True Patriot Love - September 12, 2025


The Cost of Doing Nothing： Drugs, Crime & a City on Edge ｜ Feature with Mike, Paul and Anthony


Episode Stats

Length

41 minutes

Words per Minute

186.0552

Word Count

7,791

Sentence Count

6

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 hi thanks for joining us here we are again it is a round table feature from true patriot love
00:00:17.440 and paul macucci anthony fury and myself mike wickson all around the mics today and uh anthony
00:00:24.640 i have to hand this one to you almost right away because when you told me about it when we were
00:00:28.680 entering the studio my reaction was a combination of shock and nausea but this is the truth and it's
00:00:35.760 happening right now this is an incredible story and one of my great sort of policy passions in my
00:00:40.460 writing broadcasting when i run for office is the subject of urban decay the idea that our cities
00:00:45.200 are falling apart for many reasons a real tragedy uh disorder a breakdown of our infrastructure
00:00:51.840 and that we we can see the rise and fall of great uh north american and western cities throughout
00:00:57.220 history it happened to manhattan it happened to detroit those cities made a bit of a comeback
00:01:01.640 in the west we got seattle los angeles vancouver they're going down the hill we don't want to see
00:01:07.760 this happen at other cities and you want to stop the fall stop the decline right away i did not know
00:01:13.940 that this was happening in the city of barry to the degree that we have just learned that it is i've
00:01:21.460 been to the city of barry uh a bit recently here and there i went for a hockey tournament with my son
00:01:25.960 i've gone for some meetings at city hall and there are people with drug issues hang around city hall
00:01:30.680 it has gotten so bad that the mayor alex nuttle has declared a state of emergency nick's queued up a few
00:01:38.340 clips for us and we'll take a look at this and also with the mayor explaining uh just why here's the
00:01:42.940 first one the city of barry does not have control over this emergency until now today i'm announcing that
00:01:51.280 i've declared a state of emergency in the city of barry as i requested the former administration to do
00:01:56.880 while we wait for the county's long-term plan to be implemented the city of barry is immediately
00:02:01.520 instituting the state of emergency to reclaim our streets our boulevards our parks our squares our
00:02:06.800 feeling of safety and our order while this order will not appoint federal judges that protect the
00:02:12.640 rights of citizenry to live in a free lawful society it will address the problem from the ground up
00:02:18.240 barry city council has already done so much in 2023 we provide an additional 1.65 million
00:02:27.200 increasing our funding to local social service agencies also in 2023 we ended the prisoner drop-off
00:02:35.440 program in downtown barry that left individuals in our downtown from around the province of ontario
00:02:41.040 when they left incarceration at penitenti so let's just pause 2025 and talk about what we've seen so
00:02:48.160 far i mean that's quite something like those are really strong words you're saying you're listening
00:02:52.960 this and you're going am i watching a movie like what am i seeing here and then he details what's
00:02:57.280 actually going on what they're experiencing on the streets right there we just heard it they have a
00:03:01.280 program where criminals get let out of jail they get put into the streets of barry uh just lots of
00:03:06.480 lawlessness drug issues and and here and we're going to fast forward a bit into this press conference
00:03:11.360 as he breaks down uh stuff that people are going to find unbelievable take a listen to this in the
00:03:16.160 last two months we've had a double homicide e-coli levels reaching almost five times the failure
00:03:22.240 concentration in our streams sitting down from the encampments to our beaches a major increase in tents
00:03:28.640 along city streets with the closure of the encampment multiple fires being set last wednesday alone
00:03:36.320 a tent that was right behind me being found with drug money drugs multiple crossbows and a pistol
00:03:43.440 assault rampant drugs overdoses theft exposure to needles by citizens just trying to clean downtown
00:03:50.320 defecation in doorways increased encampments and public indecency and with all of this
00:03:57.760 i can honestly see very much highly there guys but when you listen to that you feel like what's
00:04:03.840 he going to say like he says oh double homicide oh that's too bad he says e-coli in the water what's
00:04:08.400 that about and he makes it clear it's from homeless encampments where they're defecating so much into
00:04:12.560 the water supply it's causing a public health hazard and he just keeps going and he says there's a
00:04:18.720 violence aspect to this that is outrageous the weaponry we just saw in a tent in a tent like crossbows in
00:04:25.120 the tent right where the mayor's standing there like in the downtown core double fires he's in the last
00:04:31.200 week it's so funny i never think of barry as having become this center of uh of these kind of problems
00:04:40.160 and here we are this is like the worst of the worst list i often think living closer to the city
00:04:46.800 up in barry is very nice sweet little town isn't it and now they're faced with this it is the headquarters
00:04:51.840 of the opp right yeah down the street in aurelia i guess you're right you know growing up you know
00:04:57.120 that's where we used to go by all the time and quite frankly a beautiful building and most of the
