Derek Finkle

@PatTheMatMan @guyfelicella Here’s some evidence from a murder trial for you. The verdict was guilty. nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-…

@DerekFinkle @guyfelicella Fuck Right Off. You're A Fucking Liar.

This is what “closing sites” really means: People using alone in alleys. People overdosing in public washrooms. People dying where no one can reach them in time. Naloxone can’t save you if no one finds you. Addiction doesn’t disappear because services do. It just becomes more deadly. This isn’t compassion. This is abandonment. Link 🔗 cbc.ca/news/canada/ca…

@daverater @TheBreakdownAB You suspect wrongly. Neither of those things happened for the clients of the Red Deer injection site after it closed. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ad…

@TheBreakdownAB I suspect moving overdoses from safe injection sites will mean more calls for paramedics, and more patients in ERs. That’s adding to an existing critical problem.

This. There’s no good reason not to have treatment and a space to build relationships for people who aren’t ready to ask for help #abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

@guyfelicella @jananeli Guy, injection sites have a policing problem. When the Parkdale site lost their funding, Health Canada said it would only continue their exemption if they came up with community safety plan with the police. So the director met with local police and concluded it was futile!

Derek it's still in your area, in a park, alley or doorway and it's moved to other places. Just now more people see it. Sounds like you have a policing problem. Now more people are at risk, so you haven't solved anything. You go tell the family member who dies of an overdose that you are against them using at those sites.

@guyfelicella @jananeli As for the solution, you’re not going to have any more influence on that than I am. Though I do think we’d agree on some things. Not enough space here but, in part, a major scaling up of hospital-like facilities focused on addiction & mental health needs that provide housing.

@DerekFinkle @jananeli It's there, it's just hidden, and in other areas. What's the solution Derek?

@jananeli @guyfelicella I live across the street from the South Riverdale site. Its director said there were way more people using outside of it than inside. When it closed, the drug activity disappeared, as though someone “had flipped a switch,” as per this CBC story. cbc.ca/listen/live-ra…

@DerekFinkle @guyfelicella Closing sites means you will have even more drug use outside. Not less.

@Stucco_Here @guyfelicella Guy’s “conservative lap dogs” comment is a lazy toss off. Adam and I have both been critical of conservatives, both provincially & federally. Kind of hard to be a conservative lap dog when the conservatives don’t respond to your emails.

@guyfelicella Zivo is politically driven?

Experts across Alberta have now weighed in on the Alberta government’s CoRE study on the impact of closing an overdose prevention site. (Hate to break it to you but no matter how many times they write the same things on the same topics, National Post opinion writers/conservative lap dogs @AdamZivo and @DerekFinkle are not leading lights in this space.) In a new op-ed, the scientists clearly explain the many, many ways the study was flawed, including that it didn’t account for new services stood up to mitigate the loss of the OPS. As they say: “If you take away a safety net, like an OPS, and replace it with more people standing below to catch the fallout, you haven’t proven the net was useless, only how hard you have to work to compensate for its absence.” The study’s nonsensical findings attempt (poorly) to counter two decades of peer-reviewed research. Yet it’s this one limited, inadequate and politically driven study that Zivo, Finkle, and the Alberta and Ontario governments are using to justify the closure of life-saving health services. Kinda makes you wonder who the real sinners are: people struggling with addiction, or the morally righteous who demand abstinence or force them to risk death. Read the op-ed here 🔗:edmontonjournal.com/opinion/column…

Alberta closing more supervised drug injection sites after study backs recovery approach nationalpost.com/news/canada/al…

@guyfelicella As I said in this radio interview today, several academics promised to study how many injection site clients died after the 2025 Toronto closures. The Red Deer study did exactly that. If it had found a spike in deaths, you'd be praising it to the moon. youtube.com/watch?v=ppbsW2…

@guyfelicella As for Ontario, it’s not just conservatives who support closing injection sites. thetrillium.ca/municipalities…

@guyfelicella This OPINION column devotes many words reiterating the limitations & affiliations the Red Deer study's authors openly acknowledge. The 2024 Toronto study claiming sites lowered ODs was not so brave: it never fessed up to cherry picking months in 2019 with the lowest ODs in years.

I’ve seen a few (paid) @OntLiberal boosters posting about how their party is the morally superior alternative to Doug Ford’s for defunding injection sites, yet they seem to have forgotten something. thetrillium.ca/municipalities…

@ArfinNathaniel Hmmm. thetrillium.ca/municipalities…

This will kill people, it will make drug use more common out in the open, and it will harm already marginalized communities the most.

