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My Weekly Crime

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Last week, at Deer Parks Drive-In church service, it was announced that Alberta Health Services was considering not allowing the drive-in format for congregations as it was still ‘risky’.

In pondering the statement, I was struck by a number of thoughts.

During the Covid 19 crisis internationally, we have seen the future, and it is rule by fear.

In my lifetime, I never thought I would see a day where a strong democracy like Canada would turn so rapidly to what functions like socialism in response to what may potentially be a man-made virus designed to decrease world populations.

In this time, we have seen the integrity of the WHO being questioned.  We have seen the best laid plans of governments worldwide set aside in order to fund citizens and businesses short term survival.  We have seen businesses and individuals labeled essential or non-essential and as a result become paid to stay home.  We have seen self isolation and the rise of Science as our saviour more than we ever have before!  The rise of social distancing has created fear between people, has created a frustration that we cannot meet together for coffee, meals, worship services, movies, sports events, camping, fishing and anything that improves our mental, physical and spiritual health.

But we can go to Walmart, Superstore, Coop, Safeway, liquor stores and marijuana outlets, hardware stores and banks.

The fact that we believe a N95 or KN95 mask will protect us, or that a plexi-shield will save us, or that a 2 meter zone between carts is reasonable is incomprehensible in light of decisions that do not allow a drive-in-church service with six feet of dirt, inches of steel and glass between people, declaring it risky!

This is a time when national parks which contribute to physical and mental health are closed.  If any zone is easier to maintain social distancing in, it is the Rockies or parks around the province.  While we stay home to protect our country, we breathe in stale air instead of clean, crisp air cleaned by our nearly endless forests!

Any good therapist or mental health professional will tell you that an individual needs a balance between physical, spiritual and mental attributes.

Any practising Christian will tell you that being banned from church services, even while watching streamed ones, is damaging to our congregations.  We need the support-prayer and friendship, of our fellow believers.

Denying any sector of the community, sports, spiritual or hobbyist contributes to a poor balance which will lead to long term negative side effects.

In conversation with a senior recently, I was told that “Tim, a new normal is coming and I don’t know what it will look like but I don’t like it already.  I am afraid for my grand kids.”

That is the price that our future generations will pay for the global response to this virus and efforts behind the scenes that we are not privy too.

Good decisions are made with the best available evidence.  Great decisions are made with future results taken into effect from the road we take today.

Looking ahead, I can see the following:

  1. Greater powers given to Health Departments for disease control
  2. Incredible public debt which will pass onto our children and grand children
  3. Policies that have been enacted will be suspended but not stricken from the legal record for use in future crisis.
  4. Fear of people and increased mental disorders worldwide
  5. The possibility of a guaranteed national income
  6. A slippery slope towards socialism
  7. Conditioning of a generation that believes society (and the government) owes them everything-legislated entitlement

However, in conversation there is a shared belief that this crisis will pass and the draconian measures imposed will mostly fade away, but in the meanwhile, the spirit of people to wander and engage in meaningful conversation will not be put down.

People will gather to worship any way they can.  They will meet in small groups under 15 and nourish their souls.

And as Rush wrote in “Red Barchetta,”

 

“My Uncle has a country place, That no one know about

He says it used to be a farm, Before the motor law

Now on Sundays I elude the eyes, And take the turbine freight

To far outside the wire, Where my white haired uncle waits

 

I strip away the old debris, That hides a shining car

A brilliant red Barchetta, From a better varnished time

I fire up the willing engine, Responding with a roar

Tires spitting gravel , I commit my weekly crime.”

So, in full comprehension of what may come if the Sunday gathering is allowed I will go. Who will join me in committing our weekly crime, being fully obedient to the Lord!

 

Tim Lasiuta is a Red Deer writer, entrepreneur and communicator. He has interests in history and the future for our country.

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Community

SPARC Red Deer – Caring Adult Nominations open now!

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Red Deer community let’s give a round of applause to the incredible adults shaping the future of our kids. Whether they’re a coach, neighbour, teacher, mentor, instructor, or someone special, we want to know about them!

Tell us the inspiring story of how your nominee is helping kids grow up great. We will honour the first 100 local nominees for their outstanding contributions to youth development. It’s time to highlight those who consistently go above and beyond!