00:05:03.200 the officers doing a great job lived in the city of barry had young families so i always thought
00:05:09.200 barry would be a safe and secure community and when you first hear state of emergency because that's
00:05:16.160 that's what is the newsworthy part of this the mayor's declaring a state of emergency you go what
00:05:20.400 what can be going on and even one when we were bouncing around other people we said oh barry
00:05:24.080 state emergency and someone said oh like a wildfires thing like that's where their headspace right it's
00:05:28.320 like well no because the city's become so lawlessness that you need to bring in some extra powers to be
00:05:33.840 able to move quickly to deal with some of these i i think the mayor is is doing a service just by
00:05:39.600 drawing attention to this both to let people and barry know he wants to tackle it but also for the rest of
00:05:45.120 us to know like there's real stuff going on out there like wake up people well i'm i'm so curious
00:05:50.240 and then you know a downstream problem while getting inside yeah you know the e coli you know going into
00:05:56.960 the beaches now yeah so they can't swim in the water because the encampments now it's uh you can see
00:06:05.760 it's it's deteriorating the city just those even even a small percentage of those problems would be
00:06:12.320 really bad in in any city the size of barry um you know it occurs to me uh it sounds to me and maybe
00:06:21.120 you guys know i i hadn't gotten this deep from that clip it sounds to me like the mayor had made this
00:06:25.840 suggestion as a counselor previously to the previous uh mayor he was the mp actually and then he became
00:06:31.840 the mayor but same thing oh he was pushing for the cleanup earlier yeah okay and and so this is now
00:06:36.960 him just saying okay there is no other choice we've tried since 2023 by the sounds of it just to stop
00:06:43.040 this one program and this is the net result and you know again going back to the numbers tens of
00:06:50.560 millions of dollars spent already yet he's estimating by the time of uh this uh four years is up he'll
00:06:58.560 have spent or the city will have spent a hundred million dollars right a hundred million dollars on this
00:07:04.800 issue for a small city of barry imagine what 100 million dollars for a small city like barry could
00:07:10.080 actually do for barry they have an amazing hockey program as you point out there the uh the arenas
00:07:15.440 could always be enhanced you know it's a growing area and innisfil just below it there to create more
00:07:22.640 services and to beautify those areas would be a much better use i don't know how about build more
00:07:28.080 affordable homes yeah because that's money think about that money sorry i'm gonna hold on you know
00:07:33.200 that's my hot button is the finance yeah think about think about like that money is really providing
00:07:40.320 no economic spin-off benefit that money is purely being to mitigate an unsolvable problem it's to to hire
00:07:50.160 police officers to uh secure it to uh hire uh ambulance drivers to take people to the hospital
00:07:58.240 fire departments to put out fires it's really just all the money spent so far on that the tens of
00:08:03.920 millions of dollars had really provide no economic benefit at all no it's disaster cleanup at this
00:08:10.160 point it is to get back to it's like a fema event yeah yeah wow you know that's yeah it is what it is
00:08:16.160 really it's a you're right it's like a disaster recovery right we're going to put so much aside
00:08:20.160 as a reserve because we have a disaster happening in our cities you know and you know i i know during
00:08:25.760 the election it kept keep kept coming up uh with some staggering numbers of the number of people who've
00:08:32.080 died from drug overdoses surpassing with the number of people who had died in world war ii yeah these
00:08:38.160 stats are staggering but now you're seeing some of the the offshoot ramifications of this right
00:08:45.600 a state of emergency i don't have we ever had a state of emergency for our capments in canada
00:08:50.560 no i mean well i've heard about in the us i was going to say i've heard about it in the us and it
00:08:54.640 looks like they've they've and and those actually made a difference those encampments did go away
00:08:59.920 uh and i think that it was post hurricane uh problems but in canada have you guys ever heard of
00:09:06.240 anything outside of a natural disaster causing a state of emergency well they do declare special states of
00:09:12.080 affairs in cities for homelessness and they do things like i'm declaring you know homelessness
00:09:17.440 a pandemic or whatnot and the reason they're doing that is basically to ask for more money
00:09:22.880 for shelters but not a change of attitude so that's more something that's pushed from more uh
00:09:29.120 you know a left winger so i i don't want to be partisan about it but it's generally more from
00:09:32.880 that perspective they push it whereas what mayor alex nuttle is is doing is saying like wake up and
00:09:37.920 paul i think you nailed it fema style disaster except those are usually natural disasters this
00:09:44.800 is a man-made disaster yeah and urban decay is a policy choice and he's left cleaning up the choices
00:09:52.640 of past governments and he's got tough things to do i mean how do you it's so funny i just took a look
00:09:58.480 at a list of what's working and then what some of the experts are suggesting would be the measures to
00:10:05.200 actually clean up encampments which is mainly uh drug problems and homelessness can be met drug
