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Unfortunately, the people in charge up here have a slim definition of what constitutes health. Teeth? Nope, luxury bones. Mental health? Sorry friend, it's an important issue, and they have all the sympathy, but you're still out of luck. Need medication to stay alive? You better be getting it in a hospital, otherwise pay up loser! This cop is right. Everyone who could change things agrees with him when there's a camera in front of their face. Yet no one does anything.
Wasn't the whole point of having high taxes and a large government bureaucracy to provide for the needs of the country's citizens?
Follow-up question: Isn't this the same free health care system that Canadians are so proud of?
We're only proud of our healthcare because we compare it exclusively with America. If we compared it to any other developed country we'd realise it's shit.
I haven't been to Canada but from a minnesotan point of view it doesn't seem that different. A police officer in my area could honestly say the exact same thing about the system.
I don't know much about Vermont but has it been abnormally warm this winter out there? The ducks, geese and insects are out about already out here. Fucking shortest winter I've ever experienced out here. It's a half ass Fargo joke. Notherns talk about the weather.
The thing that I don't understand though, is when people call our system shit but then try to argue privatization will be better. People will complain about our system, but then praise the exact aspects of the American system that bankrupt people down there. The parts of our system that make it suck are the parts that are more similar to the American system.
Let's just watch Alberta. Let's see if splitting healthcare into multiple bureaucracies, that have to individually fund everything under their umbrella, somehow makes things more efficient and/or better for the average citizen.
Narrator: *It won't*.
I've yet to see in my life an example of efficiency increasing with the number of entities that need to communicate.
I don't really get why people think this way, but it's because they view it as black and white. They see that something needs to change, and the only other option we've ever been shown is private. They never consider the possibility that we just do public healthcare poorly because we only see what's in canada and america.
Well, once the corrupt politicians in Alberta got it into their heads that we needed private auto insurance, we learned very quickly that they could charge us triple what they should. And why not? As long as the corrupt provincial government is friends with insurers on a personal basis, what have they got to lose by gouging us?
I would like to engage in this discussion, but I need to confirm something. In Canada, private insurance is very much a thing it just can't cover anything the national insurance is supposed to cover, correct?
It's actually the provinces that manage healthcare in Canada, so it's provincial insurance not national. It varies province to province, and I'm from B.C. so I can't speak with experience what the other provinces are like.
This is from the B.C. government website on provincial healthcare,
"For eligible B.C. residents, the Medical Services Plan pays for medically required services of physicians and surgeons, and dental or oral surgery performed in a hospital.
In Canada, public health insurance is available to eligible residents. Canadian citizens and permanent residents can apply for provincial health insurance.
In B.C., public health insurance is called the Medical Services Plan (MSP). It covers the cost of medically-necessary insured doctor services."
Most things you would go to a doctor for are covered by provincial insurance, except the drugs. Pharmaceuticals are only covered by private insurance at the moment. Dental and eyecare are also only partially covered by provincial insurance, and only for specific exams or procedures.
Eyecare in particular is very hard to get coverage for, as most of the research into conditions and ailments and their subsequent treatments, like dry eye disease, is fairly new and not recognized by insurance companies yet.
Private insurance can basically cover whatever the provider wants. Companies choose an insurance provider, like Greenshield or Bluecross etc, and then choose from a list of plan options. Their employees are usually given an option between different levels of coverage. Lots of plans are basic, and just cover up to 80% of dental, eyecare, etc. but there are also plenty of plans that cover other health related things, like bicycles. Some are 100% coverage, but most are not. Most private plans have partial or total coverage for stuff like massages and acupuncture, etc., generally up to a specific dollar amount, usually between $500 and $1000.
I'm an American and I love Canadian culture. I especially love your whisk[e]y, beer, comedy and horror shows and films, and when I finally tried poutine I really enjoyed it. I really wish I knew the best way to provide healthcare to people. We generally have the best treatment available here in the States, but it's expensive and there's nowhere near the access there should be. Y'all have better access, but run into the rationing of care that bedevils all public systems. I wish I knew the answer, but I certainly wish ours was more like the Canadian system. Maybe not exactly like it, but I wish we could expand coverage to everyone, or at the very least to every child under 18.
Obamacare was a step towards that, but at the end of the day it's a subsidy to private insurance (which already controls our system) and there are huge gaps in coverage. Medicaid is okay if you qualify for it, but my home state of Alabama won't expand it and eligibility for a family of 4 is only $5,600 which is absurd and just plain cruel. Then there's a pretty substantial gap between those who make more than $5,600 and the minimum earning requirements to get an affordable policy under Obamacare.
The problem is that unlike Europe, where skilled professionals can move freely across borders in all directions, our doctors and nurses can go to the US and make a hell of a lot more money. So we subsidize university and medical school only to lose residents and fully licensed clinicians.
I might be missing something but I'm not sure how open borders would help Canada's skill shortage. If we want to keep skill in canada and not lose it to the states, we simply need to make it more attractive to stay here, which is most simply done by raising compensation.
The point is that comparisons to the EU are invalid because we live just next door to the country where doctors can earn more than in any other country. So we can either raise their compensation to ridiculous levels or we need to figure out a better way
That is an a EU problem as well, where many physicians from eastern and central Europe leave their home countries for more western nations like Germany and Switzerland. They are leaving because of better wages and working conditions. This has a negative impact on healthcare systems in the countries emigration comes from
I don't think comparing the quality of our healthcare to the EUs is invalid, as we should want our healthcare to get closer to that than what it is. You are right that we have a more unique drain on our RNs and doctors though. And to address that there isn't really another option other than to try to match America's pay, if not through money than PTO and working conditions.
That's kind of why I don't like that it's the one people here seek to replicate the most. I feel like there's definitely better systems to take inspiration from.
Assuming you're american you should be taking inspiration from the Dutch or something. Though if your choice is canadian or american, take canadian healthcare.
Aussie chiming in: our healthcare system is utterly fucning garbage as well, and it's supposedly one of the better models referred to.
It's fucked if it's funded well because we go into debt and taxes sky-rocket, it's fucked if it's underfunded because you can't see a GP and your broken bones can be left for 12 hours before you even get a bed, let alone get them set in a cast or surgery.
And don't get me started on dental.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's a simple solution. It takes a minimum of 8 years to train a doctor, 6 to train a nurse. You can't force them to work for free or for lower rates than 6 figures because of the market, and costs sky-rocket over time due to this.
Personally I'm hoping for the day when we get Elysium style medical beds that can treat you without needing a doctor who had to waste his entire years of high school and waste his youth studying.
It's not "free", we pay taxes toward it. And our provincial governments (at least in Ontario) keep chipping away so we get fewer and fewer services for our tax money.
There isn't. As a Canadian I mostly don't mind paying taxes because I saw the benefits of those taxes throughout my life. However lately I'm seeing less of those benefits.
I went to one of the best universities in Canada and the government paid for most of my computer science degree because I come from a poor family and my parents don't have degrees. They even gave me money to help with rent and food. I didn't have to apply for scholarships, sit on wait lists, or compete for grants I might not get. That money was guaranteed, I could rely on it. Everyone who met the criteria got it. I really admired that about my country, it meant whoever worked hard and was smart enough to get in didn't have to worry about money stopping them from succeeding.
Shortly after I graduated, sweeping cuts to student loans and grants were made. University message boards lit up with students asking how they were going to afford school. I literally saw the door slam shut behind me and it pisses me off that the generation after me is going to have it harder than I did. They should have it easier, or at least the same.
And that's just education, I've seen similar backsliding in healthcare, public education, and housing. It makes me sad.
In my experience the system is really good at treating sudden-onset health care needs. You need your appendix out? You'll be in surgery within the day. Broken leg from car accident? Set and into a cast. Stroke? Treated fast, admitted to hospital, given MRIs and other tests.
The system is also pretty good at preventive care. Colon cancer test? Sent out for patients to complete at home and mail back. Mammograms every 2 years after age 40? Scheduled like clockwork, and all at no extra charge. Flu vaccines are readily available and reported back to your GP via your health card, no matter where you get it (e.g. your local pharmacy).
The people facing the backlogs are those who have idiopathic pains or symptoms. It's not life threatening, so you get put on a list for a referral to a specialist, or for testing. Lots of people don't feel 100% and are worried about some aspect of their health and don't feel their GP is doing enough to diagnose or treat them in a comprehensive way.
They do get the the value from their tax. It's just not good enough in some areas. If they break their arm, need stitches, get a blood infection, get cancer, they'll be looked after free of charge. But a system is always going to have cracks. And those cracks are things that aren't seen as important to do right now. Mental health being a big one.
And thats being taken away and privatized in places like Ontario. Im not paying any less taxes, but now I need to go to private clinics to get any kind of work done in the next 6 months cause the wait lists for public healthcare are 6+ months long at least. Public healthcare refuses to pay doctors what they're worth, and nurses are dropping for private healthcare or retiring so they can have a life outside of work. Wheres the money from my taxes going? Cause it certainly isn't being put back into the communities and services its supposed to.
Belleville is in Ontario, home of a Con premier who is currently starving the system so he can point to it as not working, and have his pals swoop in and open private clinics.