To nominate, visit Events (sparcreddeer.ca)

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Addictions

‘Harm Reduction’ is killing B.C.’s addicts. There’s got to be a better way

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Susan Martinuk 

B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy

Since 2016, more than 40,000 Canadians have died from opioid drug overdoses — almost as many as died during the Second World War.
Governments, health care professionals and addiction experts all acknowledge that widespread use of opioids has created a public health crisis in Canada. Yet they agree on virtually nothing else about this crisis, including its causes, possible remedies and whether addicts should be regarded as passive victims or accountable moral agents.

Fuelled by the deadly manufactured opioid fentanyl, Canada’s national drug overdose rate stood at 19.3 people per 100,000 in 2022, a shockingly high number when compared to the European Union’s rate of just 1.8. But national statistics hide considerable geographic variation. British Columbia and Alberta together account for only a quarter of Canada’s population yet nearly half of all opioid deaths. B.C.’s 2022 death rate of 45.2/100,000 is more than double the national average, with Alberta close behind at 33.3/100,00.

In response to the drug crisis, Canada’s two western-most provinces have taken markedly divergent approaches, and in doing so have created a natural experiment with national implications.

B.C. has emphasized harm reduction, which seeks to eliminate the damaging effects of illicit drugs without actually removing them from the equation. The strategy focuses on creating access to clean drugs and includes such measures as “safe” injection sites, needle exchange programs, crack-pipe giveaways and even drug-dispensing vending machines. The approach goes so far as to distribute drugs like heroin and cocaine free of charge in the hope addicts will no longer be tempted by potentially tainted street drugs and may eventually seek help.

But safe-supply policies create many unexpected consequences. A National Post investigation found, for example, that government-supplied hydromorphone pills handed out to addicts in Vancouver are often re-sold on the street to other addicts. The sellers then use the money to purchase a street drug that provides a better high — namely, fentanyl.

Doubling down on safe supply, B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy — though for now that effort has been stymied by the courts.

According to Vancouver city councillor Brian Montague, “The stats tell us that harm reduction isn’t working.” In an interview, he calls decriminalization “a disaster” and proposes a policy shift that recognizes the connection between mental illness and addiction. The province, he says, needs “massive numbers of beds in treatment facilities that deal with both addictions and long-term mental health problems (plus) access to free counselling and housing.”

In fact, Montague’s wish is coming true — one province east, in Alberta. Since the United Conservative Party was elected in 2019, Alberta has been transforming its drug addiction policy away from harm reduction and towards publicly-funded treatment and recovery efforts.

Instead of offering safe-injection sites and free drugs, Alberta is building a network of 10 therapeutic communities across the province where patients can stay for up to a year, receiving therapy and medical treatment and developing skills that will enable them to build a life outside the drug culture. All for free. The province’s first two new recovery centres opened last year in Lethbridge and Red Deer. There are currently over 29,000 addiction treatment spaces in the province.

This treatment-based strategy is in large part the work of Marshall Smith, current chief of staff to Alberta’s premier and a former addict himself, whose life story is a testament to the importance of treatment and recovery.

The sharply contrasting policies of B.C. and Alberta allow a comparison of what works and what doesn’t. A first, tentative report card on this natural experiment was produced last year in a study from Stanford University’s network on addiction policy (SNAP). Noting “a lack of policy innovation in B.C.,” where harm reduction has become the dominant policy approach, the report argues that in fact “Alberta is currently experiencing a reduction in key addiction-related harms.” But it concludes that “Canada overall, and B.C. in particular, is not yet showing the progress that the public and those impacted by drug addiction deserve.”

The report is admittedly an early analysis of these two contrasting approaches. Most of Alberta’s recovery homes are still under construction, and B.C.’s decriminalization policy is only a year old. And since the report was published, opioid death rates have inched higher in both provinces.

Still, the early returns do seem to favour Alberta’s approach. That should be regarded as good news. Society certainly has an obligation to try to help drug users. But that duty must involve more than offering addicts free drugs. Addicted people need treatment so they can kick their potentially deadly habit and go on to live healthy, meaningful lives. Dignity comes from a life of purpose and self-control, not a government-funded fix.

Susan Martinuk is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of the 2021 book Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health Care Crisis. A longer version of this article recently appeared at C2CJournal.ca.

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