00:10:11.760 problems are the first problem that they have to deal with and so you know what's failing so far
00:10:16.560 safe supply without accountability so i don't think maybe you guys have a different opinion i've
00:10:21.520 never heard of a safe uh safe supply situation working in any city no no no endless encampment
00:10:28.400 tolerance okay we find every excuse to keep them encampments open because of uh you know the
00:10:35.440 realization these are human beings and of course we realize that but it just pushes the encampments
00:10:40.160 around but can you can we jump back for a minute so you know he the the mayor you know goes through and
00:10:46.240 tells us that he's the drop-off zone for uh penitenguishing i guess the penitentiary there yeah so i guess
00:10:57.200 they get on a bus we dropped them in downtown berry and then from there they disperse that's what i'm
00:11:03.440 kind of taking i believe what happens is because there's a major bus hub there for uh um transportation
00:11:09.600 yeah and and also the go but that's where they're they're given their their release is okay here you've
00:11:15.600 got transportation to get back to your family but they don't go anywhere they stay there right so he's
00:11:20.080 there's dealers right there waiting for them exactly to say make this your home now right this immediate
00:11:25.200 area well that's what he's saying he he's actually at one point uh in his uh address he actually says
00:11:31.760 that more than half of the people in the encampments don't come from the region yeah so he's inherited
00:11:38.800 them based on programs so right to your point sorry go ahead no no and also the catch and release
00:11:46.320 policing uh you know that once they get them in this town barry doesn't have the facilities to uh
00:11:52.720 process all these people and drug courts are only open occasionally we probably need those up open more
00:11:59.520 often and then as anthony pointed out before optics over outcomes we need the money we need this we here's
00:12:06.560 our problem is a lot of this is encampments on display uh just long enough to get funding for
00:12:13.840 whatever the city will use it for i don't know but it is on display and then uh some of the measures
00:12:21.680 that are suggested by drug treatment people by the police themselves crush open air markets fast so when
00:12:28.960 you get off that bus there is nobody there that needs to be heavily policed uh zero tolerance for public
00:12:35.760 use no we don't need safe injection sites mandatory stabilization and treatment leverage everybody
00:12:43.040 that gets arrested must be evaluated to see if they need treatment very standard in my mind it's not
00:12:49.360 something we do drug court running weekly not currently happening uh encampments closed period and same day
00:12:56.880 offers and that was interesting to me because i'd never really thought about this before when you go to
00:13:02.080 close an encampment some offers are made we can put you in this scenario we can put you in this scenario
00:13:06.960 at that moment the people that give a yes to treatment need to be in a bed the same day not
00:13:12.240 two weeks after processing and slipping through the system sure although one i've had a lot of public
00:13:17.200 debates about this because people i say we're closing the encampments in the parks and then the
00:13:20.720 playgrounds we're not doing it right and then people say well there's no beds where are you going to
00:13:24.000 put them and you're supposed to go oh okay yeah fine we'll wait until there's beds in six years from now
00:13:29.440 right no it has to be a community first approach where we're not going to have encampments here in
00:13:36.560 this particular neighborhood we've targeted you know the the go bus community in barry is destroying
00:13:41.360 downtown they're not here oh where are we going to put them okay fine question but that question is not
00:13:48.000 an impediment to the action we're still getting you out of there right because it's destabilizing the
00:13:52.960 whole area not in the parks not in the playgrounds it makes it degrades life for the kids and the families
00:13:58.080 where are you going to put them okay i'll respond to that we'll deal with that but they're not staying
00:14:03.200 here full stop today you're gone because to your point about closing the encampments they get into
00:14:08.880 this like long-term situation where if you don't shut it down the first day on day 10 day 20 day 30
00:14:14.800 you're like oh what do i do what day one remember when they had this big protest encampment that took
00:14:19.840 over u of t it wasn't a homeless encampment but it was a protest encampment they said oh what do we do
00:14:23.520 what do we do they were full the security guards not just the cops the security guards on campus
00:14:28.160 were within their right on day one to go give me that stupid tent and rip it up and kick them running
00:14:33.040 when the first guy put down the tent but because they waited until there were 100 of them uh they
00:14:37.760 they really put themselves in a pickle so day one we're not doing this yeah i think it has to be the
00:14:42.400 zero tolerance approach i went through this i think i told you before i went through this for two years
00:14:47.280 with one of the businesses i had in scarborough and it was a terrible terrible experience because
00:14:54.400 uh the encampment formed behind my business so first you know there's a tarp goes up in a tree
00:15:01.280 then there's a second tarp a third tarp a fourth tarp then there's a bunch of smoke every night then