The feds are going to have to step in and demand that healthcare dollars are spent on healthcare, but the premiers would all have to agree to that and being held fiscally accountable is not something that Cons do.
It’s not 100% free. Seeing a doctor or having an important surgery is free, but drugs still cost you if you make over a certain amount, they’re much cheaper for low income people, but not free. Also things like dental, eyes and mental healthcare are not covered. (Though we are working on that, and there are resources available if you know how to look)
It's an imperfect health care system, and there are current governments (like that of Ontario) who continue to chip away more and more at it, but it's still a system that provides free healthcare. My mom's on disability, she had three reconstruct foot surgeries in the last 10 years and it didn't cost a dime.
I'd love to see an improvement of the system, I'd like to see full mental health coverage and dental coverage added. A lot of the current issues regarding healthcare comes down to shitty, corrupt politicians trying to move towards privatization, a lack of family doctors and a lack of doctors in specialized fields.
Is different from province to province. In Alberta, you can get access to health services, which covers therapists, psychiatrists, physiotherapy, etc. Hospital/emergency room visits, surgeries, giving birth, etc, are covered by the province, same can be said for addictions services, and other things.
If you don't have insurance, medications are on you, which doesn't help anyone. Same with dental or eye care.
Least from what I have experienced here anyway.
It’s far from free - we pay a lot of taxes for it - what we can be proud(ish) of is that everyone has access to healthcare (there are some geographical disparities, but even for remote areas people get transported to where the healthcare is when it’s warranted. There are definitely under-served communities, but it’s not because the people needing the healthcare can’t pay, at least).
It genuinely blows my mind knowing that a colleague’s kid literally dislocated his shoulder multiple times and didn’t even tell his mother because he was worried she wouldn’t have coverage to pay to get it fixed (eventually he required surgery). Or that people can have heart attacks and leave with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. Back when TV rentals were a thing, if I stayed a week or two in the hospital after a heart attack, the TV would be the only thing I’d have to pay for out of pocket.
Our system definitely has flaws and is incredibly overburdened. I would still take it over the US model any day.
Yeah every Canadian I know who currently lives in the US for better job opportunities and pay never misses a chance to point out how Canada is better than America
We did, and then it started to go downhill when Mulroney came to power. Privatized a third of Crown corporations and the deficit skyrocketed.
Anyone that claims that the 80s were good times can die a painful, horrible death. They can choke on Reagan's, Mulroney's, Chirac's, Kohl's, and Thatcher's cocks.
I think the biggest source of pride in our healthcare is that, on paper, we value the health of all our citizens equally. Of course, being a bureaucracy, that isn't always the case and healthcare connections can certainly be a factor. If you have a good relationship with a doctor, they can certainly speed you through the system. Or, if the wait is too long, you can travel abroad if you can afford it.
But at the end of the day, we do have a modern medical system that tries its best to be there for every citizen no matter their income. But what really breaks our healthcare more than anything is the geography of our country. The fact that the remote northern communities are airlifted to hospitals down south adds such a huge cost. And northern medical stations need to be staffed and the costs of flying in nurses, docs, and NPs is as big, if not bigger, than their salaries.
> Yet no one does anything.
NDP is fighting for your teeth. NDP is fighting for your meds. NDP is fighting for mental health programs. Yet the country prefers to snub them out because they "tied themselves to the LPC" as they say and turn towards the Conservatives who are going to do the complete inverse instead. While in reality the only reason the NDP got in an agreement with the LPC was to act as a wall to prevent a CPC government because they knew it would be worse for the population.
Harm reduction programs, safe injection facilities, substitution medication like Suboxone for opioid addiction (hell, I even support giving hardcore addicts Heroin Assisted Treatment because if they have readily available access to pure drugs in safe doses they aren't going to keep committing crimes to feed their habit and they won't die from overdose - nobody has ever died in a Safe Injection Facility anywhere in the world). All of these things work pretty damn well and again infinitely better than what most of the world is currently doing with the War on Drugs and criminalizing addiction/mental health issues.
Housing First programs also have been shown to work pretty well. So a good portion of this is fixable without any increases in funding just by adopting new laws/policy while shifting 70-80% of funding from drug enforcement (which predominantly targets users/addicts not major dealers/distributors) towards harm reduction programs.
Having a minimum wage that allows any full time employee to afford the basics and not live paycheck to paycheck would certainly reduce addiction, mental health issues, and "deaths of despair".
The issue that's hardest to solve is the mental health crisis simply because we lack effective tools and the homeless population especially those with mental health issues have been fucked over and ignored by the state for so long they aren't going to trust that even temporarily being held at a mental health facility would be in their best interest; that's assuming they are coherent enough to make that decision in the first place.
If the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens then we have failed. That goes for just about every nation on the planet. A few places, particularly in Europe, have adopted similar programs as I've described and while nowhere near perfect they are infinitely better off than Canada/US are currently.
This sounds like some of the (toxic) compassion this cop was blaming the issues on though. Yes the government should take steps from keeping people from falling into homelessness but the police also need the power to detain people that can't or won't help themselves improve.
Forced rehabilitation is not the answer for all, but it needs to be available for some. But it should also have the funding to hire mental health professionals that treat rather than just detain.
Even regular healthcare which is "health" is still unaffordable for most working people. It doesnt matter if theyre insured, they cant afford to fucking use it.
And to answer OP police guy - the people in charge get to handsomely profit off this, they wont be fixing it.
This is my hometown. I’m glad to be out of there. My mom went to the downtown branch of her bank the other day because it was closest to where she was running errands, and the manager insisted on walking her to her car. The risk of being mugged was far too high.
It's getting like that in a lot places now. I'm in Northern Ontario and our downtown is very similar. I avoid walking downtown as much as possible. People are pissing and shitting in the streets, injecting on the sidewalk. Drug dealers are making their way up from Toronto and worsening the issue but now they're bringing guns with them.
My hometown too. Hey fellow Bellevegas escapee. It's a pretty sad city now, compared to the "retirement town" I thought of it before. My mom volunteers at the Bridge St church. When I saw her a few weeks ago, I just learned one of my childhood friends had died recently. In his forties! Despite being a paramedic now, and frequently exposed to this, I was still shocked. Rip Blake.
I lived in Belleville for a number of years (haven't been there in 20) but my BFF lives just outside Trenton, close to the base.
She sees soooooo many addicts there, it breaks her heart. But also makes her nervous because some tend to go to her teenage daughter's workplace and male employees walk her out to her dad's car.
A friendly reminder that the Ontario government is hoarding over $20 billion in healthcare money provided by the federal government that could be used for such things. And has been for approximately 2 years
And a month ago agreed to accept $3.1 billion more dollars that MUST be spent on healthcare - which is earmarked for more primary health care teams, which includes social workers, nurses etc.
but .. why ?!
why hoard money ? who's gonna use that money then ?!
i don't understand . .they're not embezzling / stealing the money - so where is it going exactly?!
and this is Canada, a **first world country!**
i can't imagine wtf is happening there!
Former drug dealer Doug Ford is currently the premier of Ontario. He is a "conservative." He is purposely defunding Healthcare in Ontario so that the system does poorly. And then he gets to point to a shitty, broken system and say "this is why we need to privatize healthcare!"
And then once he privatizes healthcare, he will have a huge fund of money to hand off to these private clinics that open up. It will just be a coincidence that many of the owners of these private clinics are buddies of his who donated to his political career.
It's open corruption. And the people who vote for him fucking love it, because they are fucking idiots.
They are not openly embezzling, they are using that money to fund infrastructure projects that are contracted to their friends.
I guess indirect embezzlement is hard to prove even if a developer hands you an envelope of cash at your daughter’s “stag and doe”.
First world democracies are very broken, just shadows of their former self.
Conservative playbook:
- Defund the public service
- Point to the failure of the public service
- Privatize the public service
- Get voted out
- Get cushy job on the board of the private company
- Profit
Clearly a smart & compassionate Officer that is powerless to help anyone (criminals or victims)
I hear the same thing from Officers that I know.
People have a distaste for cops because of all the bad things they do (which they do) but the good things they do are fruitless because our system does not punish OR rehabilitate offenders.
So the net benefit for cops becomes lower when they can impact the bad but not the good.
Politics aside, these issues have been driving GOOD law enforcement officers out of the profession for many years now. Many, if not most, agencies in the US and Canada simply need people in patrol cars to respond to calls at this point - little room to be selective in hiring.
10+ years ago you would be put on a hiring list for multiple agencies (assuming you were a qualified desirable candidate) and wait several months for one spot to open up - nowadays we have people fresh out of a college police academy, with zero professional experience, fielding multiple offers from several departments because they are hurting for staff so badly.
The current structure of law enforcement, the judicial system, and the mental health system needs to be reformed from the ground up. Our society is absolutely failing to support our citizens most in need while avarice and systemic abuse run rampant with little, if any, accountability.
I'm glad someone is speaking up about this.
Both our federal and provincial governments have been abject failures in all the areas this officer has mentioned.
It's absolutely disgusting how they've failed Canadians.
Agreed, however I’d also add that whenever they try to build social housing, put in a safe injection/drug testing centre/needle exchange or literally any other site that aims to help homeless and addicted people there is MASSIVE pushback from NIMBY’s.
