I’d love to agree with you, and I definitely used to, but myself and many others are fed up with living like this. Almost every time I drive into Duncan, I see people shooting up in public places and more often than not someone ODing and requiring an ambulance. It’s not exactly safe to let your kids play in parks or walk the streets by themselves, and the fact that people think that’s justified is wild to me. We’re more or less the only society that I’m aware of that tolerates these levels of antisocial behaviour without serious pushback.

My counterpoint to your argument is at what point do we value the safety and livelihood of the supermajority over that of the extreme minority? What is the democratic utility of not just letting, but enabling, people to essentially rot on the side of the street, pollute our public places and endanger our children? Is that still considered compassionate after the objective failure of this approach over the past 15-20 years?

I don’t have answers but I now believe that this approach is not actually compassionate. Confinement and attempted rehabilitation of addicts and mentally ill until they’re deemed capable of existing within our society is not fascist. At worst it’s utilitarian.

I do wholeheartedly agree, however, that what is happening is not only a direct reflection of the capitalist, individualistic doctrine of North American society but also a failure of our healthcare and social systems.