00:15:07.040 the person is mauling around your business trying to use the restroom trying to get food uh drink uh
00:15:14.640 whatever they can get um harassing your customers harassing your staff next thing you know uh he
00:15:21.920 gets a girlfriend so at that point i said okay i called i said what do we do to the city this is
00:15:29.200 in toronto uh of course in scarborough i called and said what do we do with this well we'll send a
00:15:33.600 social worker so the social worker comes and they say to them you know are you okay you know they assess
00:15:39.840 their mental health and they said you know we'd like to take you to a uh a shelter and you know
00:15:46.960 i was there i was listening to the whole uh conversation and the the gentleman at the time
00:15:53.440 says uh no i don't want to go to a shelter i like living outdoors this is great this is how i want to
00:15:58.160 live i quite frankly i can't do my drugs i can't drink i can't do all the things i'd like to do in a
00:16:03.840 shelter because they won't let me the shelter i guess they were going to take them to um and this
00:16:09.280 is how i like to do things and they said well you don't own the land you know you're on a hydro corridor
00:16:14.560 you are kind of you know you're squatting here um it's dangerous so they came through and he just says
00:16:21.040 no right so you know and the police are there as escorts for the social workers so they're they're out on
00:16:28.400 the phone doing something else they you know the social workers back says well he's he's not a
00:16:33.360 threat to himself i said i know he's not a threat to himself but he's a threat to my clients he's
00:16:39.520 disturbing the neighborhood i'm paying taxes i'm trying to run a business i'm struggling away paying
00:16:43.760 my bills i said you know what i really need help here right if it becomes a bigger issue give us a call
00:16:51.200 so you know a month later uh you know a small fire uh so i call and said well now he's had a small fire
00:17:00.400 because he's got a stove he's got a propane stove and he's cooking in the back i guess he fell asleep
00:17:06.080 and him and his girlfriend and you know by then they have a friend living with him so now there's three
00:17:11.840 of them and they're coming and going i have shopping carts all over my so he's bringing shopping carts home
00:17:18.240 every night with food and drinks and everything leaving them in my parking lot that i have to
00:17:22.960 take and take back to the grocery stores um bottles garbage everything you're taking them back from oh
00:17:30.240 yeah i'm taking i'm taking his empties i'm actually taking his shopping carts back i'm cleaning up yeah
00:17:35.840 i'm doing everything i'm like so i went through for two years and finally i met with the uh the police
00:17:44.000 that are in the re the area the street that monitor the street and i had a nice conversation
00:17:50.000 with him i just said have you ever like gone in and asked him for his name his id who he is
00:17:59.760 and they said no with the social worker goes and we don't really know i said well
00:18:04.720 don't you think we could please check them to see if he has any warrants outstanding so they went in
00:18:10.000 all of them had warrants the gentleman who had started all this had 17. oh my god so the only
00:18:19.040 way the encampment was shut down is they were all arrested so they're all taking off so they're leaving
00:18:26.080 right they're all happy because they're going to spend the winter indoors indoors and then they get out
00:18:35.200 and they get let out and bury where they get to e coli the system yes it is a vicious cycle oh my gosh
00:18:41.600 like wow you know it puts you in despair it does well you think to yourself what what you know we we
00:18:49.600 taught you know i know recently there's been big discussions about all this home invasion stuff and
00:18:54.160 everything else but this is is also an invasion of your privacy right because you're trying to conduct
00:18:58.960 a business while you're managing through someone who's lawlessness and doesn't want to comply with
00:19:05.280 any of the norms which i understand but then you know we're going to social work them back into society
00:19:13.360 well i think that one of the major things that we would all agree on is that you can't you can't expect
00:19:20.560 people that are so far gone on drugs fentanyl being the one that comes to mind of course as it's the
00:19:26.400 epidemic of the moment but there will be other ones and there are other ones and the reality
00:19:33.440 is until these people become well you cannot rehabilitate them i'm sorry you you cannot take
00:19:40.320 a fentanyl addict and expect them to rehabilitate themselves in that state i'm sorry but it's the
00:19:47.040 truth and so you know 24 hour treatment 24 7 treatment somebody says yes i believe they should be in a bed
00:19:55.600 right away because otherwise they're going to find a way around that to their next uh score
00:20:02.800 and maybe even die well the interesting thing is and the mayor you know god bless him for you know
00:20:08.960 the state of emergency everything he just says you know so the the i guess recommendations to fix this
00:20:16.000 after the state of emergency is that he's going to test the waters to see if they have e coli right
00:20:23.360 then he's going to go back upstream he's going to find the encampments closest to the the water source
00:20:30.160 and he's going to shut them down right so that's kind of his you know he's working backwards right
00:20:36.160 so i got to go back so then i got encampments that are close to waterways he's going to shut down and he's
