy.
Into this, I wove in the story of Brandon Shaw.
100% of my pay was donated to
@4bHarmReduction
to support Brandon's project, The Curbside Philosophy. 1/
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"The study, led by University of Toronto researchers, found 'no consistent associations' between police funding and crime rates across 20 municipalities, including Edmonton."
New from me: Edmonton police Chief Dale McFee is linking an overall drop in crime in the city to increased police funding. .
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The path chosen by GoA, Last Door & AHS to address this ethical predicament violates informed consent.
Patients' personal health information is privatized and potentially made available for commercial exploitation.
See how: 7/
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Edmonton Police tearing down 130 tents in mid-December?
Call that what it is: mass murder.
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Yesterday was an absolute firehose of stories in Alberta drug policy.
Here's what you need to know:
1. Ophelia Black is suing the provincial government for stripping her access to safe supply.
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Last December, Drug Data Decoded revealed how My Recovery Plan's private ownership allows the Alberta government to stonewall requests for data.
This prompted an investigation that has uncovered serious issues of privacy and informed consent around the app's implementation. 3/
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Two statements by Alberta's Mental Health & Addictions Minister Milliken at the UCP/police presser today in response to a proper, old-time grilling by
@alanna_smithh
(
@globeandmail
- she's worth every penny and much more) MUST be highlighted.
Here's what she got him to say: 1/5
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What drum will you beat to build suburban fear at election time? Who among the police will stand up for you when they're all losing funding after full decrim?
But let's all have a long drag of Jameson's and accept it: the time for decrim is 115 years past. 10/10
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I want the UCP involved with an investigation of Calgary and Edmonton Police brutality as eagerly as I want my 5-year-old niece arbitrating the case of who stole the cookie from the cookie jar.
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At least 47 per cent of publicly funded long-term drug use care beds are in facilities describing themselves as Christian.
Is this what secular health care looks like in Alberta?
My latest in
@TheTyee
.
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Every week, another unsubstantiated hit piece on safe supply lands in National Post Opinion featuring a recyclable roster of addiction physicians.
Who are they, and what is their deal?
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Placing cops in schools, revoking low-income supports, denying safe supply, refusing mental health regulation...
Alberta is building feedstock for a privatized prison industry.
Watch for "therapeutic living units" to become standard lexicon.
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Between Recovery Alberta launching full-scale health care privatization, Bills 17 and 18 replacing science with propaganda as policy and Bill 20 stripping municipal governance power, I can't see a path forward in AB that doesn't begin with the words General Strike.
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Story titles:
"70% of Edmonton transit tickets, warnings went to people with no fixed address
Data for 2022 shows 60% of tickets went to Indigenous people"
This should be INFURIATING to everyone in Edmonton. This is clear racial and class targeting, full fucking stop.
New data from the
@CityofEdmonton
about the impacts transit policing measures had on safety and on unhoused and Indigenous folks in 2022 out today.
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A story about how problem-solving fails in
#yyc
.
Nine months ago we started worrying about this coming winter. We went to the top brass at Calgary Transit and pitched combined warming station-overdose prevention site at transit stations. They wouldn't touch it. Said... 1/8
1/ I know a lot of people are upset about the doors at Chinook. I’ve seen the arguments from two sides - those who think it’s cruel to not provide sheltered space for unhoused Calgarians and from destination riders who want shelter from the elements.
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The idea that involuntary addiction treatment saves people's lives is rooted in an assumption that if they kept using drugs they'd soon die from their use, which is wrong in almost any situation in which people have access to a regulated supply.
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Why... was a police helicopter deployed to chase a man without lights on his bike? 😭💔 Surreal.
NEWS:
@ASIRT_AB
has found no wrongdoing on the part of EPS officers who pursued a man who drowned trying to escape police on some river ice earlier this month. Police tried to stop the man for riding a bike without lights.
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NEW: A man is dead after the Edmonton Police helicopter chased him onto the river ice for riding his bike without lights.
In July 2022, a similarly over-the-top deployment was filmed in
#YYC
.
These massive police escalation powers need to be questioned.
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And I implore you to keep at front of mind that the owners of said hockey team *are also land developers* with their gazes turned to the land underneath the tent encampments.
Driven by greed a very profitable hockey franchisees sues a non-profit agency serving the unhoused community in
#yeg
. Now that the
@EdmontonOilers
have their hands on the old Boyle Street building a less charitable side emgerges.
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Alberta has set a new record for drug poisoning EMS dispatches for the third week running.
The week ending July 9 saw 356 drug poisoning dispatches, up from 341 the week previous and 277 the week before that.
EMS dispatches provide a robust forecast for mortalities.
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Forcing people into addiction treatment is a form of conversion therapy.
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Victoria, BC just gutted a scrappy newsroom known for bombshell investigations nobody else would touch.
Here are a few to remember
@CapitalDaily
by before it morphs into the Coffee News (I love tongue twisters mixed in with my news too, don't come at me!): 🧵 1/
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This conversation is between BC and the feds - that's it. BC applied, the feds decide.
The submission was also made well before the NDP agreement was formed, and if you're lucky this'll create a smokescreen for the LPC so Bill C-216 doesn't get through second reading today. 6/
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If anyone near Sheldon Chumir today sees access being blocked to supervised consumption on the south side, please tag me and we will mobilize to ensure safe passage.
#yyc
#calgary
#safepassage
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@YourAlberta
,
@AHS_Media
and Last Door Recovery Society were all approached for comment on this story – only AHS acknowledged the request, but the representative declined to comment. 9/
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The Thin Blue Line is a white supremacist emblem. Edmonton Police wear it on their hockey jerseys. Their coach is the police chief. Their opponents, the fire department, say nothing about all this. Any questions?
1. After years of
@DMMcFee
evading questions about his personal position on the
#ThinBlueLine
symbolism & public displays of it by cops, this answers it. He's pictured here coaching the
@YEGPA
cop union team. It also shows the union hasn't changed it's position after the ...
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🚨CONTENT WARNING🚨
Edmonton Police drag an unconscious person in handcuffs face-down across pavement at 109 St and Jasper Ave.
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5. The most pressing question people should be asking about all this is WHY:
What's the urgency of removing encampments in the dead of winter, when every one of these people will be immediately placed at higher risk of injury or death by frostbite or drug poisoning? 5/
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"If harm reduction isn't available, our People will die."
-Treaty 6 Confederacy Grand Chief Leonard Standingontheroad
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