Derek Finkle

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

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

Chapter 1 of my heart-wrenching, 9-part epic, The Rift & the Grift, is now out. “The Beginning (of the End)” features the story of how Bertrand Tissot and Lisa McCabe met in Toronto. It wasn't long before their whirlwind romance took a strange, dark turn.

https://t.co/3m2Bj2YZti

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

Activists pilloried a study about the closure of an Alberta injection site because it was produced by a provincially funded research group despite getting $1.4 million in federal funding last year to study the same thing in Ontario but with weaker data.

https://t.co/zwIMrV0jhl

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@COPEVancouver @seanorr @builtjustice That's funny because it's the "progressive" councilors in Toronto who did pretty much the same thing to protect Councilor Chris Moise.

https://t.co/BF4Zek8UcG

[IntegrityTO @integrity_to]

City Council decides to pay 55% of Chris Moise’s legal fees

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Toronto, ON — May 21, 2026 — Seventeen months after the initial integrity complaint was filed against Councillor Chris Moise for conduct unbecoming of a City official, Toronto City Council voted to reimburse 55 percent of the Councillor’s submitted legal bill, representing a taxpayer-funded reimbursement of $15,403.

IntegrityTO is disappointed that 16 councillors believed it appropriate for taxpayers to cover this legal expense after Councillor Moise was found to have violated the City’s  Code of Conduct.

“By awarding Councillor Moise a $15,403 taxpayer-funded reimbursement, Council sends the message that elected officials can disrespect constituents, bring disrepute to their office, and still have a majority of their legal fees covered by public money. This erodes deterrence for bad behaviour on the part of government officials.” said Daniel Tate, Executive Director of IntegrityTO.

The debate over whether to reimburse Moise’s roughly $28,000 legal bill stretched over more than two months, involved lengthy deliberations at two City Council meetings, and exposed confusion among councillors regarding the City’s reimbursement policy for legal expenses arising from Integrity Commissioner investigations.

Despite introducing the motion to reimburse half of the outstanding legal fees, Councillor Jon Burnside criticized Moise for substantially exceeding the City’s existing $5,000 guaranteed reimbursement, stating: “For me, as a steward of public funds, I would have never gone and spent $23,000 more [in legal costs] and put council in this position.”

Six councillors ultimately voted against reimbursing 50 percent of the outstanding legal fees.

IntegrityTO hopes this matter serves as a lesson to elected officials that treating constituents with dignity and respect is among the most fundamental responsibilities of public office. When those standards are violated, taxpayers should not be expected to absorb the financial consequences.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@P43215 @guyfelicella One person can't be responsible for all of this crime and disorder within 250 meters of an injection site.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

When pro-injection site social media influencer @guyfelicella blocks people, he says it's not because he lost an argument. It's for the good of his mental health. But when people block Guy, guess what? It's because they were losing the argument.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@P43215 @guyfelicella Something tamer like a McGill professor’s children witnessing sex acts on the sidewalk near an injection site.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@85roblems @ryantompkins_ @guyfelicella Seatbelts are rarely effective when you’re recklessly driving your car at high speeds towards a concrete wall.

https://t.co/gMw5a9Lrla

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@P43215 @guyfelicella Yes, intoxicated people masturbating in front of children beside an injection site is definitely creepy. I’m sure you will be interested in the latest from Dr. MacKenzie.

https://t.co/HB3eYX57HL

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@P43215 @guyfelicella Guy’s shitposting here generates revenue, it’s not a hobby. He views highlighting his boundless hypocrisy as “creepy,” but pressuring his girlfriend to rob a bank & steal a rental car for a drug binge in San Fran only for her to return solo to face the criminal charges isn’t?

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@melrod42 The opinion article you cite agrees with the CEO of the Victoria shelter, Dr. MacKenzie, Larry Campbell & Dr. Vigo. Your take on mandatory treatment is not universally accepted by experts in the field. Your ideology consistently twists you up in knots.

https://t.co/aUQMtTHpWX

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

"When families raise these concerns, they are often dismissed as privileged, alarmist or insufficiently compassionate...When children are frightened walking through their own neighbourhoods, this isn't moral panic. It's a legitimate developmental concern."
https://t.co/HB3eYX57HL

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@melrod42 The CEO of the biggest shelter in Victoria is saying this subset will need (involuntary) care for the rest of their lives, but you insist on imagining what that care won’t solve, as if you know. Injection sites won’t solve the opioid crisis either, yet you still support them.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@melrod42 Except there is plenty of data that suggests this subset is responsible for an outsized percentage of the disorder Dr. MacKenzie writes about, as well as ER visits. In Victoria, they built housing for the Pandora encampment and many did not want it.

https://t.co/Y879tmMZ95

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@melrod42 I think helping people who can’t help themselves is always wise, and maybe you should direct some of these questions to Larry Campbell, who is contemplating many of the same things Dr. MacKenzie writes about for Vancouver’s DTES, a little closer to your log cabin.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

This interview with Larry Campbell, BC’s advisor for Vancouver’s DTES is remarkable. Accountability from service providers for “mentally ill, addicted & brain damaged” & “involuntary care” for 100s “that doesn’t look like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

https://t.co/i5g2TjGASh

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@melrod42 It’s not my column, it’s Dr. MacKenzie’s. He seems to be talking about long-term structured, compassionate care of a public nature for a subset of people with irreversible brain injuries and/or serious mental illness who are not capable of humanely caring for themselves.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@melrod42 Dr. Mackenzie refers to it as long-term “structured care.” For this group, voluntary care is not a realistic outcome (as it may be for others) so comparing the cost-effectiveness of these two different forms of treatment isn’t really relevant or helpful.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@melrod42 I expect Dr. MacKenzie would say no when it comes to the “limited subset of profoundly unwell individuals” that “mandate treatment” refers to because, as he writes, they “are not making choices in any meaningful sense of the word.”

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

@banjocrypto1 @guyfelicella @MarjoriePLC Agreed. The problem with @guyfelicella and his fellow crusaders is that they refuse to acknowledge these sites concentrate drug dealing & open use. Guy says that because dealers exist in some nightclubs, they are EVERYWHERE AT ALL TIMES = gaslighting. Disagree & he blocks you.

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

Eight years ago, I started writing about one of the most intense and dramatic real-life roller coaster rides I have ever witnessed. That story, The Rift & the Grift, begins next week as a nine-part serial on Substack. You can read my introduction here.

https://t.co/Tco2fOk5pI

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

"Political leaders should pay attention. It should not come as a surprise that all five Sud-Ouest borough council members and the federal addictions minister at the time of the Maison Benoît Labre daysite and consumption centre launch are no longer in their seats."

[Derek Finkle @DerekFinkle]

This is such a good column:

"Housing alone cannot reach individuals experiencing severe and persistent psychosis, addiction and violent dysregulation. This describes...a small and visible subset no longer capable of safely functioning in public or caring for themselves."