00:20:42.720 going to then take those people and he's going to put them into uh indoor right regulated shelters
00:20:50.240 which they they the the real reality is they either he knows or i assume he knows or he has an inkling
00:20:58.720 is they won't go and they'll move on to another city so it really is just so we're passing so from
00:21:05.040 barry i guess when you catch what's the cheapest bus ticket out of barry where do you end up probably
00:21:10.720 oh toronto yeah toronto well you know toronto maybe toronto is the next stop it is but the a lot
00:21:20.320 of them don't like toronto quite frankly because uh you know competition competition it's it's you know
00:21:28.000 there's already so many uh encampments you can't get into them because they run as packs right like
00:21:33.120 mike the crew that was by my place they're a pack that runs together right they're kind of like a
00:21:38.400 community of homeless people that moved in so smaller cities like collingwood orangeville and
00:21:44.800 say yeah yeah or you know a lot of them quite frankly from what i'm hearing i've spent a lot of time in
00:21:50.160 ottawa are heading into our nation's capital and they you know a hundred meters you know from parliament
00:21:56.560 they actually set up in the core and they work out from there and you know barry sounds like uh similar
00:22:04.080 to what we saw in calgary to be honest with you it sounds like an almost identical scenario where
00:22:08.960 my goodness the homelessness and drugs on the street um you know i'm sad to say that you know in our three
00:22:15.680 days there i noticed as many as three or four people dying on overdoses right near our accommodations
00:22:24.960 this isn't a prominent part of town um ottawa i should point out their version of the eaton center
00:22:31.360 here in toronto is it's post-apocalyptic yeah as you point out it's a danger zone yeah look at what
00:22:39.280 we're happening when and because i mentioned vancouver in the early roll call we got barry in the mix
00:22:44.080 we were saying we didn't realize it was barry i think we're just talking about every city in canada
00:22:48.000 here it seems like yeah yeah yeah montreal isn't has it's just the equal amount of problems you're
00:22:54.000 right and as you become one of the smaller cities it seems like the problems could be more intense
00:22:59.280 in fact barry calgary you know not metropolises but this is like you point out maybe that's being
00:23:07.840 avoided by the homeless this was an idea can i run this by you guys yeah have you ever heard of flood
00:23:13.680 zones where they just light up an entire area so the neighborhoods where these encampments are
00:23:20.800 become lit up and camered 24 7. it's like blasting classical music in the stairwells yeah they did
00:23:28.560 baby shark i think was the uh the one that they did in in washington but this seems to be the one
00:23:35.040 thing that everybody that prescribes the harsh uh prescription to this problem says has to happen
00:23:42.320 that it you really do have to have a fema moment where the areas are flooded and they're heavily
00:23:48.320 policed and camered and you don't feel welcome being on the streets there right so you as a homeless
00:23:54.480 person i got just so you have to spend more money so just you know in my case i have to go back i have
00:24:00.160 to run power i have to trench power back there i have to get a camera back there i have to get lighting
00:24:05.280 back there and and then i have to get security to monitor it to make sure they don't bring the
00:24:11.200 shopping carts and the i'm with you yeah no they say this is easily one of the most expensive uh
00:24:17.280 propositions that a police force can take on and they they don't know the municipalities need to
00:24:22.960 agree to do this in conjunction with the police and then there's a bunch of laws that need to be
00:24:28.400 examined on you know uh surveillance and things like that i don't know that this works but for
00:24:35.360 certain something has to be done in the way of an emergency here's an interesting one the former
00:24:41.360 ottawa police chief was telling me about the other year uh what they call a compassionate sweep where you
00:24:46.400 have an area that's very troubled with with drug issues and you say that you're going to go in and
00:24:52.720 just mass arrest everyone even for petty crimes and so forth knowing you know there's no male reform
00:24:58.240 they're not staying in jail and so forth they're only going to be there for 48 hours 72 hours and
00:25:03.200 you get everybody on board before you do it so you call the local hospitals and you say sorry sorry
00:25:08.160 you're not you're not you're mass arresting uh the drug dealers right every even the small-time
00:25:13.440 dealers you're not you're not arresting the users i should clarify so then you call the hospitals you
00:25:19.040 let them know you're doing it you call the social service agencies everybody knows beforehand
00:25:22.800 so you've disrupted the drug supply and the dealers are going to be getting out in 48 hours because
00:25:28.000 they know how but people are already losing their fix so they go to the hospital and they tell a
00:25:32.480 lie they say eyes we're at the construction job i hurt my shoulder so i need oxycontin okay you know
00:25:39.040 they're actually just addicts and the dealer has been locked up so then you get them in treatment you
00:25:44.400 know how to disrupt the models and so forth and you hope you've given yourself enough time window
00:25:49.040 to to break cycles enough so that the dealers are gone you can go in talk to people social workers
