Juno News - May 13, 2026


Ontario students get "safer snorting" guides in classrooms


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

171.71269

Word count

2,711

Sentence count

182

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Canadian Mental Health Association handed out condoms and a booklet offering tips on how kids can make their own drug paraphernalia. The booklet was handed out to high school students in order to help them learn how to snort cocaine.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, more Canadians are declaring bankruptcy as household debt levels rise across the country.
00:00:10.740 The number of Canadians who filed for insolvency jumped 8.5% year over year.
00:00:16.660 That's just in the first quarter of this year.
00:00:19.080 That's over 37,000 bankruptcies, the highest quarterly number since 2009.
00:00:26.220 The pace of those insolvencies is worrisome.
00:00:29.980 Uncertainty around the cost of living, housing, and employment are putting pressure on Canadians.
00:00:36.360 Conservative leader Pierre Paliyev responded to the latest figures with this post on X.
00:00:41.340 People can't hold on. The liberal economy is too costly, driving people to bankruptcy.
00:00:48.260 We must reverse course, get off the backs of small business, end taxes on fuel, home building, and reinvestment
00:00:56.300 to afford people a good, stress-free life.
00:01:01.160 Nathaniel Erskine-Smith is reportedly getting ready
00:01:03.840 to challenge the results of a Liberal nomination on the weekend.
00:01:08.040 Smith wants to run for the Provincial Liberal Party,
00:01:11.220 but was defeated by 19 votes in the riding of Scarborough Southwest on Saturday.
00:01:17.540 After the meeting, he raised concerns about voters not being properly ID'd.
00:01:23.600 Parental outrage in Ontario today.
00:01:25.720 taxpayers in the province have been funding a safer snorting campaign aimed at high school
00:01:32.900 students. That's right, tips on how your kids can ingest cocaine and other drugs. The Ontario
00:01:39.360 government handed $300 million to community health and addictions agencies. Some of that money went
00:01:45.840 to the Canadian Mental Health Association, which handed out condoms and a booklet offering tips
00:01:53.720 on how kids can make their own drug paraphernalia.
00:01:58.660 The CMHA is now scrambling to deal with the backlash.
00:02:02.240 It's calling the booklet unvetted materials
00:02:05.000 and says it regrets the distribution.
00:02:08.100 Not good enough, says former Stephen Harper aide,
00:02:10.980 Dimitri Sudas, who wants heads to roll.
00:02:14.920 Our guest today is Michelle Ferreri.
00:02:16.640 She is a former Conservative Party member of Parliament
00:02:19.420 and a mother.
00:02:20.440 Welcome to the show, Michelle.
00:02:22.100 Thanks so much for having me, Mark.
00:02:23.440 It's great to be here.
00:02:24.760 Well, we've got this organization now that thought it was a good idea to hand out a booklet
00:02:30.200 instructing young people.
00:02:32.460 We're talking about high school students on how to do things like create their own drug
00:02:39.740 paraphernalia and how to snort cocaine.
00:02:44.260 I mean, I can't imagine who thought this was a good idea.
00:02:48.860 What do you make of it?
00:02:50.340 Listen, it sounds like parody.
00:02:51.640 it sounds um insanity like any normal person would be like this is crazy um it's not made up
00:02:57.960 it's it's real it's a real thing and you know one of the pushbacks i got back on this was one of the
00:03:03.240 parents like oh no it got rectified they didn't mean to so let's back up and say thank you kathy
00:03:07.880 for your optimism that's very kind of you but here's the reality okay so since 2017 the liberal
00:03:15.000 government has allocated nearly two billion and that's very very low i'm being very conservative
00:03:20.200 on that number, $2 billion to harm reduction. And I use these air quotes because this is the
00:03:25.940 wording and the language they have used to literally fund drugs and drug paraphernalia
00:03:30.600 in this country. We went from teaching kids, hey, drugs are really bad for you. They cause brain
00:03:35.600 damage. They're all kinds of things. They're toxic. They're not great to hear this is actually
00:03:40.580 how you do drugs. We're not treating addiction like a disease. We're actually teaching kids how