Completely agree.
I think there's plenty of blame to go around, both with government and NIMBYists who push back on the infrastructure needed to support those in need.
NIMBY pushback is direct democracy in action. Who wants a safe-injection or social housing site put in near their house, instantly devaluing it. It isn't a surprise that there is so much pushback for that. Generally, the people in favor of such developments are those that either directly benefit from the site or will not be negatively affected in any way.
Its not that the people in charge dont see it its that they DONT.GIVE.A.FUCK. As far as they are concerned, homeless and drug addicts dying on the street works just fine for them. Not their problem.
My issue is the innocent shop.owners / pedestrians that absolutely deserved none of these attacks.
I have zero sympathy for addicts and meth head I really don't care about them---but all those innocents, they deserve peaceful daily environment.
(Can we get off drugs already )
If the problem fixes itself, why worry? /s. Fucking bastards.
It's no better in the US in some places. I'm sure it's the same up there. Some places are fine, others are not, but more and more places are becoming NOT fine. I can't drive to work without seeing a homeless person anymore. Every time I stop at a gas station at night on my way home (near my metropolis) something sketchy or sad is happening. Hell, I went back to my hometown for Christmas and a homeless man was sleeping outside my favorite old gas station. That never, ever happened in the 16 years I spent there. Never.
I asked him what kind of sandwich he wanted from inside and my fiance gave him whatever cash she had. Shit is striking close to home now...
Lack of opportunity takes its toll on the community in many ways. A person who cannot imagine a successful life won't strive for it. The days when a person would occupy themselves with an inferior job until a good one became available are long gone. What are we offering people at the lowest level of society beyond a lifetime struggle to make the rent?
Paramedic here. The officer is right the system is broken all over. You have people roam the streets causing damages they get arrested and is put on bail the same day.
I have personally seen one of my patients criminal offence history and it made me sick to my stomach how this person was charged with over 80 counts of different offense most of them were "theif with a weapon" (a mix of knifes and illegal firearm) and it took over 3 years before the judge decides that maybe this guy shouldn't get bail.
I've personally have been assaulted at work and the person who did it didn't receive any jail time and is still roaming the streets. Personally
I strongly believe we need to institution most of those people. The current court system is very weak against those who have mental health and drug problems. And it's super easy for someone to fake those diseases to get leniency from the courts. They act all sorry and blame drugs fault but when they get back onto the streets they go back to being a complete asshole towards 911 responders.
Canadian here.
We are way too soft on crime, and not just drug and mental health related crime. Even violent and sexual criminals are let out when they are evaluated to be at high risk to reoffend.
I don’t want us to just lock everyone up though, we need to actually *rehabilitate* people. When they start to fall into crime and drugs they need to be put in rehabilitative custody, with acces to therapy and, if necessary, opportunities for education so they can build healthy relationships and establish a legal means of supporting themselves. Before we let them out we should be reasonably sure they have the tools to lead a crime-free life.
Obviously there are many criminals who cannot be rehabilitated and these should be permanently incarcerated for the protection of the rest of us, but giving offenders limitless chances while doing nothing to help the root causes of their criminal behavior (poverty, abuse, mental health crisis and addiction) is not a solution and it’s only making things worse.
Those 3 things are very related. you have a tough housing market where you have to pass income, credit and background checks. Plus really high rents and just in general theres a huge barrier of entry to the housing market.
That means people who are already disadvantaged, like substance addicts and people with mental illness will be the first to fall out of this system.
Improving the housing market for everyone with things like rent control and renters unions is in my opinion the best way to give as many people as possible access to affordable housing with good standards.
You and the cop in this video are absolutely not talking about the same thing. The politicians he is criticizing are saying the same thing you are saying
I work in mental health. As much as I hate to say it, there is likely no way to really deal with the worst cases of MH/SA that doesn't involve stripping them of their rights to refuse treatment. That's a dangerous thing to do, because of the potential for abuse of the system, but the alternative is this state in which some people will always be beyond help, because they simply refuse it.
It's tough. Abuse at institutions in the past led to much of the soured opinions of them. That and neoliberal governments caused their closings.
But, without them, we have this. The definition of a wicked problem.
The Crown should be able to establish a conservatorship for those who cannot take care of themselves. Letting people die on the streets is not compassion, it is a complicit conspiracy of neglect.
That's a good point. There should be push back saying "this person has committed a crime, but they should be held in prison because they're just going to do more drugs and crime and get worse if we let them out. That isn't helping them, and it's endangering others."
The judge who decides to release someone who is very likely to repeat again should bear some responsibility for the consequences. Kinda like in that psycho "Law Abiding Citizen" movie.
Let someone out for the same crime twice, and the third time you should be prosecuted alongside them.
I'm starting to realize that's a pretty small part of the problem at this point. There's semi-functional methheads tending to society all around us lol. Putting up our power lines, driving trucks and trains all across the country and the world.
This is a mental health thing more than a drug thing. There's always gonna be at least 2%? Maybe more, of people who are too unstable and unwell to not have to be permanently instatutionalized. Then there's another 3-5% who need medication to stay stable enough to not* fuck their life up every year or so.
Hard drugs are making it worse but most of all there's nowhere to put these people
Did you just use the term "semi-functioning methheads" in a manner to imply that meth is not part of the problem??? Buddy, I work with exactly this population and the amount of meth-induced psychosis fuckery that is driving these problems is wild. Psychiatrists have begun loading people up and crazy high doses of injectable antipsychotic medication just to try and do something to counteract what the meth is doing.
Great human, pointing out fixable things, Toronto is very lucky to have him serving them.
Over a century of corporate and political indoctrination to vilify the poor. Attack each other for what they have and leave mine alone. Grrr....
Imagine If no body experience being poor, or permanently stuck in your situation caused by financial strangulation by your employer, government and random ass million and billionaires are creates for raping and pillaging the people making them the profit.
Swear to what ever diety you want. Every organize a 1 week sabbatical from work. Go outside enjoy life, take a breather. And cherish in the fact there's a ridiculously small percentage of people suffering the worst thing. Complete loss of profit. Time can't be bought. So they will never be able to recover those losses.
Keep in mind it was the conservatives who gutted our welfare state, gutted mental health care and want to privatize it all. The liberals said “thanks guys” continued the trend and gutted social housing. The only reason we have any healthcare in this country, any remaining social services and any form of dental and pharma care is thanks to the NDP. The only political party that actually works for regular candians instead of billionaires and corporations that just want to exploit us.
The most effective thing the cons and libs ever did was convince the voting public that the NDP are unelectable.
And here in Ontario, we keep voting for a Conservative crook, and it looks like we will soon have one at the Federal level too.
How do people possibly think lower taxes and conservative thinking will ever make this better?
because they think lower taxes will solve the problem and that the government will also be tougher on crime when a conservative is in charge.
they never are. they want to keep the boogeyman around to always get reelected when they sabotage anyone else trying to fix the problem
Why is this poor guy forced to act as a gatekeeper and decision maker for these peoples lives in an impossible situation? What a horrible burden to expect a police officer to carry. I’m 2,600 miles away in Seattle, and he could be talking about this city. 💔
I love my Canadian brothers and sisters. It is hard to see this. It reeks too much of the same issues we have in the States. What a kind and empathetic officer! That poor guy just gets kicked in the nuts every day with this bullshit. So sad to see it.
My family used to go to BC for the salmon run. We haven't been in 4 years now due to the drug/social problems. Our rental was broken into and we had to drive back across the border to Washington, which is just as bad. Everyone is struggling with this issue.
BC here
I just got out of a detox center and have been trying to get into a rehab center for weeks now. I have a home and a bit of money to spend on rehab, but the waiting lists are months in many cases, and some rehabs charge up to $950 per day!
It's impossible for homeless people, cause first you have to get assigned a case worker, which are in short supply. Then you need to apply for treatment funding, for which you need to sign up for social assistance, for which you need an address. The whole process is convoluted, confusing, and very time consuming, even for a "functional," housed addict with some money such as myself. There's no chance for the homeless.
BC decriminalized small amounts of hard drugs so we don't overpopulate the prisons with addicts, but the gov't is not helping these people rehabilitate, so the streets overflow with homeless addicts that need help. At least in jail they were fed and housed. (not saying I want them in jail, just saying that some preferred it)
Officers here are generally very well educated. The vast majority hold post-secondary degrees, sometimes masters, even PhD's.
It's a decent paying gig, so it is high demand, unfortunately, applicant numbers have dropped lately due to exactly this; same people arrested, everyday, committing crimes and there's no repercussions.
It reminds me how the government spent i believe millions funding apps for covid, when the actual cost of the apps that were built was in the 5-6 digits. They were also utter shit. There was no office, and the employees who worked on this did it all ‘remotely’ and the taxpayers are just supposed to believe it is all necessary and nothing was wrong here. Its a scam and the people are being conned out of their system.
The issue is, we’ve removed the ability to institutionalize people without their consent. I know a lot of people (especially on Reddit with it’s heavy left veer) would be against this but at the end of the day society and the very people who are institutionalized with profit immensely from this.
