When the Government of British Columbia announced in the spring that it was planning to open a supervised consumption site in downtown Vancouver, the city’s mayor, Ken Sim, issued a strongly worded statement opposing the idea and moved an urgent motion directing city staff to “use all tools available” to block it.
asserted
mayor → announce → it
The province eventually backed down from its plan to relocate a closed injection site in the Yaletown neighbourhood, around which the disorder was so bad that residents filed a lawsuit, to another location, but it ignited a skirmish between those with warring visions for how to best confront the illegal fentanyl crisis.
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it → back → crisis
One of the more notable protests over Sim’s decision came from Guy Felicella, who has become the poster boy for injection sites because he turned his life around years ago after frequenting one.
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he → come → one
It’s the kind of inspirational story people love.
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people → ’ → story
According to his biography at the Speakers Bureau of Canada, Felicella grew up in Richmond, B.C., but “fell into addiction at a young age” and “spent 30 years in the repeated cycle of gangs, addiction, treatment and jail.”
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Felicella → accord → gangs
For many of those years, Felicella lived in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside, where he endured “the grips of addiction and homelessness, surviving multiple life-threatening infections, several public health crises and six overdoses.”
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he → live → infections
Felicella stopped using drugs in 2013, got married and had three children.
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Felicella → stop → children
This resurrection (which, incidentally, is the title of the forthcoming feature-length documentary about his life) has also made Felicella a popular figure on the public-speaking circuit.
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Felicella → make → circuit
Along the way, Felicella has also become the de facto spokesperson for harm reduction across Canada.
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Felicella → become → Canada
When the Ontario government announced in 2024 that it was closing injection sites, Felicella wrote an op-ed opposing the decision in the Toronto Star, which leverages his extremely unique life story as a reason not to close them.
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which → announce → them
When the Montreal neighbourhood of St-Henri became vocal about the documented increase in crime and disorder after a new injection site opened there, also in 2024, Felicella flew to Montreal and posted a video from a nearby park, insisting that there was no open drug use he could see and that all was going according to plan.
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all → become → plan
When a new injection site opened in Winnipeg this summer despite intense community opposition, Felicella did a local radio interview supporting Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew’s decision to place it there.
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Felicella → open → it
But for Vancouver’s Ken Sim, Felicella had something different in mind.
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Felicella → have → mind
Two years earlier, the mayor had proclaimed May 29 to be “Guy Felicella Day” due to his advocacy work.
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May → proclaim → work
Felicella, upset at Sim’s decision not to allow a new injection site in the downtown core, announced that he would be returning the plaque commemorating this honour.
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he → upset → honour
“That proclamation is not worth the paper it’s printed on,” Felicella said.
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Felicella → print → paper
This prompted a saucy post on X from Coun. Peter Meiszner, who took a swipe at Felicella over the fact that he’d chosen to raise his family in the suburbs of Surrey, far away from the anticipated chaos the site would cause.
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site → prompt → chaos
“I recommend leaving early to avoid the insane traffic heading west on Hwy 1 in the morning,” Meiszner wrote.
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Meiszner → recommend → morning
Felicella took aim at Sim by countering the mayor’s claim that injection sites increase crime in the immediate area.
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sites → take → area
“There’s no evidence that those sites increase crime in the area,” he said, even though there is evidence this isn’t true.
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this → ’ → area
Felicella’s steadfast denials that injection sites cause increases in crime and disorder are somewhat ironic given the fact that he amassed a lengthy criminal record during his years as a drug addict.
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he → cause → addict
He has been open about these aspects of his criminal record but, two years ago, an Alberta judge’s 1995 sentencing decision surfaced for an ex-girlfriend of Felicella’s who’d pled guilty to stealing $18,500 from the Calgary bank where she worked as a teller, an episode that had not previously been part of his inspirational life story.
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that → surface → story
The judge accepted in his decision that Felicella, then 25, had held a knife against the throat of his 20-year-old ex-girlfriend, Dawnelle Frew, in addition to other violent threats.
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Felicella → accept → threats
Felicella has adamantly denied these alleged acts of violence and repeatedly pointed out that he has never been charged or tried for them.
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he → deny → them
He also wrote that “her lawyer’s strategy back in 1995 was to say I forced her to do it.”
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I → write → it
“I hadn’t,” Felicella continued, “but I told her it was a good strategy.”
What’s most troubling for me, though, as someone who lived across the street from an injection site for more than seven years, is that Felicella is prone to selective use of facts when it comes to his advocacy in support of them.
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it → continue → them
For example, when a woman in my neighbourhood killed by drug dealers exchanging gunfire in front of the injection site I lived across the street from in Toronto became front-page news in 2023, Felicella ignored the story in his prolific posts on social media.
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Felicella → kill → media
In March, when Felicella belatedly engaged with me on the topic of what had happened at this injection site three years earlier, he said the murder was tragic but asked: “When a stabbing, murder, or assault happens after people leave a bar, you don’t start blaming bars or calling for them to be shut down.
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them → engage → bars
But, Felicella shot back, “there are more drug dealers in bars and clubs than at supervised consumption sites.
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Felicella → shoot → sites
They’re on speed dial.”
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They → ’re → dial
I replied with some basic questions: How many bars have six fentanyl dealers from 12 kilometers away on the sidewalk by the front door before noon Monday to Friday, as our site did?
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site → reply → Friday
How many bars are funded by the province?
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bars → fund → province
He never got back to me.
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He → get → me
The Aporia