00:25:55.120 there get them in yeah it's not a perfect thing but you're going to sweep some people up and you're
00:26:00.080 going to hopefully get a number of that sounds like a really great and some of the dealers will stay in
00:26:04.080 jail and so forth but it's one one approach all right it has to be like a multi-prong yeah yeah that
00:26:09.840 does sound great i mean it sounds like the community uh coming together to to stop a problem but
00:26:17.280 letting the hospitals know and creating community awareness but shouldn't berry be the easiest like if you
00:26:23.040 read the list the list of things that you read out earlier mike about how to kind of deal with the
00:26:28.880 issue like if you go from the top to the bottom barry should be if you think about it probably one
00:26:34.960 of the easier communities to enact that right again and i'm not picking i love the opp guys i'm not
00:26:41.280 picking on them but it already has a presence of large law enforcement right so already and it has
00:26:47.680 the city police you say it's a bedroom community for the uh yeah people there are they're in the
00:26:52.720 that so what was the first one again just walk me through because rush open air markets fast well they
00:26:58.240 they yeah likely could do that anthony's yeah that's anthony's solution so like quite frankly
00:27:05.360 the next one is mandatory stabilization and treatment leverage so in other words while we've got everybody in
00:27:12.080 a state of withdrawal let's try to draw them in and make them well yeah shock and awe campaign
00:27:19.120 to be honest with you it's one of the most sensible things that i can process with this problem but
00:27:24.480 your story about the the business where the guy was staying the police came to your point the cops
00:27:30.880 act is support for social workers but they don't often take the lead and i think that's one thing
00:27:35.040 that's broken and to bring us back to the video i think that's what the state of emergency that the
00:27:39.680 barry mayor alex nuttle is dealing with here because in our most tragic example in downtown
00:27:44.240 toronto when there was the young mom who was killed in a drug drug gang crossfire we had the drug
00:27:51.440 injection site the users were totally welcomed and the philosophy and the agenda of the harm reduction
00:27:57.040 people's oh no we don't have a problem here obviously the dealers came because that's where the
00:28:00.960 users are so dealers we have to respect the intelligence of the criminals more than we do when
00:28:05.200 we talk about this they're going to where the customer base is they're shooting at each other
00:28:09.440 they kill an innocent bystander had nothing to do with it and one of the workers at the drug site
00:28:16.160 has been charged with aiding allegedly aiding and abetting uh one of the drug dealers who she then
00:28:23.520 entered a romantic relationship with so her first response to a woman being killed in front of this
00:28:29.280 drug site was not can i go to the aid of this woman who's been killed but i need to go to the aid of
00:28:34.880 one of the dealers and that's the employee at the government sanctioned safe injection site which
00:28:41.120 tells you the philosophy that a lot of people have in the social service agencies is not aligned with
00:28:47.280 the philosophy that we're talking about here so if we say this is all common sense right the polls may
00:28:52.240 show that you know 80 of regular folks agree with us but i would say like 90 of people at these places
00:28:59.120 don't necessarily agree and that's a problem so just because of what they're teaching at the schools
00:29:04.560 and the the sort of dogma they're teaching each other so even if we have an area where the police
00:29:08.960 are able to flood the zone who is actually what department is actually in charge of of of directing
00:29:15.520 the philosophy behind this yeah i think we need less task force and more force to be honest with you
00:29:20.400 um just in general we seem to put a lot of money and time and thought behind um virtue signaling around
00:29:30.000 these issues where solutions like you talked about solutions that are going to be needed and very
00:29:36.080 really need to arrive now and then where do they go so you know you flood the zone and then they say
00:29:42.160 give me some help where do we send them well i mean that like anthony points out the hospitals need to
00:29:49.920 be on the ready there needs to be some sort of reinforcement where maybe they don't normally
00:29:55.040 have that in you know drug treatment or uh you know trauma treatment but they need to be prepared
00:30:01.280 and i like the sound of that it sounded like a good coordinated effort and even though it may not do
00:30:06.240 mass numbers it it does save people that that normally would not have been is is that going to do it in
00:30:14.000 the in the numbers that we need at this time i don't know yeah well that's what i'm thinking right so
00:30:20.080 once once you flood the zone you get them you get them to the point where they want to go somewhere
00:30:26.000 where did they go like in in in barry the you know the mayor is trying to open up beds for them to go
00:30:34.880 right so he's taking care of like shelter yeah but paul even shelters are dangerous horrible places to be
00:30:40.720 exactly don't want to go there no they don't because they have their own set of cliques right they have
00:30:44.800 their own set of people that if they haven't been going they got to try to simulate into them there's
00:30:49.360 violence there's issues a lot of times to anthony's point there's some staffing issues that tend to