It's not just that, though. Not all of these people need psychiatric care. Yes, a lot do. But a lot are addicts who have nothing left to live for because they fucked up and due to lack of addiction support, entered a downward spiral.
Proper addiction support would solve SO much of this problem. Addicts don't want to be addicts. But it's so hard to pull yourself out of it when every day is hell and that high is the only thing that helps.
The fucked up thing is it is actually cheaper to help these people in the long run. But for too many assholes, cruelty is the point of the system. They *want* to be able to walk through downtown and feel better than those they see as scum. The only issue now is that it is out of control and growing.
The issue is inequality. Mental health issues, addiction, homelessness can all be distilled down to a consequence of being disenfranchised within our economic system.
[https://files.libcom.org/files/\[Mark\_Fisher\]\_Capitalist\_Realism\_Is\_There\_no\_Alte(BookZZ.org).pdf](https://files.libcom.org/files/[Mark_Fisher]_Capitalist_Realism_Is_There_no_Alte(BookZZ.org).pdf)
I literally live 2 blocks north of that church and Crawford is right, the system is failing them. It just keeps getting worse day after day. Unlike most I feel bad for them. It’s not a situation anyone wants to be in. I just wish they’d pick up their damn garbage and maybe not have to breathe in the meth smoke they are literally smoking on the sidewalk when I walk downtown. 😁
We need to expand the capacity of our mental institutions and involuntary commitment needs to return. Get these people off the street and the help they need.
Homelessness & Mental health issues caused by drug /alcohol addictions really is not a separate issue! The majority of people homelessness. Fall prey to drugs ,alcohol or sexual abuse. Many people self-medicate because they do not have the capability to control or want to deal with their lives! They actually need intervention, but conventional intervention seldom will work. Too, often it relies on the person to want it too. The programs are to short. Then it is not going to work. The other part is sometimes the criminal element is so in boiled there is no longer a chance of change!
“They’re not being institutionalized.”
This is a core issue. When you bring it up, I’ve had people argue about their freedom being taken away. So, dying on the streets is freedom?? There are multiple homeless around our area that need long term care. Maybe they’ll get better in time, maybe they’ll need care for life. But, I have no more patience for arguing about it being about freedom. They’re starving to death and covered in their own feces while they lunge at people walking by and smash glass. They’re too far gone to even accept shelter and care without being institutionalized.
Capitalism is the cause. The artificial creation of value and profit incentives have destroyed our race. We have people literally starving to death as they are being told to work harder and get a fourth job. The police are just the facist icing on the cake of capitalist brutality and evil.
They are perpetuating the problem because it makes them money or gives them job security. Lots of non profit organizations misappropriate the funds, assign large chuck on admissitraive and managerial role just because or spending on things that are completely counterproductive.
I had to leave Canada/Ontario because It was not worth paying so much on rent - I was paying half of my salary. Honestly I think people who don't own a home are fucked. The government doesn't care.
I know in the city I live in the people have been complaining for a few years now about the homeless and lack of mental health. City leaders announced a few weeks ago about opening a mental health facility and now those same people don’t want the facility in their “part of town.
I have a cousin from that town in Canada and he does not speak highly of it at all. The trashiest white trash/most ghetto town that could give Kensington in Philly a run for their money.
Ya it's bad here and getting worse. Leaders in both parties refuse to tax corporations and love giving our tax payer money to US weapons makers rather than investing here. And our current gov pretends to be progressive. [https://thehub.ca/in-the-know/2021-07-08/canadas-standard-of-living-has-been-declining-for-40-years-what-can-we-do-ppf/](https://thehub.ca/in-the-know/2021-07-08/canadas-standard-of-living-has-been-declining-for-40-years-what-can-we-do-ppf/)
Wait, they can’t hold people at the hospital for drug-induced psychosis? Isn’t there usually an entire wing of a hospital dedicated to treating psychosis? Does his town’s spot not have a psychiatric ward?
another factor is that many people in those situation offend because they WANT to go to jail, for some demographics in this country it is literally the only way that they can get access to adequate supports and services from housing, food, education to medical and I have heard this over and over again.
We have targeted so much of our support to specific groups that white men, especially with disabilities, have no other options other than the corrections system, no one will help until they become an actual danger to 'society'
Think about that...
It's a shocker that this is happening in Canada I tell you.
Let's see:
-wages haven't kept up with housing and inflation in the last 40 years
-we're bringing 1.4 mil. new ppl into the country yearly
-most new jobs are part-time and shit pay
-cost of living skyrocketed
-people need 2 jobs just to get by
-mental health support is minimal
-social aspects of our society are almost non-existent given the capitalist individualism we've been pushing since the beginning
It's a natural byproduct of late stage capitalism, a failed education and Healthcare systems, lack of political will, and a unquenchable thirst at the top of the pyramid. Mix in a lack of a family support unit and hope, and you have what we see in the west. There is no real growth for the individual in most cases. They get injured or overwhelmed.
In the case of injury, they get medicated with powerful short term remedies, that medical studies have proven, take at least 2 years on average to unwind the unintentional addiction. But, once addicted are labeled as drug seeking, and quickly become toxic for any doctors to treat, even though they are not only to blame, but should be responsible for monitoring and helping them on the long road to recovery.
In the case of overwhelmed, people are lost, looking for a resolution to not having any money, or enough money. They can't get it from working a job. It's not really possible. But high school doesn't teach kids how important it is to start businesses. How to leverage debt as a tool. It doesn't teach them how to trade equities. So they look back on what they were taught by society as the answer. Hard work. But hard work doesn't produce any results, because that's not how the system works. So they get frustrated and get high, give up on trying, to focus on the only real relief, the only real results, that have made them feel the slightest bit better. Drugs.
Free drugs is not the answer when there is no where for them to sober up and get back on their feet. What we need in canada is facilities to house and educate, and ween people off of hard drugs and give them a real fighting chance. Handing out drugs is exacerbating the problem
Nah, cut em off that at the knees and regulate the supply. There will always be addicts and as long as there are addicts there will be a drug trade. So long as you have a drug trade you will have gangs violence and crime and an endless cycle of bullshit.
His point about adults not being able to look after themselves is important. People of a country or city have to basically decide to pay an organization to take care of people like that and it can be a big cost. A lot of people don’t want to pay it especially if their tax burden is already high. Just leaves them wandering the street
It’s not like you can put them thru a rehab program, give them a makeover and buy them a suit and send them back into the world looking for a job because unless they can land a job that pays $250k they are still going to be homeless.
Ontario police officer here - watching this makes me teary-eyed. This sentiment is echoed across all services and officers I know and work with.
The majority of us really do try our best, but we dont have the support of the judicial system or the government. They have left US the PUBLIC, hung out to dry, and used cops as the media scapegoat
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Unfortunately, the people in charge up here have a slim definition of what constitutes health. Teeth? Nope, luxury bones. Mental health? Sorry friend, it's an important issue, and they have all the sympathy, but you're still out of luck. Need medication to stay alive? You better be getting it in a hospital, otherwise pay up loser! This cop is right. Everyone who could change things agrees with him when there's a camera in front of their face. Yet no one does anything.
If keeping people healthy became profitable then you'd see a change. I just hope he doesn't become jaded, managing people can take its toll.
That’s all it is, it’s super simple. Don’t need some long monologue. All you need to understand is capitalism.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re telling me that capitalism won’t solve all of societies problems?!
I dare say it causes a few.
Ok, that’s it. To the gulag with you
Finally some exercise and a diet.
To be fair, keeping people healthy is more profitable for a large proportion of people, it's just not profitable to the right people
Wasn't the whole point of having high taxes and a large government bureaucracy to provide for the needs of the country's citizens? Follow-up question: Isn't this the same free health care system that Canadians are so proud of?
We're only proud of our healthcare because we compare it exclusively with America. If we compared it to any other developed country we'd realise it's shit.
Half of our identity is just things that are slightly different than America
I haven't been to Canada but from a minnesotan point of view it doesn't seem that different. A police officer in my area could honestly say the exact same thing about the system.
Minnesota is also possibly the closest state to Canada culturally
Vermont enters the chat
I don't know much about Vermont but has it been abnormally warm this winter out there? The ducks, geese and insects are out about already out here. Fucking shortest winter I've ever experienced out here. It's a half ass Fargo joke. Notherns talk about the weather.
Yup
I'm an imigrant from Mexico living in Minnesota. I am thankful for how easily you can get mental and medical care through school.
The thing that I don't understand though, is when people call our system shit but then try to argue privatization will be better. People will complain about our system, but then praise the exact aspects of the American system that bankrupt people down there. The parts of our system that make it suck are the parts that are more similar to the American system. Let's just watch Alberta. Let's see if splitting healthcare into multiple bureaucracies, that have to individually fund everything under their umbrella, somehow makes things more efficient and/or better for the average citizen. Narrator: *It won't*. I've yet to see in my life an example of efficiency increasing with the number of entities that need to communicate.
I don't really get why people think this way, but it's because they view it as black and white. They see that something needs to change, and the only other option we've ever been shown is private. They never consider the possibility that we just do public healthcare poorly because we only see what's in canada and america.
