Did Jason Kenney just suggest that providing enough money to live on to people living in abject poverty (through CERB) during a pandemic was irresponsible and responsible for overdose deaths? I'd like to reframe this suggestion in light of my experience as an addiction nurse. 1/?

Of course the sudden influx of cash that CERB provided was harmful to some with substance-use disorders. Not unlike the common-experience payments from the residential school settlements were harmful to some survivors, it was not the settlements that were harmful. 2/

In both of these cases, it was the lack of trauma-informed and recovery-oriented service availability, the insufficient financial and economic supports that people in these situations have faced (many for years), that have left them vulnerable to substance-use disorders. 3/

It has been and continues to be the failure of consecutive conservative governments (federal and provincial) to provide the basic necessities to heal from trauma that push people into substance misuse and addiction. I am disgusted and appalled by these comments.

Especially as the Alberta government was cutting apart our harm reduction services before the pandemic happened.