In 'harm-reduced' Canada, 'safe supply' flies economy-plus
"Mind your damned business" can no longer cut it, not when failed far-left policies and poverty pimps have made the government heroin trade impossible to ignore.
When they’re not being arrested for side-hustling, or operating as accessories to the murder of innocent mothers in broad daylight in Toronto, Canadian ‘safe supply’ advocates are known to claim the defacto government heroin trade helps isolate usage, reduce trafficking, and “reduce harm” in the community.
As is the case with most claims made by junkies, that too is a lie.
Before the New Year, this writer happened to sit next to one of these poor, strung out — and strung along — souls on a flight from Toronto to Vancouver. I thought a paper might be interested in this story, so I’ve held off on publishing it ‘til now; but I was ignored completely, so I punched this piece up and extended it, and I am more than happy to share it as an exclusive for paid subscribers.
This is a true story. Small details have been altered to protect the identity of the subject and the airline.
It’s one thing to visit with the disastrous effects of Canada’s ‘safe supply’ policy in our downtowns, to read about it in essential reporting from journalists like Adam Zivo, or to scroll through scenes of degradation on social media, it’s another thing entirely when it manages to clear airport security at Toronto’s Pearson Terminal Three, and sits next to you in Economy-Plus on the five-hour flight back to Vancouver.
The first red flag was the subject being last to board; the second, the hollowed features and the unwashed green hair; the third, the open wound on her wrist. Her sweatsuit, too, had seen better days, but when half of working adults all but fly in their pajamas, her attire, and general “I slept in my car” energy barely registered as a yellow flag in the moment.
It’s 35,000 feet over Winnipeg, the smoothest of sailings so far, with not a whisper of turbulence, when I feel the first attempt at a sneaky vape hit my face. Spread-eagled in a stupor – good thing we both sprung the extra $40 for additional legroom – the subject, let’s call her “8C” had begun to flirt with a $10,000 fine.
Like my very own Twilight Zone gremlin on the wing, I’m the only one who notices. I try to wake her, but her body refuses the order. At that point, my headphones and paperback are placed in the seat pocket in front of me and my tray table is securely fastened. If we were going to make it to Vancouver in one piece, if the father and son playing Mario Kart on Nintendo Switch in the row in front of us were to make it home for New Year's Eve, she was my problem to keep an eye on.
She shouldn’t have been, but that’s the indignity of the modern Canadian public square: failures have a way of being foisted upon you.
We’re over Saskatchewan, and I’m staring at the back of the seat in front of me like David Puddy, when the nerves in her arms reconnect to the base of her spine, and in a flash, with eyes still closed, she’s gone into her pocket for crushed white powder and puts it directly up her nose.