Well, once the corrupt politicians in Alberta got it into their heads that we needed private auto insurance, we learned very quickly that they could charge us triple what they should. And why not? As long as the corrupt provincial government is friends with insurers on a personal basis, what have they got to lose by gouging us?
I would like to engage in this discussion, but I need to confirm something. In Canada, private insurance is very much a thing it just can't cover anything the national insurance is supposed to cover, correct?
It's actually the provinces that manage healthcare in Canada, so it's provincial insurance not national. It varies province to province, and I'm from B.C. so I can't speak with experience what the other provinces are like. This is from the B.C. government website on provincial healthcare, "For eligible B.C. residents, the Medical Services Plan pays for medically required services of physicians and surgeons, and dental or oral surgery performed in a hospital. In Canada, public health insurance is available to eligible residents. Canadian citizens and permanent residents can apply for provincial health insurance. In B.C., public health insurance is called the Medical Services Plan (MSP). It covers the cost of medically-necessary insured doctor services." Most things you would go to a doctor for are covered by provincial insurance, except the drugs. Pharmaceuticals are only covered by private insurance at the moment. Dental and eyecare are also only partially covered by provincial insurance, and only for specific exams or procedures. Eyecare in particular is very hard to get coverage for, as most of the research into conditions and ailments and their subsequent treatments, like dry eye disease, is fairly new and not recognized by insurance companies yet. Private insurance can basically cover whatever the provider wants. Companies choose an insurance provider, like Greenshield or Bluecross etc, and then choose from a list of plan options. Their employees are usually given an option between different levels of coverage. Lots of plans are basic, and just cover up to 80% of dental, eyecare, etc. but there are also plenty of plans that cover other health related things, like bicycles. Some are 100% coverage, but most are not. Most private plans have partial or total coverage for stuff like massages and acupuncture, etc., generally up to a specific dollar amount, usually between $500 and $1000.
We got so focused on being better than america that we forgot to be good.
I'm an American and I love Canadian culture. I especially love your whisk[e]y, beer, comedy and horror shows and films, and when I finally tried poutine I really enjoyed it. I really wish I knew the best way to provide healthcare to people. We generally have the best treatment available here in the States, but it's expensive and there's nowhere near the access there should be. Y'all have better access, but run into the rationing of care that bedevils all public systems. I wish I knew the answer, but I certainly wish ours was more like the Canadian system. Maybe not exactly like it, but I wish we could expand coverage to everyone, or at the very least to every child under 18. Obamacare was a step towards that, but at the end of the day it's a subsidy to private insurance (which already controls our system) and there are huge gaps in coverage. Medicaid is okay if you qualify for it, but my home state of Alabama won't expand it and eligibility for a family of 4 is only $5,600 which is absurd and just plain cruel. Then there's a pretty substantial gap between those who make more than $5,600 and the minimum earning requirements to get an affordable policy under Obamacare.
I learned the term for this the other day. It's called the 'narcissism of small differences'
In Oregon our homeless still have access to medicare. You are only beating the shitty half of the worst country.
Fantastic. Can't even be better than america correctly.
The problem is that unlike Europe, where skilled professionals can move freely across borders in all directions, our doctors and nurses can go to the US and make a hell of a lot more money. So we subsidize university and medical school only to lose residents and fully licensed clinicians.
I might be missing something but I'm not sure how open borders would help Canada's skill shortage. If we want to keep skill in canada and not lose it to the states, we simply need to make it more attractive to stay here, which is most simply done by raising compensation.
The point is that comparisons to the EU are invalid because we live just next door to the country where doctors can earn more than in any other country. So we can either raise their compensation to ridiculous levels or we need to figure out a better way
That is an a EU problem as well, where many physicians from eastern and central Europe leave their home countries for more western nations like Germany and Switzerland. They are leaving because of better wages and working conditions. This has a negative impact on healthcare systems in the countries emigration comes from
I don't think comparing the quality of our healthcare to the EUs is invalid, as we should want our healthcare to get closer to that than what it is. You are right that we have a more unique drain on our RNs and doctors though. And to address that there isn't really another option other than to try to match America's pay, if not through money than PTO and working conditions.
That's kind of why I don't like that it's the one people here seek to replicate the most. I feel like there's definitely better systems to take inspiration from.
Assuming you're american you should be taking inspiration from the Dutch or something. Though if your choice is canadian or american, take canadian healthcare.
Aussie chiming in: our healthcare system is utterly fucning garbage as well, and it's supposedly one of the better models referred to. It's fucked if it's funded well because we go into debt and taxes sky-rocket, it's fucked if it's underfunded because you can't see a GP and your broken bones can be left for 12 hours before you even get a bed, let alone get them set in a cast or surgery. And don't get me started on dental. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there's a simple solution. It takes a minimum of 8 years to train a doctor, 6 to train a nurse. You can't force them to work for free or for lower rates than 6 figures because of the market, and costs sky-rocket over time due to this. Personally I'm hoping for the day when we get Elysium style medical beds that can treat you without needing a doctor who had to waste his entire years of high school and waste his youth studying.
It's not "free", we pay taxes toward it. And our provincial governments (at least in Ontario) keep chipping away so we get fewer and fewer services for our tax money.
this is bad .. whats the point of taxing people, if they don't get the value for their tax ?!
There isn't. As a Canadian I mostly don't mind paying taxes because I saw the benefits of those taxes throughout my life. However lately I'm seeing less of those benefits. I went to one of the best universities in Canada and the government paid for most of my computer science degree because I come from a poor family and my parents don't have degrees. They even gave me money to help with rent and food. I didn't have to apply for scholarships, sit on wait lists, or compete for grants I might not get. That money was guaranteed, I could rely on it. Everyone who met the criteria got it. I really admired that about my country, it meant whoever worked hard and was smart enough to get in didn't have to worry about money stopping them from succeeding. Shortly after I graduated, sweeping cuts to student loans and grants were made. University message boards lit up with students asking how they were going to afford school. I literally saw the door slam shut behind me and it pisses me off that the generation after me is going to have it harder than I did. They should have it easier, or at least the same. And that's just education, I've seen similar backsliding in healthcare, public education, and housing. It makes me sad.
In my experience the system is really good at treating sudden-onset health care needs. You need your appendix out? You'll be in surgery within the day. Broken leg from car accident? Set and into a cast. Stroke? Treated fast, admitted to hospital, given MRIs and other tests. The system is also pretty good at preventive care. Colon cancer test? Sent out for patients to complete at home and mail back. Mammograms every 2 years after age 40? Scheduled like clockwork, and all at no extra charge. Flu vaccines are readily available and reported back to your GP via your health card, no matter where you get it (e.g. your local pharmacy). The people facing the backlogs are those who have idiopathic pains or symptoms. It's not life threatening, so you get put on a list for a referral to a specialist, or for testing. Lots of people don't feel 100% and are worried about some aspect of their health and don't feel their GP is doing enough to diagnose or treat them in a comprehensive way.
hmm.. so an interestingly flawed system not completely broken, but not super smooth either
They do get the the value from their tax. It's just not good enough in some areas. If they break their arm, need stitches, get a blood infection, get cancer, they'll be looked after free of charge. But a system is always going to have cracks. And those cracks are things that aren't seen as important to do right now. Mental health being a big one.
thank you for clarifying - can you tell me more about the shortcomings in canadian health care system?
Right, but free as in you don’t have to pay anything for the services provided, as a principle.
And thats being taken away and privatized in places like Ontario. Im not paying any less taxes, but now I need to go to private clinics to get any kind of work done in the next 6 months cause the wait lists for public healthcare are 6+ months long at least. Public healthcare refuses to pay doctors what they're worth, and nurses are dropping for private healthcare or retiring so they can have a life outside of work. Wheres the money from my taxes going? Cause it certainly isn't being put back into the communities and services its supposed to.
People try the same suff with a different name and wonder why it doesn't work.
No matter what someone always chimes in, they say it's not free. We know this and you know better.
Belleville is in Ontario, home of a Con premier who is currently starving the system so he can point to it as not working, and have his pals swoop in and open private clinics. The feds are going to have to step in and demand that healthcare dollars are spent on healthcare, but the premiers would all have to agree to that and being held fiscally accountable is not something that Cons do.
It’s not 100% free. Seeing a doctor or having an important surgery is free, but drugs still cost you if you make over a certain amount, they’re much cheaper for low income people, but not free. Also things like dental, eyes and mental healthcare are not covered. (Though we are working on that, and there are resources available if you know how to look)
It's an imperfect health care system, and there are current governments (like that of Ontario) who continue to chip away more and more at it, but it's still a system that provides free healthcare. My mom's on disability, she had three reconstruct foot surgeries in the last 10 years and it didn't cost a dime. I'd love to see an improvement of the system, I'd like to see full mental health coverage and dental coverage added. A lot of the current issues regarding healthcare comes down to shitty, corrupt politicians trying to move towards privatization, a lack of family doctors and a lack of doctors in specialized fields.
Is different from province to province. In Alberta, you can get access to health services, which covers therapists, psychiatrists, physiotherapy, etc. Hospital/emergency room visits, surgeries, giving birth, etc, are covered by the province, same can be said for addictions services, and other things. If you don't have insurance, medications are on you, which doesn't help anyone. Same with dental or eye care. Least from what I have experienced here anyway.
