Will Canadian cities avoid the fate of American ＂progressive＂ cities？
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205.53053
Summary
In the wake of the opioid addiction crisis, more and more people are turning to the streets of major cities like Calgary, Alberta for relief from the growing problem of homelessness and crime. In order to address the problem, cities across the U.S. need to do more than just provide shelter and food to those in need, they need to increase the number of police officers on the streets.
Transcript
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The most common things I used to hear from visitors to Calgary was how impressed they were
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with how clean and safe the city was, particularly the downtown. And having traveled extensively
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during my time in the oil field, I had to agree. I've not heard people say that about Calgary in
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a long time now, and in working downtown this last year, it's not hard to see why.
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The smell of human urine permeates every underpass and garbage is strewn everywhere.
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Parks have full-time security personnel working within them as they supervise people scattered
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along the benches and various degrees of inebriation if they aren't in the middle of openly consuming
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hard drugs. Discarded syringes are commonplace, and people walk with their heads down to avoid
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making eye contact with the all-too-common tripped-out addicts aggressively bouncing around on the
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streets. A downturn in oil prices coupled with a decade of massive business tax hikes has led to
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chronic commercial vacancies in downtown Calgary. For lease signs pepper the windows of street-front
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businesses, and those that remain open are struggling. Street parking? All but gone as
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bike lanes have taken over at the expense of the businesses that used to rely on customers coming
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by car. Contrary to claims by progressive city councillors, cyclists are terrible customers
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who rarely reach into their spandex to spend money at local businesses. Bike lanes are not a business
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boon. Calgary's transit system has been given away to addicts and criminals. Years of permissive
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approaches to disorders allow disruptive elements to take over the system, and while city hall is
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constantly decrying the lack of ridership on transit, they also refuse to crack down on the
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crime in the system. It would run contrary to their defund the police attitudes. While Calgary
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city council has hinted and pushed periodically at defunding the force, they have failed. They've
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constantly battled with the city police, though, and officer morale is at an all-time low. They can't
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fill positions, and officers are burning out. Crime's rising in the suburbs, as criminals use the empty
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LRT system to travel into residential areas to commit property crimes. And then we got this urban
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density-focused city hall trying to fight consumer demand and cork outward growth. And this just led
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to a flight of both commercial enterprises and people to counties outside of the city limits.
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The most frightening thing of it all is this is just the beginning. There's a long way to go down
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yet, and there's living examples right now just south of the border. Just look at every American
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city, and I mean every one of them, where it's dominated by progressive governments and policies.
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San Francisco. Human feces is a common sight on the sidewalks, and thieves walk into businesses
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and just take items without fear of legal repercussions. The soft-on-crime approach has
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predictably become an abject failure, but the city stubbornly sticks to it. Portland had some
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residential areas become virtual war zones as squatters have occupied private rental properties,
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and the law won't evict them. Landlords are desperately trying to sell at massive discounts
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if they can find a buyer at all. People residing within private homes in the problematic districts
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have taken to barricading themselves in their homes at night and keeping the arms handy.
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Just Google it. You'll see the articles. It's unbelievable. And Portland used to be such a nice,
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peaceful city. Minneapolis. They defunded their police force. It was a catastrophe.
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You know, people basically begged for the return of funding, and it was brought back,
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but the cost was done. The damage was done. Minneapolis is also dealing with homeless encampments
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and high crime. Chicago. Look at it. Again, a war zone with more murders per year than the entire
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country of Canada. These are all progressive cities. Calgary, Edmonton, and Regina aren't nearly in the
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shape of those cities yet, but they're on their way. City councils in all those cities are parroting
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the same progressive lines that civic politicians did in all those American cities. At least the
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American politics, they could be forgiven, you know, given some slack because they hadn't tried
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this stuff before. Canadian municipal leaders can't use that excuse. We're heading into a recession,
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and we're in the grips of an opioid addiction crisis, and things are going to be getting rough and
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fast. There's no simple answers, but a degree of increased crime and homelessness, I mean, it's
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pretty much inevitable. We need to make efforts to contain the disorder rather than enable it, though.
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When addicts take over public transit stations as they did in Calgary, the city needs to step up and
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clean them out rather than close the stations to the public as they did. When property crime is
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increasing the suburbs, we need to increase the police presence and follow through with charges, not
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keep talking about defunding police. When businesses are fleeing the city, the city has to re-examine
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its high-tax, high-spending models. Cities like Calgary might be doomed to swirl a progressive
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toilet of disorder and crime, but at least nobody can pretend to say they didn't see it coming.
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And it's going to be one of those opportunities where I say I told you so.