MSM Missed Manitoba Meth-election Stories On Crime, Needles, Injection Sites, And Detox

With no public interest broadcaster at work in Manitoba on the provincial election, important and serious aspects underpinning health, economic and safety policy were left to languish on the sidelines of mainstream media story selections. 

I tried my best to carry the ball and make sure voices raising inconvenient truths in the election were heard. 

Readers donated towards this work and I've been honoured to earn their trust and support. You can join the donors list too.
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This column is about four election issues - discarded used needles, meth-induced property and violent crime, safe injection sites, and drug detox and recovery spending priorities - and how the mainstream media completely let the public down by ignoring or under-reporting those stories and not holding politicians to account. 

1) Since last October my main beat has been to uncover critical errors and deficiencies in public health practices that are resulting in over a hundred thousand contaminated used needles dumped unsafely onto streets, boulevards, lanes, parks, and private residences all over Winnipeg already this year. (I focused on Winnipeg but it's a huge problem in Brandon, rural areas and first nations communities as well.)

As the election loomed I reported that the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority had underestimated the number of discarded sharps in Winnipeg by 400%. AT LEAST. And I reported that the year over year increase  from their October 2018 estimate to June of 2012 was 1200%. 

That news got the attention of PC MLA Sarah Guillemard and the Bear Clan on Twitter. who liked and retweeted my comments. I got further comments from Manitoba Liberal leader Dougald Lamont and a city councilor chimed in too:

https://wpgwatchdog.blogspot.com/2019/08/north-end-councilor-echoes-liberal.html

"Mynarski Councilor Ross Eadie, whose north end ward has been noticably afflicted with discarded used needles, reacted to our story exposing that health officials lowballed the estimate of discarded needles in Winnipeg by 400% last year.

With discards estimated to be up 1200% since last year, Eadie cautioned:

 "I definitely believe Street Connections has not handled their program very well over the years on the collection side."

... Dougald Lamont, the Manitoba Liberal leader was critical of both needle and data collection by the WRHA, saying it was "not surprising that the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority's estimate of discarded needles was so far from actual numbers," and insisted  that "Manitobans deserve to know the extent of issues within their communities."

Lamont was bang on. The WRHA's "harm reduction" policy and free needle exchange program is based on a 1996 study from goddamn Baltimore - where NO ONE was cranking methamphetamine.

Last October the WRHA claimed:  

"Needle distribution programs have also been shown to reduce the number of discarded needles in the community overall.", citing a study published in the year 2000. 

 In the same email, officials argued:  

"Needle return rates have very little to do with the number of needles found discarded unsafely in the community." 

Can someone explain why needle returns were counted and rates were tracked and bragged about by those same exchange programs in Regina, Saskatoon and other places in the past? 

Oh ya, because when it's at 88%, that's proof users aren't dumping free needles onto playgrounds.

But if it wasn't for me asking politicans questions what they were going to do about used needles endangering the public and the WRHA's failure to monitor, let alone control, the meth epidemic, no one in the media would have asked.  

"Good data is very important for governments to make the right policy choices", Lamont said.  

To be clear - the WRHA uses a 23 year old study to justify a program depositing, by their own admission, up to 41,000 needles of THEIR needles on the street, that doesn't collect proper needle return or discard data, and that doesn't even require ANY needles be brought in or a single question asked before "harm reduction" workers hand out clean needles by the boxload.  

Green Party leader James Beddome and the NDP candidate in St. Boniface Laurissa Sims, concurred with Lamont at a St. B town hall that the WRHA had failed to ensure "harm reduction" for addicts didn't result in harm for law-abiding citizens and for children. That's all 3 opposition parties, criticizing the role of WRHA harm reduction policies leaving used needles on our streets, under the Pallister regime.

You'd think CBC or someone would have picked up on that as an election issue. 

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2) I suggested in a column that "If "Crime And Fear" Emerges In The Manitoba Election - It Won't Just Be Campaign Rhetoric" - and I backed it up with the very statistics the Free Press buried in a community tabloid.

"A recent Lance story - a Free Press Neighborhood tabloid - about crime rates in St. Boniface contained the bombshell statistics that should have been on the front page of the parent broadsheet.

