Anna Mehler Paperny
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mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Anna Mehler Paperny
@mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
2.8K followers 400 following 2.1K posts
Reporter in Toronto;
Author, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person;
Nosy questions, mostly.
anna.mehler.paperny@gmail.com or anna.mehlerpaperny@tr.com
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mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Here's that Alberta UCP resolution. Note the pitting of Canadians and PRs against temporary residents whose presence is "exploit[ing]" them. (It is also not true that the number of TRs is "exponentially" increasing. The number is decreasing. Also, people working in Canada pay taxes.)
POLICY RESOLUTION #3 Submitted By: Calgary-Buffalo Type: Add Area: Community – Vision Article Number: 201.1 Resolution h. Ensuring access to provincially-funded healthcare and social benefits for Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and recognized refugees. Temporary residents, visitors, undocumented individuals, and unsuccessful asylum-seekers should be responsible for paying for the services they utilize. Rationale Alberta's culture embodies personal responsibility and self-sufficiency. Canadians citizens, permanent residents and recognized refugees, including seniors, children, and those in need should not be exploited by the Federal Government's unsustainable immigration policies (including the 'Century Initiative'): Fiscal Responsibility: Alberta's healthcare and other social benefits represent a significant portion of provincial expenditures. To preserve the future viability of these programs and maintain public trust, the needs of Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and recognized refugees should be prioritized to maintain sustainability. As numbers of temporary residents, visitors, undocumented individuals, and unsuccessful asylum-seekers exponentially increase, they are straining already-limited services. Fairness to Residents: Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and recognized refugees, especially those who fund benefits through taxes, should be afforded priority access to these programs. Excluding temporary residents and other non-status individuals ensures equitable distribution of increasingly-constrained resources. Provincial Autonomy: The Alberta Government has the authority to manage its own resources, prioritizing the needs of Albertans over Federal government initiatives. Deterrence: Enforcing clear requirements for access to benefits discourages abuse of the immigration system.This reduces pressure on provincial systems and benefit programs.
November 9, 2025 at 10:58 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Green-leashed auburn pupster sits in snow.
November 9, 2025 at 9:19 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
still snowing
Snowy auburn pupster shakes it off. Auburn pupster beside snowy fence. Auburn pupster stands in snow. Auburn pupster in snowy distance.
November 9, 2025 at 9:18 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
He kept shaking snow off his snoot so you'll have to imagine the accumulation.
Auburn pupster stands and licks face in snow.
November 9, 2025 at 5:14 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
First snow snuffle
Auburn pupster stands, green-leashed, in snowy park. Auburn pupster yawns, green-leashed, in snowy park.
November 9, 2025 at 5:13 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Two men stand at a counter with the text: Please I need evidence-based health care Best I can do is killer robots
November 8, 2025 at 3:18 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Can hear a cheese wrapper from a dozen metres away.

Is gonna need you to repeat "Come" another seven times.
Green-leashed auburn pupster stands on sidewalk.
November 7, 2025 at 8:59 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
This whole time I've been going to the wrong barbershop.
San
November 7, 2025 at 1:37 AM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Finally got my iron levels high enough for Canadian Blood Services and I feel like a craftily doping Olympian.
Left arm connected to blood-sucking tubes.
November 6, 2025 at 7:48 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Federal budget says this government is focused on protecting pharmacare - for diabetes meds and contraception, for three provinces and one territory? (Genuinely curious; have not seen a commitment to expansion)
Our government remains focused on empowering Canadians—by lowering costs, expanding opportunity, and protecting the vital social programs Canadians rely on, from child care to dental care to pharmacare.
November 4, 2025 at 9:52 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Shout-out to the people getting in touch about their own struggles, about the struggles of people they love. Depression tells you to stop trying so their efforts are a testament to fortitude. They all deserve so much better than the status quo.
