Proud ‘dad’ of a dog named ‘Ed’ Former assistant ND at Global News Kingston. Recovering alcoholic. Gave up cigarettes, too.
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Joined March 2009
- Tweets20.3K
- Following228
- Followers503
- Likes64.9K
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
I heard someone opine
that they couldn’t
“believe Covid
was almost 7 years ago,”
to which they added
“We’ve really been
in the most
fuck ass timeline since,”
but to understand
our vulgar timeline,
one must remember:
it’s not that Covid “was,”
but that Covid still is.
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
My thoughts...
Canada wants to end homelessness within 10 years. For context, here's what Finland accomplished and how much work Canada has ahead of us to achieve this goal.
Finland introduced Housing First in 2008 and reduced homelessness by approximately 57% over 15 years. That's an incredible accomplishment, but it also shows how much time and commitment this takes.
Canada is facing a severe housing shortage, rising rents, increasing homelessness, and a lack of adequate mental health and addiction supports.
We need affordable housing, supportive housing with proper services attached, and investments in preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place.
And we need all three levels of government working together, regardless of political affiliation.
Here's something I think people need to understand.
It's not just about how many people we get into housing. It's about making sure we're housing people faster than others are becoming homeless. I'm hopeful, and I want to see this succeed.
However ending homelessness requires more than a 10-year promise, it requires a 10-year commitment backed by action, funding and accountability.
Homelessness isn't inevitable, it's a problem we can solve if we have the political will to do it!
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
When it comes to reducing homelessness, Canada can learn a lot from Finland. 🇨🇦🇫🇮
Finland stopped treating housing as something people have to earn and started treating it as the foundation for rebuilding lives.
Through its HOUSING FIRST approach, they work with individuals to provide stable, affordable housing while addressing their unique needs, including mental health, addiction, employment, and community support.
People aren't required to get sober, find employment, or complete treatment before receiving housing. And the results speak for themselves.
Research has found that approximately 80–90% of participants successfully maintain their housing, giving them the stability to work toward recovery, employment, better health, and rebuilding their lives.
Finland has also achieved major long-term reductions in homelessness.
Housing creates stability. Stability creates opportunity. Opportunity creates hope.
You don't end homelessness by demanding people fix their lives before giving them a home, you give them a home so they have a chance to rebuild their lives.
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
In a message
to health workers
the WHO said:
“Every action you take
to prevent influenza
and COVID19
can help protect
not only yourself,
but also your patients,
colleagues, loved ones,
and community,”
and though you
may not be
a health worker
this applies to you too
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
The ruminant family, and the one job each of them does that nothing else on earth can.
The cow turns a wet hillside into beef and milk, and leaves the soil better than she found it.
The sheep grows a fireproof, waterproof, compostable coat every year, out of grass and rain, and then gives it away for the price of a haircut.
The goat eats the bramble, the scrub and the invasive weed that strangles everything else, and asks only for a weak point in the fence.
The water buffalo makes the milk that becomes real mozzarella, standing in marsh a cow would sink in.
The yak gives milk at an altitude that would kill a lowland animal in a week, and carries your bags up there as well.
The reindeer feeds and clothes entire peoples above the Arctic Circle, on lichen and moss, in the dark, for months.
The bison built the deepest soil on the planet by walking across it and eating.
Seven animals, one gift each, and not one of them can be replaced by a crop, a machine or a sachet.
Every one of them is classed, this decade, as a liability on a spreadsheet by somebody who has never been cold.
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
A suggestion: If you’re planning on clearing out & donating items to make room for holiday gifts, consider doing it now rather than after the holidays. Your older/gently used items might make a perfect & more cost efficient gift for someone else who’s shopping for their holiday.
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
How many times do we have to explain this?
What part of your brain switched off and convinced you COVID just packed its bags and disappeared?
When a magician shows you an empty top hat, do you genuinely believe the rabbit ceased to exist?
COVID didn’t disappear. We stopped looking for it, stopped talking about it, and somehow confused silence with safety.
Stop calling this a “post-COVID world.” We’re post-emergency declarations. Post-precautions. Post-giving-a-damn, apparently.
But we are NOT post-COVID.
The rabbit is still here.
And at this point, I’m starting to think it’s the only one with object permanence. 🐇🎩
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
Research finds
“when water
is exposed to tiny microplastic
it releases highly reactive chemicals,”
which “are known to contribute
to heart disease, cancer
and neurological diseases,”
which is a reminder
that as bad as you think
things are at the moment,
they are worse.
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
Kingston is seeking 10 part-time councilors and a Mayor to represent residents.
Councilor starting salary: $53,550 per year
Mayor starting salary: $153,510 per year
The selection process will end October 26, 2026.
And it's up to YOU to decide who gets the jobs.
#ygkVotes #ygk
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
State Of The City
You should read these two articles( link below) before you vote.
And you really should vote no matter how inconvenient you think it is...
