Investigative journalist immersed in various legal issues, including injection sites. Epic family law saga, The Rift & the Grift, now out in serial format.

Toronto, Canada
Joined November 2010
Derek Finkle retweeted
I predict that no such letters will materialize, because these organizations seem to think that criticizing the judiciary is only bad when conservatives do it. @CarsonJerema @sarkonakj
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Toronto city councillors who, for years, embraced injection sites & harm reduction as the primary response to the illegal fentanyl crisis are now facing off with angry constituents who view it as a major issue.
Derek Finkle: Toronto election a choice between drug-fuelled crime and safe streets nationalpost.com/opinion/tor…
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You know pro drug legalization research by groups like the Eby NDP taxpayer-funded BCCSU is biased & "compromised" when a co-chair of the Trudeau Liberal Expert ­Advisory Group on Safer Supply calls it out. "British Columbia’s ­overdose response was dominated for years by a single research infrastructure: the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, an academic centre housed within Providence Health Care and affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. "BCCSU designed programs, trained clinicians, wrote clinical guidelines, and then evaluated its own work. The research it prioritized reflected the ­interventions it was building, which were harm reduction programs. "Recovery research, which has a substantial evidence base going back decades, didn’t fit that agenda." timescolonist.com/opinion/co…
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Derek Finkle retweeted
Oh look, the Canadian Bar Association is also offended that a judge was criticized for praising drug dealers in court, which they also describe as a "personal attack." They don't name @sarkonakj, just refer to some "recent media commentary." If the CBA or the Advocates Society would care to defend the decision and the judge's behaviour on the merits, they are free to do so. They do not wish to do that it seems, preferring to argue that criticism of the courts and of judges should be avoided altogether, unless done in a narrow fashion pre-approved by the organizations representing judges or who recommend lawyers for the bench. They just want us to shut up. cbabc.org/news/Statement-fro…
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“The College needs to work with the province to ensure that these prescriptions are integrated into long-term treatment plans with recovery as the goal.” The Globe is really starting to figure this out!
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Derek Finkle retweeted
It has come to my attention that I have been denounced by @Advocates_Soc for criticizing judicial decisions — and yes, individual judges. Here's the thing. When someone, for example, spends her lawyerly career writing op-eds in favour of migration and calling herself an activist, and then becomes a federal judge, and from that seat allows all sorts of undesirables to remain in Canada on weak grounds, people are free to draw a connection from A to B. When a judge, for example, spends his lawyer years advocating fiercely for more race-based law, and then later throws out gun charges of black men on his (unsupported) assertion that police were racist during their arrests, people are free to question whether he's really a fair adjudicator. When a judge, for example, says that a ban on drug trafficking is unconstitutional, and then *applauds* vigilante drug dealers for their self-proclaimed safe supply program — applauds them for supporting the business of organized crime and feeding the addictions of street people — that's beyond the pale. You're worried about democracy being poisoned? Worry about the judge who threw out Parliament's law against selling heroin because she felt it was "common sense" that it was supported by science. I agree that it's not right to criticize a judge personally for impartially applying the law and coming to an unpopular decision (which they may even privately disagree with). But when their professional history, or their conduct in court, suggests allegiance to a cause that they happen to be ruling softly on, it will get noticed. Bringing the administration of justice into disrepute is a two-way street, you know.
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Guy Felicella is the poster boy for injection sites because he beat long odds to survive three decades of addiction, a long criminal record & six overdoses. Unfortunately, there’s quite a bit he leaves out. nationalpost.com/opinion/der…
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I guess @KayabagaArielle and her Liberal colleagues might as well also criminalize photos of women shot to death by drug dealers who commuted from 12 kilometers away to sell drugs in front of an injection site.
Posting photos of homeless people or street addicts on the internet would be criminalized under Commons petition sponsored by Deputy Government House Leader @KayabagaArielle. blacklocks.ca/petition-to-ba… #cdnpoli #bcpoli
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People are finally starting to confront the reality of what’s required to address permanent cognitive impairment (often acquired from street fentanyl) & homelessness (hint: it’s not handing out keys to new homes). Too bad drug policy ideology had to be crushed to arrive here.
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Derek Finkle retweeted
This is exactly why you don't put an injection site in a neighbourhood that is adamantly opposed to it. Downtown Vancouver city councillors such as @PeterMeiszner seem to understand this. The site user photographed was later robbed by three young women. winnipegsun.com/opinion/no-c…
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This is exactly why you don't put an injection site in a neighbourhood that is adamantly opposed to it. Downtown Vancouver city councillors such as @PeterMeiszner seem to understand this. The site user photographed was later robbed by three young women. winnipegsun.com/opinion/no-c…
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If there’s one certainty about @NatePike, it’s that he’s deeply intimate with naked bias.
And as a bonus, if you want to read a tweet where that same “Investigative Journalist” completely misrepresents the content of the podcast he’s criticising because he can’t seem to set his own naked bias aside, BOY is this the tweet for you! /2
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The form involuntary care being formulated today to address the triad of serious mental health disorders, chronic opioid addiction & brain injuries illegal fentanyl often causes doesn't exist in most places & the usual critiques are not really applicable. nationalpost.com/opinion/der…
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If you want to watch Guy Felicella nervously chew his fingernails for 90 minutes as @NatePike avoids 18-wheeler gaps in his story during a guided we-don’t-believe-her tour of crack-fueled bank robberies Guy had nothing to do with, this podcast is for you.
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What Guy Felicella's hype man, @NatePike, left out here is that it was the judge's sentencing decision for Guy's ex-girlfriend – which was based on affidavits, a pre-sentence report & a psychologist's analysis – that started this story, not news articles. canlii.org/en/ab/abpc/doc/19…
For years, Recovery Advocate @guyfelicella has been the target of accusations about his past by those using partial news records... This Sunday, in a Breakdown exclusive, we turn the clock back 30 years to hear his side of the story! (And we have more news records)
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So, Nate, you accused me of misrepresenting Guy Felicella's response to the evidence of coercion cited by the judge in the sentencing decision of his ex-girlfriend. You asked for support, and I provided it. I will add that support again here. Once more, what did I misrepresent?
Replying to @DerekFinkle
Sigh. Where’s the support for this otherwise apparently unsupported accusation?
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Replying to @NatePike
The words in quotation marks are what Guy wrote on this platform. xitter.cf/guyfelicella/status/18…
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Replying to @NatePike
And in this post, Guy insinuates that it was her lawyer’s strategy “to say I forced her to do it.” Guy says he told her it was “a good strategy” even though he says it’s not true. Which means that, according to Guy, the lawyer was fabricating a series of lies to obtain leniency.
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Nate: I did not write about the Guy Felicella/Dawnelle Frew adventures when they surfaced two years ago because a) it likely didn't have broad appeal & b) the court records required to delve into the materials upon which the judge based his decision were not readily available. /1
Hey Derek. You’ve still failed to provide anything you’ve written on this case. I really don’t understand what multiple articles on a SCS have to do with it, and I find myself at a loss for what that has to do with the unproven allegations in the sentencing hearing. /1
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You seem to be setting up an interview on your podcast with someone who has "firsthand knowledge of the events." I assume that's Guy. If true, that would arguably put you in the position of being what you refer to as "a hype man." /10
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I wasn't demanding anything & my life will go on quite swimmingly without an appearance on your podcast. I've been on several others. Perhaps we can meet in person in court when Guy carries through on his promised libel litigation against Adam. /11 youtube.com/watch?v=bNFnA5A5…
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