00:30:54.640 crop up over time that's a pretty serious yeah so so yeah that's a really bad one but the you know you
00:31:00.400 have those things the human nature that that happens with people and and quite frankly you have those
00:31:05.200 issues so and we have enough uh after covet we have enough uh real estate available to us to actually
00:31:17.200 open up centers to try to deal with people we just haven't done it and again it's a budgeting issue so
00:31:24.320 if that's if the problem is a state of emergency problem there's got to be a center that we can so this
00:31:29.760 poor mayor who has to so say there's a hundred people that are once you flood the zone end up kind
00:31:38.000 of coming and saying if i don't get something soon i'm gonna not make it till tomorrow right okay we'll
00:31:44.480 take you to a center and we'll help you through that so we get them to a center right then they're the
00:31:50.800 question we have to deal with next is then the methodology of how we treat them once we get them to
00:31:55.200 a center right because you know right now uh we were talking about it earlier we get them to a
00:32:02.080 center we give them methadone we try to get them uh you know kind of weaned off whatever they're taking
00:32:08.000 and quite frankly then we hope that once they get through that process they sort of transition back out
00:32:14.880 i don't know where we think they transition to because at that point we've kind of cleaned them out
00:32:19.120 but then we put them back on the street um so i'm not sure it's a great question and let's talk about
00:32:26.320 methadone for a second and narcan these narcan saves your life apparently getting high to the point where
00:32:33.200 you are dying is the key uh to some of these drug addicts many of them that's the high that's the ultimate
00:32:40.800 high so they put narcon they'll put narcan on them as we witness and says if i go down help me out
00:32:48.160 right okay you've just saved their life at that point at that very point where you've saved somebody's life
00:32:54.720 they need to be hospital if one of your family members had a near-death experience you would
00:33:01.120 expect them to be hospitalized until they were fully examined and they were better so why aren't
00:33:07.680 we making that effort and the people who are the biggest advocates of getting tougher on this are
00:33:12.160 the family members of right of of their loved ones who are on the streets with addiction issues like
00:33:18.560 we don't talk about that aspect like you're bringing up mike or the fact that drug overdoses
00:33:23.520 aren't just a temporary thing to your body like it's good that you don't die from them right but then
00:33:28.800 there's permanent damage to arteries and different parts of your body and you know narcan great it saved
00:33:34.240 you but if you do that two three four five six times you're you're you're almost you're permanent damage
00:33:40.160 and yeah no there's only so many lives that cat will have yes you know uh and then the other one
00:33:45.200 is methadone i don't know anything about methadone but what i do know my whole life i've heard of
00:33:50.560 methadone as a treatment for these uh you know the heroin style drugs and heroin specifically i believe
00:33:59.200 how does that work i mean are you forever addicted to methadone after that have we not worked past that and
00:34:05.280 what other countries are using methadone to treat this way i guess america yeah but is it is it actually
00:34:11.920 a solution it appears to have a 50 50 right it works on not great odds i'm sorry no no it's not you
00:34:19.200 know and and and that's the challenge right the people are starting to argue now they're the pros and
00:34:24.160 cons people are saying it works on half yeah you know to fit 60 doesn't work on the others and quite
00:34:31.520 frankly there's now sort of studies coming out in other countries that just do it cold turkey
00:34:37.840 that are showing better results so they're making people suffer through the withdrawal and by suffering
00:34:44.160 it's creating that uh memory muscle memory and that person that says i'm never going to do that again
00:34:50.320 because you know i can't feel that way again yeah i can't throw up and do all kinds of nasty stuff and
00:34:56.000 have all kinds of pain for three days like i had because as human beings we try to avoid pain if we
00:35:02.160 you know and that's the argument against it saying if we it's inhumane to put somebody through that
00:35:06.560 kind of torture but the lows probably then hurt you more than the highs of the drug high so to your
00:35:11.920 point the brain says oh don't do that don't do that don't do that don't have that pain again yeah
00:35:16.480 because if you ever have to come off it you're going to have to come off it again but then so you
00:35:20.800 know think about this conversation so this kind of i don't want to leave that thought because
00:35:24.000 we've kind of transitioned from uh okay uh we can't prosecute
00:35:31.440 right so catch and release not enough jails incarceration the laws aren't built to
00:35:37.440 so the prosecutors don't even want to do drug cases to encampments uh to state of emergencies
00:35:45.440 and now we're that's social work not policing don't forget paul yeah and and but now we're kind
00:35:50.560 of gone down the path of okay we've got through all that now we've got the person uh into a hospital
00:35:57.040 into kind of withdrawal where do we send them and how we don't have a but we've we've seen more deaths