❤️Kingston. You'll Be Amazed At What You See
#ygkVotes #ygk #ygkElection2026🧵1 of 4
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
Monday is election day for municipal governments across Ontario. So many citizens today are struggling with how expensive everything has become. If you want better government, though, you have vote for it. To the 70% of Kingston citizens who did not make the effort in 2022, please help our community and vote on Monday. #MunicipalElections #onpoli
In case you missed it:
2022 City of Kingston Municipal Election
Eligible Electors 98,173
Voted 29,938
Percent Voted 30.50%
Mayor96 re-elected with 21,844 votes
❤️Kingston. Where Que Sera Sera Thrives
#ygkDoesntVote #ygkVotes #ygk
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
There are three groups:
1. People who know things are fucked but are too busy, exhausted and propaganda-addled to oppose the status quo.
2. People who benefit from status quo fuckery.
3. People who know things are fucked and fight the status quo.
Group 1 is the largest. Group 3 is the smallest. Right now those of us in the third group can't do anything about the exhaustion and busyness of the people in the first group, but we CAN do something about how confused and propagandized they are. The most important thing you can do to help nudge us toward revolution at this juncture in history is therefore to inform, educate and spread awareness to counteract all the status quo indoctrination keeping public consciousness away from revolutionary politics.
By doing this we can start moving people from Group 1 into Group 3. Once Group 3 outnumbers Group 2, things will start moving very fast.
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
Remember folks, Municipal politics and local government don't matter much in Kingston so if it's too inconvenient to take time out of your very busy life or if you don't care for any of the candidates, we understand and hope you enjoy the status quo chosen for you.
#ygk #ygkVotes
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
A cautionary tale for Kingston where a proposal to privatize Water & Waste Water Utilities under the guise of a Municipal Service Corporation is in the works.
The burden of payment of any new MSC Utilities debt will be upon the utility users...
#YGK #ygkVotes
My uncle noticed his monthly water and sewage bill jumped from $85 to $290 over the last six months, even though his family didn't fill a single pool or leak a gallon.
He called the municipal water board to report what he assumed was a meter error.
The clerk explained that the city sold the local water treatment facility and underground main grid to an infrastructure equity fund last year to cover municipal budget deficits.
When my uncle asked why that tripled his rate, she told him:
"The private operator added a quarterly 'grid modernization surcharge' and an 'infrastructure maintenance access fee' to every residential account."
Nothing about the pipes, pressure, or water quality improved.
Private equity isn't just buying houses and daycares anymore.
They are acquiring local utility monopolies so they can bill working families a mandatory tax on drinking water and flushing the toilet.
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
Is anyone aware of this failure of the criminal justice system? This still exists today... 👇
I've never been one to complain about serving prison time for crimes I committed. I took responsibility for my actions, served my sentences, and paid my debt to society.
But here's where the criminal justice system fails people.
When someone finishes their sentence, they're released from prison, dropped off at a bus stop with a welfare cheque, no housing, no employment, and little to no support.
Where do you think they're going to end up?
Right back in the same environment they were arrested in.
For me, that was Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
We talk endlessly about breaking the cycle of crime, yet we release people into the very same circumstances that contributed to their involvement in the criminal justice system.
You cannot expect people to build a different life when you send them back to the same conditions with nothing to build it with.
If we genuinely want to reduce reoffending, we need to invest in housing, employment, mental health care, and meaningful support after release.
Serving your sentence should mean getting a second chance, not being set up to fail.
Structural change is needed. Full stop.
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
Here are the graves.
This Orange Shirt Day we are returning the Brandon Indian Residential School cemetery grounds to the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation on behalf of many First Nations whose children are buried here.
This is one of the most well documented burial grounds at a residential school in Canada with not only church and historical records but also contemporaneous newspaper articles describing what happened to these children.
You can not deny history.
#orangeshirtday
#everychildmatters
#truthandreconciliation
#trc
#herearethegraves
Mark Ladan 🇨🇦🍁 retweeted
I wonder where all the “forced treatment” people are now?
Probably out drinking...
Alcohol causes more overall harm in Canada than any other drug, including non-prescription opioids and tobacco.
Alcohol is associated with about 280 hospitalizations EVERY DAY.
Opioids? About 84.
Alcohol costs Canada roughly $20 BILLION a year in health care, lost productivity and criminal justice costs, and nearly 18% of Canadians aged 15+ will meet the criteria for alcohol-use disorder at some point in their lives.
The difference?
We sell alcohol in stores, we advertise it, we celebrate with it, and we normalize it.
Fentanyl's harms generate outrage because the consequences of addiction are often visible on our streets.
Alcohol's harms are so normalized we barely recognize them as drug-related harms at all.
Legal doesn't mean harmless, socially acceptable doesn't mean safe, and addiction doesn't become more or less legitimate depending on which drug caused it.
cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/alco…