00:03:45.020 to get the disease. And it's insane. So this booklet was handed out by the Canadian Mental
00:03:50.900 Health Association. So I should latch onto that. Almost $2 billion in funding for harm reduction, 0.73
00:03:57.920 not prevention, not education, none of these things, all while overdoses in this country
00:04:02.780 have increased 150%. We've actually lost more people in this country from overdose than we did
00:04:10.580 to World War II. And that's not including the damage that happens to families, how it rips
00:04:15.860 people apart. This is probably the biggest epidemic of our time. And now you have them
00:04:20.520 infiltrating high schools to teach them how to snort cocaine. And let's just add another layer
00:04:27.240 of insanity to this, Mark, with a plastic straw. Yeah, they are funding your tax dollars. You're
00:04:33.380 not allowed to have a plastic straw, but we'll give the kids a plastic straw to learn how to
00:04:37.380 snort cocaine. Okay. So it's actually insane. Now, thank goodness CTV covered this story.
00:04:43.640 Thank goodness these kids called it out. These kids, if you watch this story, they're like,
00:04:47.860 what are they doing? Like this is teaching you to be a drug addict. So kudos to these kids that 0.81
00:04:53.160 are standing up against the institutions. The school got called out, CMHA got called out and
00:04:58.860 they're like, oh yeah, sorry, that was an oversight. I don't believe that this was an oversight. I
00:05:03.240 believe that they got caught for propaganda that they believe is where they get their money from.
00:05:08.860 And I'm going to back up even one more step, Mark, and I'm going to tell you another parallel that's
00:05:13.680 happening in this country. So Dan Mazier is the health critic for the Conservative Party. He was
00:05:18.780 on health committee last week. They had the federal public health officer of Canada testifying. So
00:05:25.000 this is your top authority on what is health in Canada, okay? He asks a very simple question and
00:05:31.720 he says, is it safe to inject fentanyl? This woman goes on to talk in word salad. She says, 0.98
00:05:39.380 it's complex. No, it's not complex. It is not safe. Fentanyl is toxic. That should be your
00:05:45.580 answer, full stop. But it's not your answer because it's what they believe. When I went
00:05:51.360 and toured the prisons in Drumheller, the drug use inside prisons, they now have taxpayer-funded
00:05:59.680 facilities to do drugs in prison. I said, what are you talking about? The top people at Corrections
00:06:06.600 Canada, the top doctor says, we have to have this. This is a belief system. This is an ideology.
00:06:12.380 It is funding money. It is keeping people sick. It is inhumane. It is basically criminal. And now
00:06:19.220 they're teaching your children to do it. And they've been doing it for a while, Mark, and they
00:06:23.460 just happened to get caught. Yeah. I mean, I can distinctly remember the prime minister being asked
00:06:29.340 about whether or not the whole fentanyl problem, which, by the way, has cost tens of thousands
00:06:34.500 of lives. I think the last number I saw was 50,000, but that was probably a couple of years
00:06:38.800 ago. So I'm sure it's gone much higher since then. But at that time, the prime minister's response
00:06:44.720 was, no, he didn't think it was a crisis. I mean, I just have to ask, how many thousands of lives
00:06:51.460 have to be lost before they do declare it a crisis? And then when you hear this high-ranking
00:06:57.740 health bureaucrat you know trying to dodge the question avoiding this issue it really makes you
00:07:05.660 wonder where their head or where their heads are at i mean what is behind this do you think
00:07:11.420 it's it's we we abuse victims every day in this country and even to your point mark of like well
00:07:21.500 they declare they didn't declare it a crisis or mark carney had oh yeah no it's kind of a minor
00:07:25.900 problem, right? He said that during the election, that clip was just one of the most insulting
00:07:29.380 things I've ever heard to so many families who've lost loved ones to overdose in fentanyl.
00:07:34.840 But then when you do declare an emergency, so like the city of Belleville or Peterborough,
00:07:39.340 which all of these little communities, which are unrecognizable, right? I mean, you have
