The Ontario government tabled an omnibus bill Monday that includes a ban on provincially funded supervised consumption sites and a de facto ban on sites approved by the feds.
To be honest, a lot of voters see this as a feature, not a bug. One less junkie to steal their stuff, shit in the park or cat-call them.
This is what advocates need to learn: saying “Ford has blood on his hands” does not work, because people don’t care about addicts’ lives. They’d be quite happy if more addicts die. I’ve heard more than one downtown business person say they’d rather not carry naloxone kits, and many, many downtown citizens who say things like “hopefully we lose a bunch during winter”.
I don’t think the advocacy community understands how much the empathy of the voting public is used up: voters can’t see a doctor, can’t afford rent, have trouble finding a well-paying job and now they’re being asked to be sympathetic to people who stole their tools from their car, or their kids’ Christmas presents off their porch, or who leave broken crack pipes in the only park they can use to walk their dog.
We’re going to need to explain to voters how SCS sites help them without talking about saving addicts’ lives. Because people want addicts to go away, and they’re getting to the point where they don’t care how that happens.
Ford doesn’t care.
To be honest, a lot of voters see this as a feature, not a bug. One less junkie to steal their stuff, shit in the park or cat-call them.
This is what advocates need to learn: saying “Ford has blood on his hands” does not work, because people don’t care about addicts’ lives. They’d be quite happy if more addicts die. I’ve heard more than one downtown business person say they’d rather not carry naloxone kits, and many, many downtown citizens who say things like “hopefully we lose a bunch during winter”.
I don’t think the advocacy community understands how much the empathy of the voting public is used up: voters can’t see a doctor, can’t afford rent, have trouble finding a well-paying job and now they’re being asked to be sympathetic to people who stole their tools from their car, or their kids’ Christmas presents off their porch, or who leave broken crack pipes in the only park they can use to walk their dog.
We’re going to need to explain to voters how SCS sites help them without talking about saving addicts’ lives. Because people want addicts to go away, and they’re getting to the point where they don’t care how that happens.