About 5 per cent of the adult population has depression and about 30 per cent of them won’t respond to existing treatments. That’s millions of people failed by the best we’ve got who continue to endure debilitation. And so few get the best we’ve got. I couldn’t stop thinking, as I went through a battery of assessments, scans and follow-ups, how unfair it is that I got so much care when so few people with severe mental illness do (and for so many, their care comes only at the pointiest, most emergent, most coercive end of the system). Not everyone wants or needs holes in their head; everyone deserves compassion. The first step has to be getting everyone who needs it evidence-based, accessible, equitable, preventive, predominantly voluntary care. But for people still suffering, the question becomes: What’s next?
November 4, 2025 at 4:12 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
tfw you don't care about the spectre of winter or election speculation
Auburn pupster struts and grins on sidewalk in evening light.
November 2, 2025 at 8:44 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
When the only sport you care about is butt-sniffing.
Auburn pupster sprawls, pensive, on blue duvet.
November 2, 2025 at 4:53 AM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
We're losing the crowd, guys.
Auburn pupster hangs head off blue couch.
November 1, 2025 at 2:29 AM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Emotional support dog says have we tried getting more runs
Auburn pupster lies pensive on blue couch.
November 1, 2025 at 2:26 AM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
A boy in a wheelchair wailed as the family's bodies in white plastic body bags were loaded into the back of a flatbed truck. Crowds followed as the bodies were driven through the streets to a cemetery. "It was erased from the civil registry: an entire family. About nine people: the father, the son, his wife, his son's wife, and all the children were completely removed from the civil registry," said neighbour Wael Najem, 52.
October 29, 2025 at 5:30 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Zohran Mamdani didn't tell the whole truth about his hijab-wearing 'aunt' who feared for safety post-9/11 The "aunt" who Zohran Mamdani said was too afraid to wear her hijab on the subways after 9/11 is actually his dad's cousin.
October 28, 2025 at 4:42 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
The groomer dressed up the pupster without my consent but he seems ok with it.
Auburn pupster poses in red-and-black Cape in front of black background with cobwebs and pumpkins.
October 26, 2025 at 11:29 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
fall pup
Green-leashed auburn pupster turns in October sun. Green-leashed auburn pupster leaps in October sun. Auburn pupster turns head on bus in sun. Auburn pupster on sidewalk says watchu looking at.
October 26, 2025 at 8:14 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/w...
The U.S. campaign targeting what it says is drug trafficking from Venezuela has exposed Trinidad to the fallout: unidentified bodies with burn marks and missing limbs showing up in its territory.
October 25, 2025 at 10:45 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Subway/Bus stop/Streetcar
Shaggy auburn pupster sprawls on subway floor. Shaggy auburn pupster stands on yellow-lined bus stop. Shaggy auburn pupster sits agape on accordioned streetcar.
October 25, 2025 at 8:41 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Everyone should get this excited about public transit.
Shaggy auburn pupster sits on subway platform.
October 25, 2025 at 6:41 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
www.ala.org/carnegie-med...
Image featuring the cover of Omar El Akkad's book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
October 23, 2025 at 7:52 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
Canada's government presented no evidence justifying making bail harder to get in its briefing today. @cancivlib.bsky.social's Shakir Rahim says the data isn't there.
“The CCLA and countless others have repeatedly called on the federal government to collect national standardized data about bail to inform any reforms. Despite three successive Ministers of Justice recognizing the need for this data, today’s reforms again signal no effort to collect it. How can we evaluate something we do not measure?”
October 23, 2025 at 5:03 PM
mehlerpaperny.bsky.social
International Court of Justice finding regarding Israel's obligations in the Occupied Territory, esp Gaza: www.icj-cij.org/sites/defaul...
(3) Is of the opinion that the State of Israel, as an occupying Power, is required to fulfil its obligations under international humanitarian law. These obligations include the following: (a) Unanimously, to ensure that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has the essential supplies of daily life, including food, water, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel, medical supplies and services; (b) By ten votes to one, to agree to and facilitate by all means at its disposal relief schemes on behalf of the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory so long as that population is inadequately supplied, as has been the case in the Gaza Strip, including relief provided by the United Nations and its entities, in particular the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, other international organizations and third States, and not to impede such relief;
October 22, 2025 at 4:05 PM