2018                                 One year increase     Increase since 2014

Property crimes  2,893          55.7%                     92.9%

Violent crimes       385           28.3%                     27.4%

Total crimes         3639          49.6%                     78.2%

I repeat -- "a rise of 92.9 per cent over the five-year average." 

But the valid crime concerns of the residents and businesses seeking enforcement - not to mention families terrorized by meth-crazed relatives and neighbours - got no traction in the elction campaign. Why? 

For one, because there is no effective voice for crime victims in this city, and none of the opposition parties wanted to be caste in that role. In fact, the NDP platform didn't address crime enforcement at all. 

However, there is an effective and coordinated lobby in support of the WRHA. Those activists have never questioned the harm reduction policy - let alone admit its failures - and makes money off any program expansion. 

So crime issues became secondary to jockeying for public support over spending promises  made about treatment options and health care services, ignoring immediate protection of our community. 

And no one in the media championed their cause.

As for Brian Pallister and the PC's, they talked a good game about hiking policing and enforcement budgets, but no one asked them if they will attach measurable results to the funding, or how they define success.

* The next time an MSM reporter mentions the 92.9% increase in property crime in St. Boniface to an MLA or a Premier and asks what they will do, it will be the first time.  

* If they ask for a comment about the analysis of former cop James Jewell, who dissected a flawed investigation structure under police chief Danny Smyth that amplified the factors behind the 92.9% hike in property crime, it will be the first time. 

* The next time reporters ask those wanting your vote how they will reform the Intoxicated Persons Act to allow for detention of addicts in a meth psychosis, a prerequisite to expanding ANY drug stabilization or detox unit services, it will also be the first time.

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3) Another election train all the opposition parties hopped onto, without question from the media, was the establishment of "safe injection" sites. 

The contrast with the Progressive Conservatives was easy for the media to grasp and portray - conservatives are against letting addicts shoot up in taxpayer-paid spaces (bad policy), and everyone else was agreeing with the "WRHA harm reduction fan club" to open places for users (good policy). 

Well... not quite everybody. With good reasons to boot. But the media wouldn't hear of it, let alone report on it.

But the trio at the St. B town hall heard it, from Marion Willis and the addicts in the residential recovery program at Morberg House. 

She dared them to produce a single study showing a safe injection site was appropriate for meth users. They still haven't. 

Here's the video:

Refuting the NDP 100 day plan to centralize services with the Main Street Project, Marion Willis told the panel, "I'm a better expert what it actually takes to take meth addict from addicted to Morberg House, these outcomes are achieved because it isn't happening on Main Street..."

She went on to dispute their lockstep support for safe injection sites as a viable option to handle the meth crisis: 

"I would challenge you to go and find some current research on methamphetamine use disorder, guess what? IT DOESN'T EXIST... Everybody has adopted the protocols for addressing the opiod crisis ... this is a methamphetamine crisis, and it's a very different beast..."

There isn't enough understanding and I see that clearly ... it's painfully obvious to us that even those within the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority making decisions actually don't know enough about it and they're making a lot of assumptions." 

Now god forbid, any media outlets had asked politicians favouring safe injection sites how they would propose handling the increased 

crime those facilities had brought to neighborhoods in Calgary, Edmonton, and Wab Kinew's favorite example, Lethbridge, where a man was stabbed in the face last weekend and where the rooms are booked solid as meth addicts smoke themselves into oblivion in a modern day, taxpayer-funded equivalent of an opium den. 

But can you imagine if just one had reported what Marion Willis, whose program has a 67% success rate, with no funding from the provincial government, told the panel?   

 "'Harm reduction' isn't necessarily a safe injection site when it comes to meth. I beg you to start talking to people who have overcome the addiction, take it from them, they're the true experts sitting here."
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Early in the campaign Marion Willis identified a vacated building in the west end that is already designed for exactly what is needed - drug detox and stabilization. It's actually two buildings, with the modern medical treatment side with secure bed units to the west connected to an old nun's residence converted to an administration and residential treatment building at 800 Adele Avenue at Arlington St. 