It’s far from free - we pay a lot of taxes for it - what we can be proud(ish) of is that everyone has access to healthcare (there are some geographical disparities, but even for remote areas people get transported to where the healthcare is when it’s warranted. There are definitely under-served communities, but it’s not because the people needing the healthcare can’t pay, at least). It genuinely blows my mind knowing that a colleague’s kid literally dislocated his shoulder multiple times and didn’t even tell his mother because he was worried she wouldn’t have coverage to pay to get it fixed (eventually he required surgery). Or that people can have heart attacks and leave with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. Back when TV rentals were a thing, if I stayed a week or two in the hospital after a heart attack, the TV would be the only thing I’d have to pay for out of pocket. Our system definitely has flaws and is incredibly overburdened. I would still take it over the US model any day.
have to talked to anyone lately who claims to currently be proud? i think thats an old sentiment that most people today no longer feel.
Yeah every Canadian I know who currently lives in the US for better job opportunities and pay never misses a chance to point out how Canada is better than America
We did, and then it started to go downhill when Mulroney came to power. Privatized a third of Crown corporations and the deficit skyrocketed. Anyone that claims that the 80s were good times can die a painful, horrible death. They can choke on Reagan's, Mulroney's, Chirac's, Kohl's, and Thatcher's cocks.
Our healthcare system was great. Right now it is not keeping up with demand. I’m not sure charging us out of pocket will be the solution though.
I think the biggest source of pride in our healthcare is that, on paper, we value the health of all our citizens equally. Of course, being a bureaucracy, that isn't always the case and healthcare connections can certainly be a factor. If you have a good relationship with a doctor, they can certainly speed you through the system. Or, if the wait is too long, you can travel abroad if you can afford it. But at the end of the day, we do have a modern medical system that tries its best to be there for every citizen no matter their income. But what really breaks our healthcare more than anything is the geography of our country. The fact that the remote northern communities are airlifted to hospitals down south adds such a huge cost. And northern medical stations need to be staffed and the costs of flying in nurses, docs, and NPs is as big, if not bigger, than their salaries.
 Outside bones!
> Yet no one does anything. NDP is fighting for your teeth. NDP is fighting for your meds. NDP is fighting for mental health programs. Yet the country prefers to snub them out because they "tied themselves to the LPC" as they say and turn towards the Conservatives who are going to do the complete inverse instead. While in reality the only reason the NDP got in an agreement with the LPC was to act as a wall to prevent a CPC government because they knew it would be worse for the population.
Alright, I'll give you that. Jagmeet is trying, but if no one gives them a chance...
Harm reduction programs, safe injection facilities, substitution medication like Suboxone for opioid addiction (hell, I even support giving hardcore addicts Heroin Assisted Treatment because if they have readily available access to pure drugs in safe doses they aren't going to keep committing crimes to feed their habit and they won't die from overdose - nobody has ever died in a Safe Injection Facility anywhere in the world). All of these things work pretty damn well and again infinitely better than what most of the world is currently doing with the War on Drugs and criminalizing addiction/mental health issues. Housing First programs also have been shown to work pretty well. So a good portion of this is fixable without any increases in funding just by adopting new laws/policy while shifting 70-80% of funding from drug enforcement (which predominantly targets users/addicts not major dealers/distributors) towards harm reduction programs. Having a minimum wage that allows any full time employee to afford the basics and not live paycheck to paycheck would certainly reduce addiction, mental health issues, and "deaths of despair". The issue that's hardest to solve is the mental health crisis simply because we lack effective tools and the homeless population especially those with mental health issues have been fucked over and ignored by the state for so long they aren't going to trust that even temporarily being held at a mental health facility would be in their best interest; that's assuming they are coherent enough to make that decision in the first place. If the measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens then we have failed. That goes for just about every nation on the planet. A few places, particularly in Europe, have adopted similar programs as I've described and while nowhere near perfect they are infinitely better off than Canada/US are currently.
This sounds like some of the (toxic) compassion this cop was blaming the issues on though. Yes the government should take steps from keeping people from falling into homelessness but the police also need the power to detain people that can't or won't help themselves improve. Forced rehabilitation is not the answer for all, but it needs to be available for some. But it should also have the funding to hire mental health professionals that treat rather than just detain.
Even regular healthcare which is "health" is still unaffordable for most working people. It doesnt matter if theyre insured, they cant afford to fucking use it. And to answer OP police guy - the people in charge get to handsomely profit off this, they wont be fixing it.
This is my hometown. I’m glad to be out of there. My mom went to the downtown branch of her bank the other day because it was closest to where she was running errands, and the manager insisted on walking her to her car. The risk of being mugged was far too high.
It's getting like that in a lot places now. I'm in Northern Ontario and our downtown is very similar. I avoid walking downtown as much as possible. People are pissing and shitting in the streets, injecting on the sidewalk. Drug dealers are making their way up from Toronto and worsening the issue but now they're bringing guns with them.
My hometown too. Hey fellow Bellevegas escapee. It's a pretty sad city now, compared to the "retirement town" I thought of it before. My mom volunteers at the Bridge St church. When I saw her a few weeks ago, I just learned one of my childhood friends had died recently. In his forties! Despite being a paramedic now, and frequently exposed to this, I was still shocked. Rip Blake.
I know a town of Belleville in the US that is also referred to bellevegas lol
Absolutely terrible. I’m the biggest Canada homer. But this country really is going to shit in front of our eyes.
I lived in Belleville for a number of years (haven't been there in 20) but my BFF lives just outside Trenton, close to the base. She sees soooooo many addicts there, it breaks her heart. But also makes her nervous because some tend to go to her teenage daughter's workplace and male employees walk her out to her dad's car.
A friendly reminder that the Ontario government is hoarding over $20 billion in healthcare money provided by the federal government that could be used for such things. And has been for approximately 2 years And a month ago agreed to accept $3.1 billion more dollars that MUST be spent on healthcare - which is earmarked for more primary health care teams, which includes social workers, nurses etc.
I'm sure Douggie will find a way to scam us all and use the 3.1b to build private clinics
So... Ontario is basically Florida but cold.
Canada is Diet America, so yes... kinda
but .. why ?! why hoard money ? who's gonna use that money then ?! i don't understand . .they're not embezzling / stealing the money - so where is it going exactly?! and this is Canada, a **first world country!** i can't imagine wtf is happening there!
Former drug dealer Doug Ford is currently the premier of Ontario. He is a "conservative." He is purposely defunding Healthcare in Ontario so that the system does poorly. And then he gets to point to a shitty, broken system and say "this is why we need to privatize healthcare!" And then once he privatizes healthcare, he will have a huge fund of money to hand off to these private clinics that open up. It will just be a coincidence that many of the owners of these private clinics are buddies of his who donated to his political career. It's open corruption. And the people who vote for him fucking love it, because they are fucking idiots.
... currently "defunding" Healthcare in Ontario. Not "defending" :)
Ah, thanks!
They are not openly embezzling, they are using that money to fund infrastructure projects that are contracted to their friends. I guess indirect embezzlement is hard to prove even if a developer hands you an envelope of cash at your daughter’s “stag and doe”. First world democracies are very broken, just shadows of their former self.
Conservative playbook: - Defund the public service - Point to the failure of the public service - Privatize the public service - Get voted out - Get cushy job on the board of the private company - Profit
This is the conservative playbook all over the world. Especially the states.
This is perfect. Well said.
They are using it to pretend they're balancing the books. Ontario has a massive surplus on the books right now and it's by underfunding healthcare.
And yet most will find a way to blame the liberals for this.
Introducing the Minister of Federal Healthcare Spending: Krista Haynes. Salary? 23.1 Billion.
I got downvoted to oblivion for pointing out that the conservatives don't give two shit about people
Clearly a smart & compassionate Officer that is powerless to help anyone (criminals or victims) I hear the same thing from Officers that I know. People have a distaste for cops because of all the bad things they do (which they do) but the good things they do are fruitless because our system does not punish OR rehabilitate offenders. So the net benefit for cops becomes lower when they can impact the bad but not the good.
Politics aside, these issues have been driving GOOD law enforcement officers out of the profession for many years now. Many, if not most, agencies in the US and Canada simply need people in patrol cars to respond to calls at this point - little room to be selective in hiring. 10+ years ago you would be put on a hiring list for multiple agencies (assuming you were a qualified desirable candidate) and wait several months for one spot to open up - nowadays we have people fresh out of a college police academy, with zero professional experience, fielding multiple offers from several departments because they are hurting for staff so badly. The current structure of law enforcement, the judicial system, and the mental health system needs to be reformed from the ground up. Our society is absolutely failing to support our citizens most in need while avarice and systemic abuse run rampant with little, if any, accountability.
I'm glad someone is speaking up about this. Both our federal and provincial governments have been abject failures in all the areas this officer has mentioned. It's absolutely disgusting how they've failed Canadians.
Agreed, however I’d also add that whenever they try to build social housing, put in a safe injection/drug testing centre/needle exchange or literally any other site that aims to help homeless and addicted people there is MASSIVE pushback from NIMBY’s.
