theQuestion: Should the City of Vancouver levy a 0.5% property tax to fight the overdose crisis?*
Human suffering is the norm on this planet. It’s been this way since the dawn of time. We should not ask ourselves why is there so much suffering in this world? Instead, we should be asking why is there so little of it? At least here in the West.
When progressives look at the West all they see is ever-growing human suffering and in order to fight it, they ratchet-up the hysteria and demand more taxpayer money. The problem is that their solutions never work and only exacerbate the suffering.
I admire my Duel colleague as a front-line soldier in the fight against hard-core drug addiction and overdose in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. I take no issue with the soldier on the field, it is the battle plan I find disastrous. Progressives believe hard-core drug addiction and overdose is created by structural inequities such as poverty, race, sexism and corporatism. They refuse to see it for what it is—an individual moral failing which, left unchecked, infects then metastasizes into a great cancer on society.
The left is blinded by compassion and is therefore incapable of realizing this fact. They simply can’t distinguish right from wrong. Under the auspices of doing good progressives normalize the use of hard drugs in this city. Indeed, they are enablers by doing nothing to assuage it.
It’s heresy to advocate for drug abstinence—no major program allows it. Drug users get safe spaces to shoot-up, free needles and, in some cases, free heroin. An army of do-gooders also wait at the ready with naloxone to snatch an overdose from death’s door. Once saved, drug users are simply dusted off and released back to the street to repeat the cycle.
Vancouver City Council wants more taxpayer money to continue this broken policy. The progressive-led city council is expected to approve a 0.5% tax increase on property owners in the city to raise about $3.5-million dedicated funding for additional resources to combat the fentanyl overdose crisis. It is beyond laughable to believe this money would make a difference.
Yes, recent fentanyl overdoses present a crisis but not one of which is entirely unexpected. Considering, there are an estimated 15,000 injections of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine each day in the Downtown Eastside.
Throwing more money at the problem is battlefield triage. What is needed is a change in thinking. Progressive policy to fight hard-core drug use is ghoulish.
*First published in 24hrs Vancouver ‘theDuel’
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