She sees it as a potential centre of excellence, with drug treatment and education programs aligned with long term supports for recovery. 

The problem is, that the Pallister government felt an existing lease was too profitable for the landlords and intend to legislate their way out of a 20 year contract between a child-welfare agency and the building owners. The First Nations children in care were relocated (to where, no one seems to want to say) and in the process government officials, committed to paying $36,000 a month in rent for an empty building through the new year, said some negative things about the facility that resulted in a lawsuit over souring potential new renters. Messy messy, and a lot of hard feelings on both sides.

At the St. Boniface town hall, Willis beseeched the candidates to look beyond the legal dispute the government has provoked with the building's owners and take a big step to handle the meth crisis. 

"What this city needs most has been sitting since February empty, locked up, within walking distance of Health Sciences Centre." 

* All 3 candidates agreed their parties would look into it being part of their drug treatment program expansion. 

* Member of Parliament for the riding, Robert-Falcon Ouellette, is very familiar with the success of Morberg House and told us he'd go to bat with Ottawa for funding. 

* Area councilor Cindy Gilroy wrote "I have treatment facilities in my ward and have supported the need for treatment centers so am not opposed." 

So, the MP and councilor are interested in the building being restored to public health care use, as are the leaders of the Liberal Party, Green Party, and a mental health support worker running for the NDP. And guess what?  

Even two of Pallisters' Progresive Conservative candidates - both MLA's seeking to return to the Legislature - agreed that if 800 Adele is already designed to handle drug detox, then it should be considered for a potential new site. 

Watch the response of Jon Reyes, seeking election in the new constituency of Waverley, about using the existing facilty at 800 Adele instead of the PC commitment to spend millions to build a similar 12 bed unit at HSC.

"I think it's very important for us to have these conversations with the stakeholders that have experience who have the experience in terms of these treatment centres ... I am very open-minded when it comes to information that can be brought forward." 

Shannon Martin is the Tory candidate in McPhillips, another MLA relocating to a new electoral division: 

 "I think Marty, we have to look at every opportunity to use existing facilities ... we shouldn't be in a position to rule anything out, everything should be on the table."

So, two Party leaders in Manitoba, the area MP who was on the House of Commons Health Committee, the area city councilor, an NDP rep, and two Progressive Conservative MLA's running for re-election - all agree with the concept Marion Willis brought forward this summer, for the province to make use of the drug stabilization unit at 800 Adele instead of taxpayers paying $36,000 a month to keep it empty. 

Dane Bourget, Director of JibStop, told me he could have the detox beds and the residential treatment beds at 800 Adele "filled in 24 hours!" 

That ain't fake news.

PS. A reader pointed out that readers should be pointed at the stories I broke about election laws not requiring candidates, like 3 from the NDP including Wab Kinew, to reveal they failed to pay court-ordered fines and had their paycheques garnisheed at additional taxpayer expense. 


http://wpgwatchdog.blogspot.com/2019/09/ndp-mla-wages-seized-for-unpaid-court.html

http://wpgwatchdog.blogspot.com/2019/09/third-ndp-candidate-added-to-wage.html

And my story about Kinew refusing to be interviewed by two local women political journalists:

http://wpgwatchdog.blogspot.com/2019/09/wab-kinew-ndp-election-strategy.html

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Independent journalism like this is how the public interest is protected. 

That's what I have tried to do with my 2019 Manitoba Election Coverage as a one man bureau. 

Regardless of the election results, it would be nice if the mainstream media finally paid attention to these four issues - discarded used needles, meth-induced property and violent crime, safe injection sites, and drug detoxand recovery spending priorities - and asked the next class of MLA's and the next cabinet the kinds of questions I have raised from the angles I have explored, even if it challenges their own views in the newsroom. 

NOW GO OUT AND VOTE.  

MP Ouellette says 800 Adele is ideal for proposed meth detox facility

The Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre has said he's willing to go to bat with his federal counterparts to help restore an existing health care facility in his riding to public use, and take advantage of its existing capacity for 10 or more meth stabilization and detox beds and ample room to housing other services, to help save lives sooner.