@globeandmail This article is a good example of commentary disguised as objective reporting. No mention of recent study out of Alberta. No mention that fatal overdoses have gone down in Toronto since closures a year ago. Nothing about crime, disorder, drug dealers etc. nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-…

Toronto’s donor-funded consumption sites worry funding cuts could lead to more overdoses theglobeandmail.com/canada/article…

@andrewaperez @fordnation Well, I’m not sure the federal Liberals are any better. I just got a 1300-page FOI request. Health Minister & staff completely exempted. Even staff names are redacted when mentioned by others. Local MPs emails, comms etc also excluded. Province is just following their lead, no?

If you ever needed proof that @fordnation's government is willing to hide from public scrutiny, this is it: The proposed changes to Ontario’s freedom-of-information (FOI) laws will invariably shield the Premier’s office and cabinet ministers from public access effectively putting some of the most important political decision-making in this province behind closed doors. As Ontario’s Information & Privacy Commissioner warned, this risks “eviscerating” public accountability. At a time when Ontarians are still demanding answers on the Greenbelt scandal and other Ford gov't controversies, this isn’t modernization; it’s a deliberate attempt to avoid transparency. This is what happens when a government grows too comfortable operating without consequences. Instead of earning back public trust, the Ford gov't is trying to desperately rewrite the rules to avoid being held accountable in the first place. Ontarians deserve a government that answers questions --not one that buries the evidence. When the next Ontario election rolls around in 2028 or 2029, the choice couldn’t be clearer. We can accept a gov't that governs in the shadows, or we can choose one, an @OntLiberal gov't, that pledges to be more open, transparent and accountable to the people it serves. It’s high time we restore integrity at Queen’s Park. #cdnpoli #onpoli

@andrewaperez @fordnation You cite what your community deserves but ignore the trauma my community suffered as a result of tragic negligence. A drug trafficking expert called these sites "fishing holes" for drug dealers. Wish you came to the trial to see video of rampant open use. nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-…

.@fordnation’s recent decision to cut public funding for safe consumption sites isn’t just bad public policy; it’s dangerous, short-sighted and will cost lives. At a time when Ontario is still in the grips of a toxic drug crisis, these sites have been proven to prevent overdoses, reduce public drug use and connect vulnerable people to healthcare and housing. Cutting them without fully implemented alternatives isn’t leadership — it’s abandonment. This government is choosing ideology over evidence and politics over people. The result? More strain on our healthcare system, more preventable deaths and more families devastated by loss. As Board Chair at @FifeHouse, I routinely see the damage that Doug Ford’s government is doing to vulnerable people in my community of #TorontoCentre. My community — indeed all Ontarians — deserve better than decisions that ignore frontline experts and put lives at risk. This is not compassion. This is not fiscal responsibility. This is a failure of leadership. We can — and must — do better. #cdnpoli #onpoli #TorCen

@andrewaperez @fordnation While I agree our healthcare system is not properly equipped to deal with the opioid crisis, I take issue with your "ideology over evidence" assertion. Injection sites can reverse overdoses, but there is no evidence that they prevent overdoses over time. nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-…

@guyfelicella Guy, you seem weirdly obsessed with what Adam thinks and does. It’s a little creepy, tbh. x.com/guyfelicella/s…

⚡️BREAKING: Recovery-or-die activist who continues to gaslight the public about the cause of overdose deaths for the past 3+ years calls thousands of doctors, scientists, frontline workers and actual trained, educated experts “harm reduction ACTIVISTS.” LOL. Most reasonable, compassionate people DO care what Public Health experts think Adam. It’s your cruel and uneducated opinions we don’t care about. 🥱

@guyfelicella 2. You say you want to sit down & debate MPs such as Dan Mazier to "expose their lies." I'd suggest boning up on your debating skills before doing so. If you deflect with a whataboutism & then get challenged on the deflection, the winning move isn't to call your opponent creepy.

Derek, you seem weirdly obsessed with what I think and do. I’m not answering to your demands because it’s a little creepy, tbh. Also, if you can’t understand the need for different kinds of consumption sites for regulated psychoactive substances for which all the ingredients are known, and unregulated substances that might contain a volatile mix of deadly ingredients, then I can’t help you.

Doug Ford says supervised consumption sites “enable addiction.” But bars and liquor stores are fine? Btw, alcohol causes the most harm out of any drug on the planet, and the most addictions in our society. Supervised consumption sites save lives. Close them and the public becomes the consumption site.