00:36:07.040 from uh than world war ii you know if you look at comparative numbers so this is definitely a big issue
00:36:15.200 it's it's something that's not going away uh case in point we're calling a state of emergency in berry
00:36:21.760 so like doesn't a little berry but isn't there isn't there you know this would be interesting and uh
00:36:27.360 i have jeff on i'd love to go through with him who's come up with kind of a process to deal with issues
00:36:32.880 but isn't this kind of like okay step one encampment gets built okay you know
00:36:38.000 uh to me and i i'm you know i'm no please don't kill me on uh the notes or the social
00:36:46.080 take your call just take it the comments but to me it's almost a process driven encampment sets up
00:36:52.240 here's step one right you go in flood the zone step two you do these things and then quite frankly
00:36:58.480 down the line as people show up at the hospitals or people need help right they're moved off into
00:37:03.920 treatment centers that have philosophies and then you try to study the impacts to see if you're making
00:37:11.120 any impacts on recovery because at the end of the day you're trying to get that recovery done or
00:37:17.040 completed and that person functionally back into society to get going again that's the like as you
00:37:23.520 say that it occurs to me and maybe i'm wrong but one of the biggest we have so many programs out there
00:37:29.280 to deal with uh people getting back uh you know there's a million ways onto the street and only one
00:37:34.720 or two ways off the street um both of them three sadly but the other two ways are often the the distance
00:37:45.360 between what you're talking about getting from encampment into treatment and once you get into
00:37:50.640 treatment many of these organizations certainly in ontario um they are better off at that moment
00:37:58.960 once the person has gone through treatment yeah their programs actually can have some effect their
00:38:04.080 programs actually can you know assist these people get back to living yeah i know anthony but it's
00:38:10.640 that distance yeah there's there's charities that once you're recovered they will help you with
00:38:16.000 clothing they will help you with got to get you there they will help you with job training there
00:38:20.800 there's that that you know i think we do a good job from there onward so the first 90 feet right
00:38:26.960 the hardest battle yeah but we don't do we do a great job of getting them there uh obviously not
00:38:33.120 because we're not seeing the results if we divided the amount of money put into homelessness relief
00:38:40.640 um with the number of homeless in ontario we could probably just cut a check for like five
00:38:46.720 million dollars to every homeless person is that does something like that like it's probably oh yeah
00:38:51.520 in that territory and once again all of these programs are not the first 90 feet of this battle
00:38:57.840 which is everything in getting somebody to actually get some place i yeah but it you know and just my
00:39:04.960 last kind of one of my last thoughts on it it's it's this it's not even the direct impact on society of
00:39:12.000 what's happening it's also the indirect so the amount of uh to anthony's point the amount of money and
00:39:19.680 resources and time and issue management that we're putting into this to spin our wheels is hurting us
00:39:28.400 as a country going in directions we need to be going now so again you know uh change of you know change
00:39:34.720 the paradigm you know our lives are all kind of changed everyone talks about how you know since uh
00:39:41.440 covet and since uh you know trump and the u.s issues we've had all that stuff our lives have changed okay
00:39:49.040 i get it right it has so our focus has to change so we can keep kind of focusing on on the same
00:39:57.040 uh issues that we have and kind of spiraling around those having no impacts or we can try to put it in
00:40:03.280 processes because countries that deal with addiction and deal with encampments that's the way they do it
00:40:08.800 they put a program in place they march down that road on that program they measure the results of that
00:40:15.440 program and they say is it effective or not and then they see the outcomes and then they alter and
00:40:21.680 then they hopefully get to a better well they are getting to a better outcome than we are right now
00:40:25.680 but there's also these are some of them are third world countries some of them that are doing better
00:40:29.200 than us but those aren't even developed countries right those are countries that put a concerted effort
00:40:34.480 into policing at the community level yes at a federal level commute uh you know community policing
00:40:44.880 um and and all that it's not that this is police in many of these countries police on the streets
00:40:51.040 with automatic weapons it's not nice to look at but that's what they've done to stem the problem yeah
00:40:59.040 yeah yeah they they when they flooded the zone they really flooded the zone so they cut it off
00:41:05.600 well i feel sorry for the uh mayor and barry but it what a brave moment i think that we're seeing
00:41:11.360 on this topic uh any final thoughts no i wish him well you know i hope he succeeds i agree all right well
00:41:20.320 listen uh your thoughts your comments uh on what's happening in barry and in your own community uh the one
00:41:25.920 thing that i do notice already in the comments is people draw comparisons to what we're talking
00:41:30.400 about to what's happening where they live uh please keep us informed on that front and don't forget to
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