 Robert-Falcon Ouellette swung his support behind a drug stabilization unit proposal that started to evolve after my profiles of the success of Morberg House, a residential meth treatment program initiated by St. Boniface Street Links. 

http://tgcts.blogspot.com/2019/07/bonus-video-meth-program-and-homeless.html

Those stories led to the director, Marion Willis, being invited to see the amenities of the now-empty building at 800 Adele, about 6 blocks from the Health Sciences Centre. 

This past winter the Progressive Conservative government decided to terminate a 20 year contract with the building owners, and ordered the social services agency operating inside to pack up and leave. That dispute is now headed to court, leaving the Class A facility in limbo.

Willis went to the site and determined the facility could be "a centre of excellence for meth treatment and education" with Morberg House working in conjunction with other local addiction services, including the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba and the Main Street Project.    

"People know of the issues that we're facing, the security issues and I was talking about that with the West End Biz, the Downtown Biz, we were talking about security issues today, about how we can work together", Ouellette said Friday outside of 800 Adele. 

"But this could be one of the arrows - among many others that we could be using -  in order to get more people into treatment. Because we know there is a lack of beds we could actually be making sure this place is filled up so people can obtain the treatment that they need ... the treatment that leads to long term success."

"Obviously we need partners at the provincial level to do that", the Liberal MP said, "and I'm willing and ready to have discussions with the Health Minister at the Federal level to see what we can do to get more dollars". 

In conjunction with a provincial plan that could coordinate aspects like "police, the detox ... harm reduction with needles (being a problem) and also the education component ... there's a lot going on and this is going to be part of it."

 Ouellette was the federal appointee to a tripartate Illicit Drug Task Force this winter that made over twenty recommendations, many of which sought to address methamphetamine use, in addition to opioids and other illicit drugs. The task force reported the need for more medical withdrawal and detoxification centres is immediate.

Statistics from the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba said that between 2014 and 2017, the number of meth users rose 48% among youths and 104% among adults. The average age of a youth using meth is 16 and 81% of their reported cases are girls. Ouellette noted in our interview that AFM "has very long wait times, much longer than a what we have in other parts of the country"

He was a member of the Commons Standing Committee on Health when they met with recovering meth addicts at Morberg House in April and heard firsthand accounts of the depths of the meth crisis and the difficult path from despair to recovery. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/mps-health-committee-methamphetamine-winnipeg-1.5081706

In Committee, Ouelette remarked  "In Winnipeg we know we have a lot of issues in the health care department, the emergency wards, people who are in addictions and security issues for staff who are being hurt." 

This week the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives announced a plan to spend up to $7M at Health Sciences Centre "to create 12 new treatment and waiting spaces for people addicted to methamphetamines if the party is re-elected next month." That plan would specifically deliver patients to HSC presenting the dangerous effects of meth psychosis that Ouellette described. 

Meanwhile, the government will continue to pay approx. $35,000 in rent for 800 Adele while the secure detox unit sits unused, resulting in a dollar-for-value quotient of zero for taxpayers.

The NDP has proposed grouping various addiction treatment facilities near Main St. and Logan Ave. for approx. $4.5M in operating and capital costs.

Earlier in August Manitoba Liberal leader Dougald Lamont was first within the political class to talk about finding a way to reopen the mothballed secure bed units and get 800 Adele into the treatment and recovery regime. 

 http://tgcts.blogspot.com/2019/08/lamont-blasts-pallister-govt-for-fudged.html  

At an election town hall organized by Street Links last week Willis beseeched the candidates to look beyond the legal dispute the government has provoked with the building's owners. 

"What this city needs most has been sitting since February empty, locked up, within walking distance of Health Sciences Centre."

(Video from the panel is at 

 http://wpgwatchdog.blogspot.com/2019/08/meth-detox-proposal-for-800-adele-gets.html)

In response, Lamont reiterated his belief that "If it's suitable, that should be the place it goes." 

NDP representative Laurissa Sims assured the audience her leader Wab Kinew would welcome a conversation about the functionality and potential use of 800 Adele. 

Green Party leader James Beddome, going head to head with Kinew for the seat in Fort Rouge, stated "it makes complete sense to put a facility there." and asked a resonating question: 

"We're in a crisis so why aren't we doing something?"

