Posts tagged as:

Crime

Don’t fall for Harper’s crime trick

by Mike on October 3, 2008

Thank you, Elizabeth May. Thank you for being the only leader in last night’s debate to say unequivocally that overall crime rates — including violent crime rates — have been falling for decades and there’s absolutely no justification for adopting policies that violate the Charter rights of young offenders.

According to Statistics Canada, violent crime has been in decline since the mid-1970s. Violent crime rates in Canada’s biggest cities are also falling. And, on a per capita basis, Toronto had fewer homicides than Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Calgary.

But aren’t gun crimes going up? Nope. The rate of violent crime involving a firearm has been stable for the last 4 years. In fact, knives and clubs are more than three times as likely as guns to be used in the commission of a violent crime. 

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Insite worth a shot

by Brendan on October 1, 2008

I decided to cap off this past summer with a trip to Vancouver, BC to see a couple of recently graduated friends. If you have friends who live there, Vancouver is a great city to travel cheap. The best attractions — beaches, Grouse Mountain, Stanley Park — are accessible on foot and free of charge if you’re willing to walk. I did a lot of walking while I was in Vancouver.

One of the places I went isn’t your typical tourist destination. Insite is a facility where drug users can inject heroin using clean needles under the supervision of medical staff that can provide emergency care in cases of overdose. There is also a rehab center upstairs that addicts are encouraged to use. I wasn’t able to tour the entire facility while it was in use, but one of the doctors was kind enough to take a few minutes to explain the basics of the program to my friend and me.

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