Stephen Harper and the Monstrous Cruelty of the Con Regime

Sometimes when I'm writing about the atrocities of Stephen Harper's bestial Con regime ,I like to end a post by saying please unite to defeat that monster before he kills more Canadians.

And I'm sure some who read that probably think I'm exaggerating. But actually I'm not.

Because when you put ideology before humanity, and wage war on the poorest and most vulnerable Canadians, you will blight their lives further and kill many of them.

And this is just the latest example. 

This week the Harper government, and the largely Conservative-appointed Senate, will effectively drive a nail into the coffins of thousands of Canadians living with addiction by passing legislation that will block the establishment of supervised injection facilities like Vancouver’s Insite. 

Bill C-2, the ill-named Respect for Communities Act, which is likely to pass third reading in the Senate imminently, changes section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, Canada’s blanket prohibition on drugs. It establishes 26 new requirements applicants must meet before the feds will even consider an approval to operate a supervised injection facility. These requirements are unwarranted and will be, in many cases, impossible to satisfy.

Because let's not mince words, that is a monstrous triumph of ideology over humanity, and it is MURDER.

In the summer of 2014, there were 83 severe overdoses investigated by the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal, 25 of them fatal. A fentanyl epidemic is currently plaguing Calgary and Alberta’s Kainai Nation (Blood) reserve west of Lethbridge.

In other communities across the country, thousands of people have died by overdose and, under this new legislation, countless others will die, too.

It's murder because we know that clinics like Insite do work and they do save many lives.



On Thanksgiving weekend last year, 30 people suffered accidental fentanyl overdoses at Insite. None of them died. In contrast, the lethal concoction took five lives elsewhere in the city. Between 2004 and 2010 there were 1,418 overdoses at Insite, but not a single death. Many of these overdoses could have been fatal had they occurred outside the facility.

The evidence couldn't be clearer. So to ignore it is nothing less than criminal.

But then of course we know what the Cons think about scientific evidence...



How they crush it like fascist bullies, or muzzle it, or ignore it in favour of their deranged and deathly ideology.

And we know what the maniac Stephen Harper thinks about people who use drugs...



"This descent into nihilism... leads to silliness such as moral neutrality on the use of marijuana or harder drugs mixed with its random moral crusades on tobacco. It explains the lack of moral censure on personal foibles of all kinds, extenuating even criminal behaviour with moral outrage at bourgeois society, which is then tangentially blamed for deviant behaviour." 

Stephen Harper Report Magazine 2003

And how he would sacrifice them on the altar of his rabid base who want him to punish them not treat them. 

Even though they are some of the poorest and most vulnerable citizens in this country...



You know, I've written several posts on my experience with heroin addicts during a six-month stay in Vancouver. How what I saw both shocked me, and moved me, and filled me with admiration for those who work so hard to help them.

And how that experience only reinforced my belief in the sacred principles of harm reduction. Which means treating sick people like sick people not criminals. Seeking always to reduce pain and suffering by whatever means necessary, and without prejudice. And above all being kind, caring, and SMART.

Which when I think about it also sums up the Canadian values I believe in.

And needless to say I want them back.

So yes, enough of that senseless brutality. Enough of that diseased Con ideology.

Unite to defeat this cruel, morally depraved monster.

Before he kills more Canadians...



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