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Here's where we usual pitch to try to earn your financial support for the independent reporting presented on this blog.

Questions about the government paying rent on the vacant 800 Adele building (and the failed WRHA "harm reduction" needle exchange program) are being exclusively reported on by TGCTS. 

Politicians can be forced to go off script and address YOUR issues. 

That's what citizen journalism does.

To support this work, whether it's by contributing $5.00, $50.00, or more (and some readers have) - go to this post

If "Crime And Fear" Emerges In The Manitoba Election - It Won't Just Be Campaign Rhetoric

Last summer during the Winnipeg civic election, public safety - particularly downtown and in the adjacent neighborhoods - was an early focus of the Mayoral contest.

"On one issue, however, incumbents and challengers alike seem to strike the same mournful tone: public safety." intoned Winnipeg Free Press political scribe Dan Lett, dismissively noting "The debate on public safety is on the verge of veering into hysteria as we inch toward the Oct. 24 civic election". 

Hysteria. Keep that word in mind.

In an August 18, 2018 column entitled "Campaign rhetoric returns to crime and fear" he noted one candidate, Garth Steek, "claims he’s had his car broken into 10 times in the last two years and that some of his River Heights neighbours have witnessed violent drug deals and assaults in front of their normally placid, well-manicured front yards." 

Considering the area was the first to organize a "Smashed Windows Club" of victims of car break-ins and thefts, that claim of 10 break-ins was hard to doubt, although Lett seemed to.

Citing "A Probe Research poll in late August 2014 showed that only 23 per cent of respondents ranked crime as the most important issue, " Lett believed that in 2018, the public mood had not shifted on the matter enough to elect a law-and-order upstart, the front-runner being Jenny Motkaluk. He was right. 

But if the public had the police data at the time, one wonders if the phrase "hysterical" would have been fair to use or if the Mayoral vote would have tightened. 

A recent Lance story - a Free Press Neighborhood tabloid - about crime rates in St. Boniface contained the bombshell statistics that should have been on the front page of the parent broadsheet.

2018                                 One year increase     Increase since 2014

Property crimes  2,893          55.7%                     92.9%

Violent crimes       385           28.3%                     27.4%

Total crimes         3639          49.6%                     78.2%

I repeat -- "a rise of 92.9 per cent over the five-year average." 

What if voters in 2018 were aware of the true scope of the failure of the police braintrust since 2014 and reacted to that information? Would only 23% have rated it as their most important issue as they did last year ? 

If Jenny Motkaluk and other candidates had assailed a 92.9% increase of St. B. property crimes in 5 years, would she have been 'verging into hysteria'?

Would anyone have dismissed that as "hysterical' that St. Boniface (a tourist/French residential district adjacent to downtown Winnipeg eastbound) was outpacing the city-wide 5 year average (44%) by an extra 48.9% and that it was a crisis? 

Not coincidentally, St. Boniface was under siege by meth heads, random violence and aggressive panhandling - and plenty o' dirty needles in parks and alleys, to go with the crime. 

In his analysis, Lett slid through an observation about the meth invasion and straight into a miscalculation about policing. 

"Steek and Motkaluk are motivated, to some extent, by a couple of evolving stories that hit the city just before the unofficial start of civic campaign season. At the top of this list is a pressing concern about what the Winnipeg Police Service has dubbed a methamphetamine crisis."

"The issue (Steek) has obsessed over— property crime — is not affected by the number of police officers you put on the street. You could triple Winnipeg’s complement of officers, and you wouldn’t put a dent in the number of garage, car and house break-ins, particularly if that crime is being driven by an issue as serious and complex as drug addiction."

His miscalculation was in not contemplating the way the police service was supposed to be putting a dent into the property crime rate - without more officers. 

James Jewell explains Solve Rates 

But a former cop recently did the calculation, showing how the consequence of reorganizing criminal investigations in 2017 was a horrific misstep that resulted in a unsolved-crime explosion last year. 

