Anecdote: in 2001 I paddled the Yukon from Whitehorse (Canada) to Emmonak and Alakanuk (Alaska). When crossing into Alaska at Eagle I had a chat with the local Sheriff who, upon hearing I just came from Canada told me in no uncertain terms and with a comic book drawl that 'Canada is a communist country'. I thought 'yeah, sure buddy' and went upon my merry way in the certainty that Canada might be more of a cross between European social democracy and American liberalism but not a 'communist country', never that.<p>For some years I had planned to move to Canada and was gearing up to sell my house in the Netherlands when I met a Swedish woman at a party in the UK which sort of changed my plans - I moved to the north of Europe instead of the north of the Americas.<p>Now, 22 years later I see that Sheriff's words in a different light. No, Canada is still not a 'communist country' but it has proven to be a country which is easily taken over by (what I consider to be) the 'looney left'. The <i>People's Republic of Trudeaunia</i> is not the Canada I envisioned when I planned to move there and I am - for more than only this reason - glad things worked out the way they did for me so I did not end up living there. Sweden might have its own set of problems but when compared to Canada we're a beacon of sanity. This became even more clear during the SARS2 unpleasantness when the contrast between oppressive Canada and free Sweden became even more obvious.<p>What went wrong in Canada? Why has it gone from being a 'more civilised version of the USA' to the caricature of a 'liberal utopia' (in the American sense of the term 'liberal') it has become and what will it take to put the country back on track towards sanity?
Well, its accepting reality. When my wife worked at biggest Swiss hospital, people in long term care which were (homeless) addicts would often just randomly run away, to be found few days afterwards by police passed out on some park bench.<p>A lot of time expensive treatment would have to be restarted (or became much more complex and thus costly), limited hospital beds were taken for too long etc. In Switzerland these folks have right to all treatment regular paying folks have by law, and guess who at the end pays the bill.<p>Accept human nature with warts and all, work on which is manageable for sure, but some medieval primitive mindset when addressing this complex topic simply doesn't work and its proven ad nauseum, and literally everybody get hits back eventually, one way or another.
I'm curious what Gabor Maté thinks about all this. Listened to him recently on Rewild Yourself podcast episode 110, about addiction and trauma (starts minute 28).
Harm reduction activists in BC said decriminalization would result in less harm. There's now a major overdose crisis in BC. With >10,000 deaths in less then a year.<p>Municipalities are passing unconstitutional laws to prevent people from using drugs in parks.<p><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-court-blocks-bcs-law-restricting-drug-use-in-public-places/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-court-blocks-...</a><p>Obviously the supreme court struck this law(s) down. Obviously BC has one of the worst homelessness crisis which is related. They also fired thousands of antivaxxer healthcare workers and still are, resulting in a healthcare worker crisis as well. Those vaxxer who remained now have far significant higher workload.<p>Overall you can clearly see multiple major crisis caused by the BC politicians. Luckily there's an election in October this year. But for some reason the current politicians are looking at a landslide win? lol?