Skip to content

Jason Kenney's legacy of cruelty includes record numbers of frostbite amputations for unhoused people last winter

Original source: https://www.theprogressreport.ca/progress_report_309 Retrieved: 2026-07-04 Author/date: Duncan Kinney, The Progress Report, Jan 11 2023 Leftist Edmonton outlet; the left-press framing of the same CBC 10-year-high data.

Key passages

  • Frostbite amputations at a "10-year high" in Edmonton the prior winter (fiscal 2021-22, the 91 figure).
  • Calgary saw a "340 per cent year-over-year increase."
  • Dr. Sandy Dong (ER physician): "The vast, vast majority of these individuals were unhoused. I can think of one person out of those, I'm going to say, scores, that had a permanent address."
  • Kinney's frame: attributes the toll to provincial priorities — the government spent "$1.3 billion on a pipeline" (KXL) rather than housing — and argues "a housing-first approach is what's needed."

Why it matters

Corroborates the 91 / 10-year-high figure and the "vast majority unhoused" characterization from a second (non-CBC) outlet, and models the materialist frame our project uses: the amputations are downstream of a political choice to fund other things over housing.