(The decaying clearance rates that resulted further complicated the previous failure by Chief Smyth and others to analyze CrimeStats pro-actively as I explained here, compounded by the flop of "Smart Policing" the successor to CrimeStat under Smyth, as The Black Rod explains here. )  

"In the spring of 2017, the WPS consolidated all criminal investigative services under one umbrella, the Major Crimes Unit." wrote former cop James Jewell on his highly regarded Police Insider blog in a brilliant analysis called  WPS Stock Tumbles – No Time for Blamegame

"... pointing the finger at the Provincial Government is far too easy, so is attributing all of our crime problems to the methamphetamine crisis. No-one can deny the fact crime and addiction are inextricably linked. It’s been that way for decades. The only thing that changes is the drug of choice. What Chief Smyth & Mayor Bowman didn’t talk about were some of the not so complex issues that got us here…"

"... Right or wrong, the courts evolved to a place where much less emphasis is placed on incarcerating property offenders. 

"... In 2018, “lack of consequences” became a major theme at Manitoba Liquor Marts.... Why is the Major Crime Unit investigating theft under offences in the first place?”

[And here Jewell makes the policing point Lett missed last year: a flawed operational structure amplified the drug factors behind the 92.9% hike in property crime in St. B.]

"So how does the WPS Major Crimes Unit become paralyzed investigating hundreds of Liquor Mart thefts? We can’t blame methamphetamine for that, can we?

... Theft under $5,000 is not a “major” crime, in fact, it is very much a minor crime, one that, as I’ve explained, has been very much marginalized...

... What crimes would be a priority for the new “centralized” unit? The answer was obvious, violent crime of course."

Et Voila, as they might say in St. Boniface and other neighborhoods in Winnipeg. Needles needles everywhere thanks to an incompetent and data-challenged harm reduction regime of the WRHA, the needle-using meth addicts running amok thanks to lax court conditions, and a police investigation structure that made the types of crime addicts were committing impossible to assign and clear, letting violent junkies lurking on the streets.  

As a reader said to Jewell in concurrance: 

"I strongly believe his reorganization is a large factor in this. The crime units and CSU units took care of the small guys and prevented them from getting bigger per se. This stifled a lot of crime that we see happening today from ever getting to that point. 

They fed Major Crimes with information and assisted, leaving major crimes to do what they do best. 

This reorganization had made the service lose control."

If candidates in the provincial election this year, armed with the 5 year stats (like "92.9%") that were unavailable for civic hopefuls last year, raise the alarm, no one in the press or political arena could call them hysterical. 

Those crime statistics for St. Boniface are a disgrace. And the fear was legit, given how the area Biz asked City Hall for help to deal with the disorder near the hospital. The fear of being robbed or attacked is noticeable in almost every neighborhood now. 

Last year's civic "hysteria" about meth and crime can turn into this year's legitimate provincial election concerns that voters might direct at the governing Tories (primarily). 

Especially when it comes to spending the $20 million budget they proposed wisely:

1) The CBC Manitoba report on the Safer Streets, Safer Lives platform says that out of the $20M, either $8M total or $15M total (it's hard to decipher) is being alloted to drug policing across the province. 

As Jewell proved, a police organizational failure helped get us in this mess but not a dime seems designated to solving it in the Pallister plan. 

Whatever the additional amount for policing pledged to Winnipeg, voters have a right to ask the PC (and all party) candidates, if they share the public's priority to restoring property crime investigations and achieving respectable clearance rates (thereby boosting morale within the rank and file). 

2)   The 3 page document does not mention or allot a dime to enhance data collection about used needles or raise needle return rates. Big fail. 

My investigative series about the WRHA's flawed free needle program has caused some eyes to open in political cirlces and with good reason.

3) "A re-elected Progressive Conservative government would build a short-term detox facility for methamphetamine users ... A key tenet of the proposal is building a detox facility ... It would treat 20 to 30 patients at a time, for a duration of one to four days." 

Such a facility with that capacity already exists, with detox units. The province is paying the rent to keep it empty until March. It's at 800 Adele Ave. near Notre Dame off Arlington. 

Before spending millions and taking years to build and open a detox and treatment centre, the PC plan - and every parties plan - should include evaluating the Marion Willis proposal for the vacated 800 Adele building to try to get it operational and saving lives now, not in 2 years. 

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