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Poilievre, Alberta and opioids: update

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Poilievre, Alberta and opioids: update

Taking down a paywall on a piece the Conservative leader wants you to see

Paul Wells
Nov 20, 2022
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Poilievre, Alberta and opioids: update

paulwells.substack.com

Today Pierre Poilievre posted this Twitter video about opioid policy.

Twitter avatar for @PierrePoilievre
Pierre Poilievre @PierrePoilievre
Everything feels broken. But we can fix it.
2:08 PM ∙ Nov 20, 2022
9,027Likes2,382Retweets

The argument in the video is that British Columbia and Alberta are pursuing very different policies on opioids. As it happens, I wrote a detailed rebuttal of this argument last week. Since he’s pressing on with the argument, I’m going to re-share the rebuttal. And I’m taking the paywall down, so that it can be read more easily by anyone who cares to look. Here you go.

Again, the Conservative leader’s central claim is that very recent reductions in opioid fatality in Alberta, to a level of death that was unprecedented before 2020, are due to a repudiation of B.C.’s policy kit, which includes, among many other elements, “safe supply.” My post, below, contains ample proof that Alberta has been putting substantial effort into the policies Poilievre decries.

In other words, he doesn’t have a damned clue what he’s talking about. Or he’s hoping you won’t.

Paul Wells
"Just like they're doing in Alberta"
I’ve been meaning to discuss the federal opposition leader’s scrum in Vancouver last week. The convoy commission and other events keep distracting, but I don’t want to let Pierre Poilievre’s comments pass unremarked. This was Poilievre’s “Everything seems broken” scrum, and a lot of it is worth everyone’s attention. His opening remarks put him on solid e…
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3 months ago · 74 likes · 21 comments · Paul Wells

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Poilievre, Alberta and opioids: update

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LB
Nov 20, 2022

Poilievre’s video just makes me sad. He’s taken a human tragedy and cynically turned it into a marketing video, complete with a tie in to the “take back control of your life” tagline. His team probably thinks they’re being clever. Hopefully people can see through it.

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Roy Brander (brander.ca/reply)
Nov 20, 2022

The "everything feels broken" summary is really starting to get to me, every conservative's commentary seems to circle back 'round to the notion that civilization in general, and Canada in particular, are circling the drain; and doing so because of our deep, systemic inadequacies.

Every National Post front page has me asking "In what way will we suck today" - our medicine, our schools, our military - you name it, there's a conservative column about how badly we do it.

No wonder you win with "sunny ways".

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