00:07:43.800 Spencer Pratt down in the US that is literally calling LA zombie land. And this is not
00:07:51.300 becoming exclusive to Canada, you have an ideology or a belief system to give people the thing that
00:07:57.600 hurts them. Now, if you want to go really dark, what do I think about this? I think there's money.
00:08:02.800 I think it's a follow the money issue. I think it's a belief system. I think we went into some
00:08:08.580 sort of psychosis where we, you know, I've talked about this a lot, but Gadsad says it best,
00:08:16.380 suicidal empathy, where we're like, oh, it's very, very challenging to witness somebody stuck in
00:08:22.760 addiction. Okay. Like there's two, there's two conversations here, Mark. There's somebody who's
00:08:27.360 inactive addiction. That is absolutely, it is the most horrific thing any family can ever go
00:08:31.980 through. It is a disease. That person is literally under a spell. They have no ability to make
00:08:37.300 sound decisions. They are sick. They're literally sick. But then you have the government actively 1.00
00:08:43.440 funding teaching a new generation of students. Now they did this with safe supply. I talked about
00:08:50.360 this in the house of commons all the time. They went out government funded drugs. They were called
00:08:54.760 dillies. They gave them to these people. Uh, Peterborough was a, uh, pilot project for this. 0.99
00:09:01.000 And they thought, okay, well, they're going to do drugs. At least we'll give them, um, safe. And I
00:09:05.200 always use this air quote safe. There's nothing safe about drugs. Like normalizing drug use is,
00:09:09.600 is super problematic ask any addict that and so they do that the drugs aren't strong enough so
00:09:16.320 they go out and they sell them they've gotten them free by the government and your and your tax
00:09:20.480 dollars they sell them to young kids 15 16 years old there's tons of documentaries on this guys
00:09:25.920 this is not just me saying this now they have a whole new generation of addicts because these
00:09:31.520 pills are more addictive than heroin all while they go out and get the stronger version of
00:09:36.640 fentanyl because they want to be high. Like this is, you have to understand the complexities
00:09:42.700 of addiction. And so that woman is using these words like complex, which she's right,
00:09:48.460 but she's weaponizing the actual issue at hand, which is drugs are bad. Like we went from a
00:09:55.980 society of don't do drugs to don't do drugs alone to this is how you do drugs. Like it's insane.
00:10:02.800 and there's human consequences and our businesses have suffered our economy has suffered if you went
00:10:09.860 out and asked any municipality how much are you spending per shift on policing ambulance hospitals
00:10:16.820 that are backlogged you can't get into a hospital because there's nowhere for people to go for
00:10:20.520 treatment and recovery they get put in 24 hours later they get spit back out and they rinse and
00:10:25.760 repeat all while the criminals walk the streets and get out on bail to sell them these deadly drugs
00:10:30.860 and there's policies to fix this mark like there's it's not complicated yeah it sounds
00:10:37.540 like the government is trying to normalize this behavior and the implication here that
00:10:43.020 by handing out booklets that it's okay to to cocaine as long as you take certain precautions
00:10:49.820 so you're right i mean back when we were kids you know snorting cocaine was was demonized
00:10:56.980 as a drug that people need to stay away from if they want to stay healthy and normal.
00:11:02.920 And now we've reached the point where we're distributing not only this type of information
00:11:08.540 to young people who are impressionable, you know, they're still developing.
00:11:13.360 And then they get this booklet which tells them, you know, here's how you can take a more safe
00:11:20.380 approach towards snorting cocaine and other drugs. So what are they supposed to think?
00:11:26.260 I mean, this is literally encouraging the type of behavior that we need to stop, that is costing
00:11:32.520 lives. You know, let's call it what it is. This is normalizing behavior that is costing lives.
00:11:38.620 What say you? Yeah. But they've tried to do that with everything. So you can condition a human to