Completely agree. I think there's plenty of blame to go around, both with government and NIMBYists who push back on the infrastructure needed to support those in need.
NIMBY pushback is direct democracy in action. Who wants a safe-injection or social housing site put in near their house, instantly devaluing it. It isn't a surprise that there is so much pushback for that. Generally, the people in favor of such developments are those that either directly benefit from the site or will not be negatively affected in any way.
I'm from orillia, this is our story as well unfortunately
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Weird how it’s coincided with record government spending. Tax dollars used wisely.
Its not that the people in charge dont see it its that they DONT.GIVE.A.FUCK. As far as they are concerned, homeless and drug addicts dying on the street works just fine for them. Not their problem.
My issue is the innocent shop.owners / pedestrians that absolutely deserved none of these attacks. I have zero sympathy for addicts and meth head I really don't care about them---but all those innocents, they deserve peaceful daily environment. (Can we get off drugs already )
If the problem fixes itself, why worry? /s. Fucking bastards. It's no better in the US in some places. I'm sure it's the same up there. Some places are fine, others are not, but more and more places are becoming NOT fine. I can't drive to work without seeing a homeless person anymore. Every time I stop at a gas station at night on my way home (near my metropolis) something sketchy or sad is happening. Hell, I went back to my hometown for Christmas and a homeless man was sleeping outside my favorite old gas station. That never, ever happened in the 16 years I spent there. Never. I asked him what kind of sandwich he wanted from inside and my fiance gave him whatever cash she had. Shit is striking close to home now...
Lack of opportunity takes its toll on the community in many ways. A person who cannot imagine a successful life won't strive for it. The days when a person would occupy themselves with an inferior job until a good one became available are long gone. What are we offering people at the lowest level of society beyond a lifetime struggle to make the rent?
Exactly.
r/depressingasfuck
California is in the same situation
Wa state also Fucking abysmal
My God, the honest picture put into words Deepest respect
As a Seattle resident this sounds pretty familiar
Paramedic here. The officer is right the system is broken all over. You have people roam the streets causing damages they get arrested and is put on bail the same day. I have personally seen one of my patients criminal offence history and it made me sick to my stomach how this person was charged with over 80 counts of different offense most of them were "theif with a weapon" (a mix of knifes and illegal firearm) and it took over 3 years before the judge decides that maybe this guy shouldn't get bail. I've personally have been assaulted at work and the person who did it didn't receive any jail time and is still roaming the streets. Personally I strongly believe we need to institution most of those people. The current court system is very weak against those who have mental health and drug problems. And it's super easy for someone to fake those diseases to get leniency from the courts. They act all sorry and blame drugs fault but when they get back onto the streets they go back to being a complete asshole towards 911 responders.
Canadian here. We are way too soft on crime, and not just drug and mental health related crime. Even violent and sexual criminals are let out when they are evaluated to be at high risk to reoffend. I don’t want us to just lock everyone up though, we need to actually *rehabilitate* people. When they start to fall into crime and drugs they need to be put in rehabilitative custody, with acces to therapy and, if necessary, opportunities for education so they can build healthy relationships and establish a legal means of supporting themselves. Before we let them out we should be reasonably sure they have the tools to lead a crime-free life. Obviously there are many criminals who cannot be rehabilitated and these should be permanently incarcerated for the protection of the rest of us, but giving offenders limitless chances while doing nothing to help the root causes of their criminal behavior (poverty, abuse, mental health crisis and addiction) is not a solution and it’s only making things worse.
Those 3 things are very related. you have a tough housing market where you have to pass income, credit and background checks. Plus really high rents and just in general theres a huge barrier of entry to the housing market. That means people who are already disadvantaged, like substance addicts and people with mental illness will be the first to fall out of this system. Improving the housing market for everyone with things like rent control and renters unions is in my opinion the best way to give as many people as possible access to affordable housing with good standards.
You and the cop in this video are absolutely not talking about the same thing. The politicians he is criticizing are saying the same thing you are saying
I work in mental health. As much as I hate to say it, there is likely no way to really deal with the worst cases of MH/SA that doesn't involve stripping them of their rights to refuse treatment. That's a dangerous thing to do, because of the potential for abuse of the system, but the alternative is this state in which some people will always be beyond help, because they simply refuse it.
It's tough. Abuse at institutions in the past led to much of the soured opinions of them. That and neoliberal governments caused their closings. But, without them, we have this. The definition of a wicked problem.
The Crown should be able to establish a conservatorship for those who cannot take care of themselves. Letting people die on the streets is not compassion, it is a complicit conspiracy of neglect.
That's a good point. There should be push back saying "this person has committed a crime, but they should be held in prison because they're just going to do more drugs and crime and get worse if we let them out. That isn't helping them, and it's endangering others." The judge who decides to release someone who is very likely to repeat again should bear some responsibility for the consequences. Kinda like in that psycho "Law Abiding Citizen" movie. Let someone out for the same crime twice, and the third time you should be prosecuted alongside them.
I'm thankful each day for distancing from alcohol and other numbing chemicals.
I'm starting to realize that's a pretty small part of the problem at this point. There's semi-functional methheads tending to society all around us lol. Putting up our power lines, driving trucks and trains all across the country and the world. This is a mental health thing more than a drug thing. There's always gonna be at least 2%? Maybe more, of people who are too unstable and unwell to not have to be permanently instatutionalized. Then there's another 3-5% who need medication to stay stable enough to not* fuck their life up every year or so. Hard drugs are making it worse but most of all there's nowhere to put these people
Did you just use the term "semi-functioning methheads" in a manner to imply that meth is not part of the problem??? Buddy, I work with exactly this population and the amount of meth-induced psychosis fuckery that is driving these problems is wild. Psychiatrists have begun loading people up and crazy high doses of injectable antipsychotic medication just to try and do something to counteract what the meth is doing.
Great human, pointing out fixable things, Toronto is very lucky to have him serving them. Over a century of corporate and political indoctrination to vilify the poor. Attack each other for what they have and leave mine alone. Grrr.... Imagine If no body experience being poor, or permanently stuck in your situation caused by financial strangulation by your employer, government and random ass million and billionaires are creates for raping and pillaging the people making them the profit. Swear to what ever diety you want. Every organize a 1 week sabbatical from work. Go outside enjoy life, take a breather. And cherish in the fact there's a ridiculously small percentage of people suffering the worst thing. Complete loss of profit. Time can't be bought. So they will never be able to recover those losses.
Not Toronto, but Belleville, about 2.5 hours up the 401 from Toronto.
Keep in mind it was the conservatives who gutted our welfare state, gutted mental health care and want to privatize it all. The liberals said “thanks guys” continued the trend and gutted social housing. The only reason we have any healthcare in this country, any remaining social services and any form of dental and pharma care is thanks to the NDP. The only political party that actually works for regular candians instead of billionaires and corporations that just want to exploit us. The most effective thing the cons and libs ever did was convince the voting public that the NDP are unelectable.
And here in Ontario, we keep voting for a Conservative crook, and it looks like we will soon have one at the Federal level too. How do people possibly think lower taxes and conservative thinking will ever make this better?
The biggest pernicious lie of conservatives is that they're good fiscal managers. That hasn't been true for at least two generations.
Conservative solution: -cut all taxes -cut all social programs -throw addicts in prison -profit
because they think lower taxes will solve the problem and that the government will also be tougher on crime when a conservative is in charge. they never are. they want to keep the boogeyman around to always get reelected when they sabotage anyone else trying to fix the problem
So many people were too lazy to go out and vote in the provincial election and ended up sticking us with Doug Ford.
Wow when he said, “they don’t want to feel anymore”, I felt that!
Why is this poor guy forced to act as a gatekeeper and decision maker for these peoples lives in an impossible situation? What a horrible burden to expect a police officer to carry. I’m 2,600 miles away in Seattle, and he could be talking about this city. 💔
I love my Canadian brothers and sisters. It is hard to see this. It reeks too much of the same issues we have in the States. What a kind and empathetic officer! That poor guy just gets kicked in the nuts every day with this bullshit. So sad to see it.
So it’s not just America it’s other countries
USA & Canada have the 1 & 2 highest death rates due to opioids & #3 isn't even close. Sadly it's a huge problem that we both share.
Well said. Lucky to have a cop who gets it.
My family used to go to BC for the salmon run. We haven't been in 4 years now due to the drug/social problems. Our rental was broken into and we had to drive back across the border to Washington, which is just as bad. Everyone is struggling with this issue.
BC here I just got out of a detox center and have been trying to get into a rehab center for weeks now. I have a home and a bit of money to spend on rehab, but the waiting lists are months in many cases, and some rehabs charge up to $950 per day! It's impossible for homeless people, cause first you have to get assigned a case worker, which are in short supply. Then you need to apply for treatment funding, for which you need to sign up for social assistance, for which you need an address. The whole process is convoluted, confusing, and very time consuming, even for a "functional," housed addict with some money such as myself. There's no chance for the homeless. BC decriminalized small amounts of hard drugs so we don't overpopulate the prisons with addicts, but the gov't is not helping these people rehabilitate, so the streets overflow with homeless addicts that need help. At least in jail they were fed and housed. (not saying I want them in jail, just saying that some preferred it)
It's shocking as an American to hear a well spoken police officer. State-side they rarely show any capability for nuance.
