Western Standard - August 06, 2025


Confronting Canada’s Addiction Crisis： Cory Morgan on Dangerous Denial


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

203.20044

Word count

982

Sentence count

58

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

People addicted to substances who live on the streets of Canada are putting themselves and other citizens in danger every day. Activists and politicians dance around the problem, using euphemisms and refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by unchecked addiction are killing people and making the catastrophe worse.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 It's a harsh term, and that's why I'm using it.
00:00:02.120 It's purposeful because it represents a harsh reality,
00:00:04.280 and I want to tear the sugar coating off of it.
00:00:07.260 People addicted to substances who live on the streets of Canada
00:00:09.720 are putting themselves and other citizens in danger every day.
00:00:13.640 Activists and bureaucrats and politicians dancing around the problem
00:00:16.640 using euphemisms and refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by unchecked addiction
00:00:22.100 are killing people and making the catastrophe worse.
00:00:25.320 Unless the person's blind, they've noticed an explosion
00:00:28.660 in the growth of street people in the last decade.
00:00:30.680 We never used to see that types of street encampments or tent encampments
00:00:34.160 have sprung up all over the place,
00:00:35.600 and we never had to deal with the zombie-like groups of strung-out souls
00:00:39.040 congregating at transit facilities and parks, alleys, schoolyards,
00:00:43.520 every corner of the city centers.
00:00:45.620 The vast majority of these people, and this is what we've got to get down to,
00:00:48.940 they're either addicts or suffering from mental health disorders, or both.
00:00:52.540 If we want to help these people, we've got to begin by accepting what their conditions are.
00:00:56.260 Civic politicians and their associated bureaucrats are the worst.
00:00:59.680 They use every term they can to deny reality.
00:01:02.400 People went from being called homeless to unwell to unhoused to my personal favorite,
00:01:08.340 vulnerable people.
00:01:09.760 Well, these vulnerable people stabbed people in two separate incidents
00:01:12.600 at the same LRT station in Calgary last week.
00:01:15.240 These vulnerable people have set brush fires at their encampments,
00:01:18.620 and they have propane tanks there.
00:01:20.440 Because they've also caused spikes in property crimes
00:01:23.080 as they steal anything they can to feed their addiction,
00:01:26.460 and they create a thriving market for organized crime
00:01:29.460 as they consume illicit drugs.
00:01:30.700 Vulnerable people, indeed.
00:01:32.740 Look, I don't want to crap on addicts here.
00:01:34.680 The people on the streets need our compassion, and they need our help.
00:01:37.480 We have a social obligation to help the folks suffering out there,
00:01:40.380 and funds directed towards addiction treatment
00:01:42.120 and expanding long-term mental health facilities are dollars worth well spent.
00:01:46.440 We won't be able to help them, though,
00:01:47.660 if we keep pretending that addiction isn't a problem.
00:01:51.120 It was maddening watching Calgary News this week
00:01:53.260 as legacy outlets reported on a vandalism rampage
00:01:56.140 committed by an addict where he did tens of thousands of dollars of damage to cars.
00:02:01.020 And I watched them get a quote from an idiot advocate for the homeless
00:02:03.780 talking about how this was an issue caused by high rents.
00:02:06.640 I wish I was making this up.
00:02:07.780 Look, the guy's an addict, and he was nuts.
00:02:09.500 He should be in an institution.
00:02:11.220 He doesn't have a rental problem.
00:02:12.740 The delusional dolts from the enablement cult
00:02:15.500 have been blaming the explosion of crime
00:02:17.320 and street-person populations on everything
00:02:19.380 from capitalism to racism to climate change,
00:02:22.100 all while refusing to admit it's the damn addiction.
00:02:24.780 A late-stage addict, whether it's fentanyl, meth, heroin, or crack,
00:02:28.240 is incapable of finding a job or maintaining a home.
00:02:31.600 They do indeed need to be taken from the streets if they're to be treated,
00:02:34.940 but they aren't in any condition to live within any form of long-term housing
00:02:37.820 unless they've been treated,
00:02:39.220 despite what smooth-brained housing-first activists claim.
00:02:41.920 Another term that should be stricken from all public discourse is social disorder.
00:02:47.420 The proper term is crime, and it's getting out of control.
00:02:50.820 Hatchet attacks, robberies, and fentanyl dealing aren't a disorder issue.
00:02:55.120 They're bloody crimes.
00:02:56.680 Apologists for the havoc they have fostered in the streets
00:02:58.960 through addiction-enablement policies
00:03:01.120 often try to blame citizens by saying it's a perception of unsafety.
00:03:05.440 Really?
00:03:06.240 You know, when people, a senior or a woman, 0.99
00:03:07.840 has to run the gauntlet of addicts in various states of frenzy
00:03:10.580 just to get to work.
00:03:11.840 It's more than just a perception of unsafety,
00:03:13.760 and they shouldn't have to deal with it.
00:03:15.520 In Nanaimo, the local government went full-enablement ideology
00:03:18.660 and managed to create one of the most dangerous small cities in Canada.
00:03:21.740 While the city has a beautiful backdrop, it has become a dump.
00:03:24.800 Because the fools in city administration felt the risk was only a perception issue,
00:03:28.460 they allowed an addiction-enablement facility to be set up next to their city hall.
00:03:31.920 Now the imbeciles are calling for a fence to be built around city hall
00:03:34.820 because they're surrounded by out-of-control addicts,
00:03:36.820 and they feel unsafe.
00:03:38.320 Maybe they just perceive it.
00:03:40.080 Enablement addicts, advocates, blame the deaths of addicts
00:03:43.820 on what they call a toxic supply.
00:03:46.040 They live in a mythical bubble state
00:03:47.540 where they believe that addicts would be just fine
00:03:49.560 if they could just get pure drugs.
00:03:51.160 That's not like those nasty additives the drug dealers put into the supply,
00:03:53.760 which kill people.
00:03:54.980 Look, there's no such thing as a safe supply of meth, fentanyl, heroin,
00:03:57.740 a crack for an addict.
00:03:59.180 Addiction's a progressive condition,
00:04:00.540 causing addicts to continue to seek higher doses
00:04:02.480 until they finally overdose and die.
00:04:05.380 Speaking of that, the term's overdose.
00:04:07.640 And even the most pure of drugs will cause it.
00:04:10.300 The sound of sirens are ubiquitous.
00:04:12.620 I don't know why I put those words in my own monologues.
00:04:14.100 They just kill me.
00:04:15.140 In urban areas, as ambulances constantly respond to overdoses.
00:04:18.140 Meanwhile, people suffer and potentially die
00:04:20.620 waiting emergency services and hospital spaces
00:04:22.940 because they're tied up with addicts.
00:04:24.480 The addiction epidemic is only going to get worse
00:04:26.300 as authorities refuse to acknowledge the realities associated with it.
00:04:30.540 If we do truly care about the addicts,
00:04:32.380 we've got to start speaking bluntly about it
00:04:33.720 and deal with it directly,
00:04:34.900 even if it means forcible confinement.
00:04:36.940 It's a complex problem and won't be solved
00:04:38.780 by simplistic souls who have the courage
00:04:40.800 to call a junkie a junkie.
00:04:42.800 No serious social problem has ever been solved
00:04:44.880 with Pollyanna attitudes and euphemisms.
00:04:47.640 So take that and put it in your crap pipe.
00:04:49.600 Smoke it.