00:11:44.120 accept anything. Right. We saw this through COVID. You can condition a human to accept and normalize
00:11:49.700 anything. Right. Now it's normal to walk down your downtown and see somebody slumped over like a
00:11:54.320 zombie. That's the new normal. It's not normal. It's not normal, but they're making you feel like
00:12:00.360 it's normal. Like imagine you went in and you said to your kid, okay, um, you're going to get
00:12:05.940 hit by a car and this is how you get hit by a car. Like what? And then if you want to do it even
00:12:11.940 more, uh, like, and then they're, then they're offering medical assistance in dying to people
00:12:19.400 with mental illness. Like, how do you not sit back and go, are you just, are you just actively
00:12:25.600 trying to destroy all of us? Like, is that, is that the plan here? Because clearly you don't
00:12:33.020 want to, and there's money, like there's lots and lots of money. You know, they spent $4.5 billion
00:12:38.340 to decrease homelessness. When I asked the minister of housing at the time, the deputy
00:12:43.100 minister says, well, it's actually increased a hundred percent. So no wonder people don't want
00:12:52.560 to fill out their census form. No wonder people have given up and are moving and exiting Canada
00:12:59.120 at an exponential rate. So here's what I want to leave people with, Mark, because I think
00:13:04.620 you need a little bit of hope. Once you see all this, you're just like, I can't believe this is
00:13:09.860 happening. They want you to accept it. They want you to normalize it. And they'll say things like,
00:13:16.860 we need to get along. We need to be collegial. We need to be nonpartisan. We need to be respectful.
00:13:24.640 We need to, everybody needs to find common ground. Well, they drew a line in the sand
00:13:29.400 and there's no common ground in teaching your kids to snort cocaine. That's not a common ground.
00:13:35.680 So when they tell you to be collegial, what they're asking you to do is let them go ahead
00:13:40.800 with policies that are killing our kids and killing our country and our community.
00:13:44.440 So no, you don't get to be collegial when this is at stake.
00:13:48.840 And I'll tell you this, the other thing they'll say, it's time we need more non-partisan.
00:13:53.240 I hate this because everything that happens in terms of policy and legislation is partisan.
00:13:59.660 It is the policy and the party that put that policy in place.
00:14:03.320 that is a liberal belief system that is partisan that is policy that is legislation
00:14:08.360 so you've been forced by the institution by the liberals to pick a side and then they say oh
00:14:15.720 you're divisive no we actually want a better country where you work for me not where you
00:14:21.560 work for your investments in brookfield or whatever else it is that you have right i want
00:14:27.140 a future for my kids i want them to think they can move out of their house i want my kids to know
00:14:31.100 they don't have to do drugs to numb themselves from this world. That's what I want. Yeah. I mean,
00:14:36.780 we've reached the points where parents are thinking of leaving because their children aren't
00:14:43.540 exposed to this sort of thing. And, you know, you can't, if you're a parent, you're struggling
00:14:48.260 as it is, you know, to put food on the table for your family. You know, you trust these public
00:14:53.480 institutions and then you find out that they're distributing not only, you know, booklets
00:15:00.020 instructing people to how to do drugs and how to take drugs, but condoms as well. So it's
00:15:06.040 absolute lunacy. But thank you for coming on the show and giving us your take on all of that,
00:15:11.120 Michelle. Thank you, Mark. And let's give the let's give the power back to the parents where
00:15:15.940 they're consulted on what our kids are actually learning. And let's get back to basics where they
00:15:19.800 can learn maybe how to do their taxes, you know, or how to do math or literacy. Those seem like
00:15:25.160 good ideas, I think.
00:15:27.520 Absolutely. Back to basics.
00:15:30.100 Michelle, thank you.
00:15:31.780 Thanks, Mark.
00:15:32.680 If you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great independent journalism by becoming a
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