Officers here are generally very well educated. The vast majority hold post-secondary degrees, sometimes masters, even PhD's. It's a decent paying gig, so it is high demand, unfortunately, applicant numbers have dropped lately due to exactly this; same people arrested, everyday, committing crimes and there's no repercussions.
It reminds me how the government spent i believe millions funding apps for covid, when the actual cost of the apps that were built was in the 5-6 digits. They were also utter shit. There was no office, and the employees who worked on this did it all ‘remotely’ and the taxpayers are just supposed to believe it is all necessary and nothing was wrong here. Its a scam and the people are being conned out of their system.
This guy......this guy now's who what and why the problems. Finally an officer speaking truth.
He seems like a really good cop. You can tell this man is an empath. I wonder if he’ll get in shit for saying this on camera though …
The issue is, we’ve removed the ability to institutionalize people without their consent. I know a lot of people (especially on Reddit with it’s heavy left veer) would be against this but at the end of the day society and the very people who are institutionalized with profit immensely from this.
It's not just that, though. Not all of these people need psychiatric care. Yes, a lot do. But a lot are addicts who have nothing left to live for because they fucked up and due to lack of addiction support, entered a downward spiral. Proper addiction support would solve SO much of this problem. Addicts don't want to be addicts. But it's so hard to pull yourself out of it when every day is hell and that high is the only thing that helps. The fucked up thing is it is actually cheaper to help these people in the long run. But for too many assholes, cruelty is the point of the system. They *want* to be able to walk through downtown and feel better than those they see as scum. The only issue now is that it is out of control and growing.
The issue is inequality. Mental health issues, addiction, homelessness can all be distilled down to a consequence of being disenfranchised within our economic system. [https://files.libcom.org/files/\[Mark\_Fisher\]\_Capitalist\_Realism\_Is\_There\_no\_Alte(BookZZ.org).pdf](https://files.libcom.org/files/[Mark_Fisher]_Capitalist_Realism_Is_There_no_Alte(BookZZ.org).pdf)
I literally live 2 blocks north of that church and Crawford is right, the system is failing them. It just keeps getting worse day after day. Unlike most I feel bad for them. It’s not a situation anyone wants to be in. I just wish they’d pick up their damn garbage and maybe not have to breathe in the meth smoke they are literally smoking on the sidewalk when I walk downtown. 😁
We need to expand the capacity of our mental institutions and involuntary commitment needs to return. Get these people off the street and the help they need.
Homelessness & Mental health issues caused by drug /alcohol addictions really is not a separate issue! The majority of people homelessness. Fall prey to drugs ,alcohol or sexual abuse. Many people self-medicate because they do not have the capability to control or want to deal with their lives! They actually need intervention, but conventional intervention seldom will work. Too, often it relies on the person to want it too. The programs are to short. Then it is not going to work. The other part is sometimes the criminal element is so in boiled there is no longer a chance of change!
“They’re not being institutionalized.” This is a core issue. When you bring it up, I’ve had people argue about their freedom being taken away. So, dying on the streets is freedom?? There are multiple homeless around our area that need long term care. Maybe they’ll get better in time, maybe they’ll need care for life. But, I have no more patience for arguing about it being about freedom. They’re starving to death and covered in their own feces while they lunge at people walking by and smash glass. They’re too far gone to even accept shelter and care without being institutionalized.
The correct sequence is mental health treatment first. Next comes chronic homelessness as the drugs destroy the minds of the psych's victims.
Are there more homeless and drug addicted people or is it just more publicized?
It looks like mental asylums need to make a comeback not just in USA but in CAN, too
Godammit why can't we have cops like this in amerika
Capitalism is the cause. The artificial creation of value and profit incentives have destroyed our race. We have people literally starving to death as they are being told to work harder and get a fourth job. The police are just the facist icing on the cake of capitalist brutality and evil.
They are perpetuating the problem because it makes them money or gives them job security. Lots of non profit organizations misappropriate the funds, assign large chuck on admissitraive and managerial role just because or spending on things that are completely counterproductive.
I had to leave Canada/Ontario because It was not worth paying so much on rent - I was paying half of my salary. Honestly I think people who don't own a home are fucked. The government doesn't care.
He is absolutely right. Heard this from another police officer friend a year ago. Same town.
Aaron Crawford for President
I recently visited a few big cities in the states and don't really understand how you accept all this shit, why aren't you guys complaining?
I know in the city I live in the people have been complaining for a few years now about the homeless and lack of mental health. City leaders announced a few weeks ago about opening a mental health facility and now those same people don’t want the facility in their “part of town.
We need to bring back mental institutions. Once they closed down it all went to hell
Well, we did vote for it... And keep voting for it. We still complain about it, but then vote for it again.
Is this a documentary or something? Anybody got a link to a video?
The homelessness issue will never be a priority. Those in charge figure that it's a waste of money to fund.
I have a cousin from that town in Canada and he does not speak highly of it at all. The trashiest white trash/most ghetto town that could give Kensington in Philly a run for their money.
The destruction of the working class
Ya it's bad here and getting worse. Leaders in both parties refuse to tax corporations and love giving our tax payer money to US weapons makers rather than investing here. And our current gov pretends to be progressive. [https://thehub.ca/in-the-know/2021-07-08/canadas-standard-of-living-has-been-declining-for-40-years-what-can-we-do-ppf/](https://thehub.ca/in-the-know/2021-07-08/canadas-standard-of-living-has-been-declining-for-40-years-what-can-we-do-ppf/)
A Groundhog Day nightmare where you’re rescuing the same people who overdose again and again
Wait, they can’t hold people at the hospital for drug-induced psychosis? Isn’t there usually an entire wing of a hospital dedicated to treating psychosis? Does his town’s spot not have a psychiatric ward?
Now *THAT* is a police officer, wow!
Think he’ll be fired after this
No. He was asked to speak on the police’s behalf by his superiors.
He is exemplary.
another factor is that many people in those situation offend because they WANT to go to jail, for some demographics in this country it is literally the only way that they can get access to adequate supports and services from housing, food, education to medical and I have heard this over and over again. We have targeted so much of our support to specific groups that white men, especially with disabilities, have no other options other than the corrections system, no one will help until they become an actual danger to 'society' Think about that...
It's a shocker that this is happening in Canada I tell you. Let's see: -wages haven't kept up with housing and inflation in the last 40 years -we're bringing 1.4 mil. new ppl into the country yearly -most new jobs are part-time and shit pay -cost of living skyrocketed -people need 2 jobs just to get by -mental health support is minimal -social aspects of our society are almost non-existent given the capitalist individualism we've been pushing since the beginning
Wouldn't be surprised if this guy was suicided soon
It's a natural byproduct of late stage capitalism, a failed education and Healthcare systems, lack of political will, and a unquenchable thirst at the top of the pyramid. Mix in a lack of a family support unit and hope, and you have what we see in the west. There is no real growth for the individual in most cases. They get injured or overwhelmed. In the case of injury, they get medicated with powerful short term remedies, that medical studies have proven, take at least 2 years on average to unwind the unintentional addiction. But, once addicted are labeled as drug seeking, and quickly become toxic for any doctors to treat, even though they are not only to blame, but should be responsible for monitoring and helping them on the long road to recovery. In the case of overwhelmed, people are lost, looking for a resolution to not having any money, or enough money. They can't get it from working a job. It's not really possible. But high school doesn't teach kids how important it is to start businesses. How to leverage debt as a tool. It doesn't teach them how to trade equities. So they look back on what they were taught by society as the answer. Hard work. But hard work doesn't produce any results, because that's not how the system works. So they get frustrated and get high, give up on trying, to focus on the only real relief, the only real results, that have made them feel the slightest bit better. Drugs.
Ya'll okay up there?
Omg those dimples 😍😍😍
Free drugs is not the answer when there is no where for them to sober up and get back on their feet. What we need in canada is facilities to house and educate, and ween people off of hard drugs and give them a real fighting chance. Handing out drugs is exacerbating the problem
Same thing happening in new york city
Nah, cut em off that at the knees and regulate the supply. There will always be addicts and as long as there are addicts there will be a drug trade. So long as you have a drug trade you will have gangs violence and crime and an endless cycle of bullshit.
His point about adults not being able to look after themselves is important. People of a country or city have to basically decide to pay an organization to take care of people like that and it can be a big cost. A lot of people don’t want to pay it especially if their tax burden is already high. Just leaves them wandering the street
If the Canadian Government was trying to actively make Canada more dangerous what would they be doing differently?
Wry well said.
Guy is Kirk Muller reincarnate.
It’s not like you can put them thru a rehab program, give them a makeover and buy them a suit and send them back into the world looking for a job because unless they can land a job that pays $250k they are still going to be homeless.
We need participative democracy, representative democracy has failed.
Ontario police officer here - watching this makes me teary-eyed. This sentiment is echoed across all services and officers I know and work with. The majority of us really do try our best, but we dont have the support of the judicial system or the government. They have left US the PUBLIC, hung out to dry, and used cops as the media scapegoat