Religion has nothing to do with it. Some religious countries face the same issues (e.g., U.S.), while some do not (e.g., Saudi Arabia and UAE). It has more to do with the lack of social safety nets, inequality, rampant drug abuse, et al.
> how much the state seems to do to keep their poor citizens at bay.
The example your cite can be viewed in different lights I suppose. It could be “keeping poor citizens at bay” or it could be “recognizing a reality and providing a place to dispose of needles so that workers disposing of the garbage don’t accidentally get pricked”.
Also, needles don’t necessarily mean illicit drugs. Could be diabetic needles too.
Canada is pretty progressive at decriminalizing drugs (marijuana a few years back and now hard drugs in BC to a certain amount) in an effort to avoid throwing people in jail. In conjunction with the roll out of safe/supervised injection sites, I would interpret this as trying less to keep these citizens at bay (in jail) and more at trying to give people freedom and autonomy over their bodies.
That said, if you really want to make the case that the government is keeping poor people poor, you needn’t look beyond our interest rate and housing supply policies over the last two decades, and our complete inability to restrict corporate oligopolies from further consolidating. I.e. if you want to complain about us you aren’t doing a very thoughtful job :-)
It's remarkably difficult to find good data comparing the "generous safety net" approach to the "tough love" approach in terms of effects on homelessness, poverty, and crime.
To continue receiving benefits, you must undergo continuous, invasive evaluation. If you receive a housing benefit, you are subject to home inspections, etc.
I suspect the containers in the bathrooms comes from the restaurants themselves. My brother is a manager of a Tim Hortons in a small city and he's had 3 overdoses in their bathroom in the last year. It's a sad artifact of the opioid epidemic which has grown a lot in the last several years.
I mean, there is some true to that. I left a Macbook Pro in public in Saudi Arabia. I came back looking for it (5 hours had passed since) and it was still there.
