Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Tony Clement's Junk(ie) Mail


Resident's of Vancouver's impoverished downtown east-side recently started receiving flyers from the Conservatives promising to rid Canadian streets from the plague of "The Junkies" (cue the ominous music). In a truly Reaganesque demonstration of ignorance, Health Minister and general dumbass Tony Clement has determined that Vancouver's Insite safe injection centre for drug addicts is "unethical" and the start of a "slippery slope". Mental midgets like Clement don't often let facts interfere with their thought process.

Clement's recent attack on Insite has prompted swift rebuke from those who actually know a thing or two about medicine - doctors.

“As an expression of somebody who calls himself a minister of health, it's a very unhealthy statement,” [Insite physician Dr. Gabor] Mate said.

“The repugnant aspect is his attack on the morality and ethics of human beings who are trying to work with a very difficult population.

“I mean where does he come off? Where does he appoint himself as a moral judge of professionals who he doesn't understand and knows nothing about?”

Indeed. CMA President Dr. Brian Day has also chimed in, stating that 79% of CMA members believe that programs like Insite (which promote harm reduction) work. Yet Clement and the collective braintrust (and I use that word very lightly) of the CPC continue to susbscribe to the fantasy that the scourge of drug addiction can simply be eradicated by stiffer jail terms and tougher policing.

The flyers, approved by the PMO, promised to "clean up drug crime" and went one step further, claiming that "the Liberal dark decade is over".


“Too many Canadians have seen the ugly face of drug crime,” the double-sided page sent from the local MP declares.

Hmmm. The only ugly face I see is that of Stephen Harper. Go figure.

7 comments:

Pale said...

We started a protest Facebook group.

Comon have a look.

STOP! conservative Ten percenter SPAM

Red Canuck said...

Pale - Thanks for the link! I'm not actually on Facebook (part of my hapless anti-establishment crusade), but I support your cause wholeheartedly. I'll spread the word to all my facebookin' friends.

Anonymous said...

I've got your ethics right here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Clement

[Clement] first attracted the attention of the media in 1985 when he created a new society to invite the Ambassador of South Africa, Glen Babb, to speak at the University of Toronto after the International Law Society had withdrawn an invitation as too controversial because of apartheid.

LRT said...

To add insult to injury, these guys get to bypass my "no junk mail" sign.

This needs to stop.

Saskboy said...

Here're some more links on this Conservaspam topic, in my latest blog post about it.

Anonymous said...

Funding prison is much more expensive to tax-payers than Insite. I'd be curious to know if Clement would be willing to imprison his Conservative MPs that have narcotic addictions? I'm 99%sure some of them do.
This is a flawed American viewpoint. 1/3 severe alcoholics that try LSD don't drink anymore. Marijuana and ecstasy are a tax resource, and the main harm done by these drugs is incarceration, quality control problems and violence.
More importantly, every officer and judge enforcing this flawed American model is a resource taken away from rapes and murder.
Conservatives aren't strong on crime, they are subsidizing organized crime. Some of my most creative ideas have come from the use of drugs. For example, JFK, the man who averted WW3, used meth. Should he have been arrested so a Republican could steward the Cuban Missile Crisis?!
Grow up Tony. Many athletes and pilots use speed. The War on Drugs is an attack on the poor and a diversion of resources away from treatment. At $120000/yr a pop, prison should be for violent offenders. Unless of course, your contituency includes every police department and every gang in the land.

tung said...

Allen Stanford (born March 24, 1950) is a former prominent financier and sponsor of professional sports who is in prison awaiting sentencing, having been convicted of charges that his investment company was a massive Ponzi scheme and fraud. Stanford was the chairman of the now defunct Stanford Financial Group of Companies. A fifth-generation Texan who once resided in Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, he holds dual citizenship, being a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda and the United States.
build a websitecisco routers