To every province and city in Canada 🇨🇦: Houston cut homelessness by more than 60%. Denver reduced unsheltered homelessness by 45%. How? By prioritizing permanent housing. Meanwhile, we keep pouring money into policing, shelters, hospitals and jails to manage the consequences of homelessness. We can't keep spending billions managing homelessness while claiming we can't afford to end it. Housing isn't a reward, it's where the solution begins. theglobeandmail.com/opinion/…

Ontario, like Alberta, has closed supervised consumption sites. Alberta has reported a 143% increase in overdoses since the closures, while Ontario is now seeing more overdoses in shelters and public spaces. Both governments are making an already deadly crisis even more dangerous. I've said it for years: We need BOTH harm reduction and recovery services. share.google/2hHPmLkD7E3ZM95…

Years ago, my lifelong Conservative father-in-law was holding his grandson when he said supervised consumption sites “just enable drug use.” I replied, “That's a dumb comment to make while holding your grandson. He might not be alive if one hadn't saved my life and connected me to recovery.” You should have seen his face when I said that. 😳 “Whoops. I didn't think that through.” So I arranged a tour. He met the nurses, saw the care, the detox upstairs, and the connections to recovery. He walked in believing these places enabled addiction, he walked out understanding they save lives. Today, he's one of their biggest supporters. Not because he abandoned his Conservative values, but because he realized compassion, dignity and keeping people alive were never at odds with them. He didn't just change his opinion. He became an advocate for the very people he'd once dismissed.

This shouldn't be hard for people to understand. More police doesn't reduce addiction. More police doesn't reduce mental illness. More police doesn't reduce homelessness. More police doesn't reduce poverty. More housing, more healthcare, more treatment, more outreach, more resources and more support does. That's how you build safer, healthier communities.