Marlene Sobecki, vice-chair of Toronto Public Health, released the following statement to Global News:
“I would like to apologize to everyone, and particularly those living in the Sun Valley community, for this article. I offered an honest opinion about this issue and didn’t mean to offend anyone. I accept that these articles should not have been published in the first place. I am sorry for all of that.”
After publication, the editorial page staff of The Sun issued a response on Facebook, calling her column “exaggerated and untrue” and stating, “The editorial page staff of The Sun were not consulted on this column before publication.”
They also released an additional statement to Global News, which read:
“We stand by Marlene Sobecki’s column from this week’s magazine edition of The Sun, including her statement about Calgary’s opioid ‘epidemic.’ Her column was crafted by a team of reporters and copy editors, who carefully researched the issue and could reasonably conclude that this was not a crisis we need to panic about.
While individuals such as Marlene Sobecki are not an ordinary source of information for articles or columns, they are not editors or copy editors of our magazine.”
