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
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Derek Finkle retweeted
Yes, I've also heard that Brad Bradford will sell off sunlight to corporate investors. We cannot let that happen
Derek Finkle retweeted
Last month, I watched “Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney” at TIFF. It was a psychedelic and surprisingly funny experience, made all the more surreal by the headspace of a first-time political candidate.
To later have a conversation with Ben Mulroney about my own campaign brought things full circle.
I feel good and fortunate in a world that doesn’t always make it easy.
Don’t forget to vote on October 26.
#TorontoDanforth #VoteSad
VoteSad.ca
Derek Finkle retweeted
WATCH:
Toronto Centre Ward 13 candidate Daniel Tate holds a press conference at Barbara Hall Park to address public safety, security, and the park’s deteriorating conditions.
Speakers include Fabian Roberts, a concerned resident; Derek Finkle, a writer and journalist; and Dr. Vera Tarman, an addiction physician.
In the background, some of the concerns raised at the podium unfold in real time.
📸 Oct 20, 2026
#Toronto #ProtestMania
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
As a member of both organizations, I look forward to reading the open letters from @Advocates_Soc and @CBA_News to David Thompson about how editorials such as this dangerously undermine our democracy.
theglobeandmail.com/opinion/…
Derek Finkle retweeted
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…
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…
Derek Finkle retweeted
Opinion: There’s nothing to praise about the Oct. 7 attacks. A Canadian literary journal disagrees
theglobeandmail.com/opinion/…
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.
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…
Derek Finkle retweeted
Update: I have received confirmation from @guyfelicella’s lawyer that my response was forwarded to him (Guy) on July 31st — the same day he publicly claimed to have received no response to his frivolous allegations that I defamed him.
To make things clear: I will not be retracting my previous statements about Guy’s history of violence against women. The legal documents available to me — along with articles in the Calgary Herald I recently obtained — make it clear that he held a knife to a woman’s throat, assaulted her friend, coerced her into theft, and generally manipulated her for his perverse ends. My statements have relied upon and repeated the conclusions of a sentencing judge who expressed that, in his opinion, there was no doubt these things are true. The fact that Guy was not a party to these proceedings is irrelevant — the standards of evidence for a judge to make such an assessment are stringent.
I remain concerned that Guy is threatening strategic litigation to squelch public discussion of the details of his criminal past.
You can find the key court document describing Guy’s behaviour below. I encourage my followers to read it themselves and draw their own conclusions.
canlii.org/en/ab/abpc/doc/19…
I have contacted @guyfelicella's lawyer and asked him to explain his client's most recent post. (see attached email)
I look forward to providing more updates as this story develops. Stay tuned, friends!
Derek Finkle retweeted
Last month, the CBC published a misleading "investigative" report suggesting that the closure of Ontario's supervised consumption sites (SCSs) spurred overdoses and deaths.
Here's why the report was nothing more than activist propaganda. 🧵[1]
nationalpost.com/opinion/cbc…
Derek Finkle retweeted
Here is an interview I did this morning in which I responded to a random online questionnaire from four years ago that claims Canadians are ga-ga for injection sites as a Montreal neighbourhood presents a petition signed by 1,800 to get rid of one.
iheart.com/podcast/962-the-e…
Derek Finkle retweeted
"Bertrand said his new lawyer, Jeffrey Wilson, advised him that going to trial would be expensive: he said he’d need at least $100,000 as a retainer. Wilson repeatedly promised to make Lisa’s legal team aware there was “a new sheriff in town.”"
derekfinkle.substack.com/p/t…
Derek Finkle retweeted
"Bertrand first discovered Lisa had consulted a lawyer 16 months into their marriage. He read an email she’d received from a divorce lawyer known for playing hardball. When he read "we need to find a way to get him out of the house,” he lost his breath.”
derekfinkle.substack.com/p/t…
Derek Finkle retweeted
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.
derekfinkle.substack.com/p/t…
Derek Finkle retweeted
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.
open.substack.com/pub/derekf…
Derek Finkle retweeted
Leonard Cohen and Sonny Rollins playing “Who By Fire” on NBC’s one of a kind Nightmusic (1989). We have the late Hal Wilner and David Sanborn to thank for dreaming up and producing the greatest music show that’s ever been on tv.
Derek Finkle retweeted
True for all of BC ⬇️
“We are not opposed to helping people in crisis. We are opposed to policies imposed from above with no accountability, no community input, and no honest reckoning with the consequences.
Vancouver deserves better. We are standing up”
dailyhive.com/vancouver/900-…
Derek Finkle retweeted
It is actually impressive that the CBC managed to publish an entire story about posters of a missing Jewish girl being torn down without actually printing the word.
Are posters being torn down because people don’t like the font? CBC literally doesn’t say!!
What the HELL is this story, CBC? "The community"??
cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/e…
Derek Finkle retweeted
I understand you want to save lives, but the data behind OPS’s is inconclusive at best. Here are two things to note:
1) After Ontario shut down many of its consumption sites last year, fatal overdoses remained stable and did not skyrocket like some predicted.
2) A recent study in Alberta examined the effects of shutting down a consumption site in Red Deer, using data that was of much higher quality than what is typically used for BC research, and also found no statistically significant rise in deaths or emergency department visits.
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