Poilievre, Alberta and opioids: update
Poilievre, Alberta and opioids: update
Taking down a paywall on a piece the Conservative leader wants you to see
Today Pierre Poilievre posted this Twitter video about opioid policy.
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.
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.
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".